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University of Chicago Pritzker Medicine Interview Questions

Past Interview Questions & Tips

Chicago Pritzker Medicine Interview Format

Specific information on Pritzker’s interviews is provided via email to students who are selected. Typically, the candidate participates in three traditional one-on-one interviews:

  • MD faculty interview
  • Administrative interview (a dean or staff leader from Pritzker School of Medicine)
  • Medical student interview

Each of them lasts for about 30 minutes. They are open-file, where the administrative interview will have access to the applicant’s entire file. But the faculty and student interviews will have access to the applicant’s experiences and personal statement. In each interview, the interviewer evaluates the applicant’s skills of:

  • Professionalism
  • Diversity
  • Integrity
  • Excellence
  • Leadership
  • Interpersonal and communication skills

Key Dates

Interviews generally take place between September and February.

Chicago Pritzker Medicine Key Application & Interview Statistics

Overall Success Rate (Total Applicants : Total Spaces)
Percentage of Candidates Interviewed
Interviewee Success Rate
Interviewee Success Rate

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University of Chicago Pritzker Medicine Past MMI Stations & Interview Questions

​Motivation and Insight into Medicine

  • What are the most important three qualities for you when selecting a medical school?
  • Do you see yourself in academic medicine or primary care medicine?
  • What has inspired you to medicine?
  • Why did you want to be physician specifically and not practicing other medical professions like a nurse practitioner or physician assistant?
  • What is your favorite shadowing or patient interaction experience? And what did you learn from it?
  • Why are you interested in Pritzker?
  • How have you been prepared for the mental and emotional stresses of medical school?
  • What research projects have you worked on in your undergrad?
  • What makes a good doctor?
  • How do the university goals match with your own goals?
  • In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing the healthcare industry?
  • What specialty are you most interested in pursuing?
  • What makes University of Chicago different from other schools? And what do you like about the other schools you applied to?
  • With all the research you have done, why did you choose MD not MD/PhD program?
  • How would your X experience help you be a good physician?
  • What is your plan if you don’t go to medical school this year?
  • How can you be sure that you want to be a doctor?
  • In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good physician? How have you modeled each of those?
  • What do you expect Pritzker to offer you?
  • Do you have a medical role model?
  • How do you plan to finance your medical education?
  • What qualities do you look for in your 103 other classmates if you join the school?
  • What was it like learning to communicate with patients you interacted with in one of your activities?
  • How would you deal with a patient who has negative traits you dislike?
  • If you are granted ten million dollars and all the equipment you want, what kind of experiment will you design?
  • What do you think of the medicare bill going through the Senate today?
  • What do you think must be done to fix the uninsured/underinsured problem?
  • How do you see the future of medicine?

 
Ethical Dilemmas

  • If a friend of yours cheated to get into medical school, how would you respond to that?
  • What will you do if you find your classmate has been lying about some lab results and data during one of your rotations?
  • In your opinion, what is the biggest ethical problem in medicine facing the United States today?
  • How would you handle a couple who asks you to genetically alter their next child to have blonde hair, blue eyes, and be a male?
  • How would you react to a situation where you believed a doctor acted unethically?
  • If a man looking panicked runs into your house, and then he runs out followed by another man walking in with a knife and saying “where is that guy? I am going to kill him.” What do you tell him?
  • How would you respond if the hospital you worked for had severe budget cuts and had to turn away non-emergency patients without adequate insurance?
  • What do you think about euthanasia?
  • What do you think about abortion?
  • Do you think it is ethical to keep a brain-dead woman alive on life support until she delivers her baby?

 
Role Play Scenarios

  • If a patient came in with chronic pain, but you found nothing wrong with them, would you prescribe them painkillers?
  • How would you deal with a 14-year old 2nd time heart transplant candidate who hadn’t followed the prescribed treatment the 1st time and now needed another transplant?


Data Analysis

  • You are in a windowless room with 3 light switches, labeled A, B, and C, each corresponding to a light bulb in an adjacent room. You may make only one trip to the other room. How can you determine the identity of the light bulbs?

 
Calculation

  • What is the formula for the volume of a sphere?

 
Case/Article Reviews

  • In your opinion, did University of Chicago take the right action with the Urban Health Initiative?
  • Do you think pharmaceutical companies should have a cap on their prices? If so, do you think this will hinder future research?

Communication Stations​

  • How would you communicate your research to a four-year-old kid?
  • How will you handle a conflict with another physician/ student if you disagree about how to treat a patient?
  • How would you communicate with a verbally abusive patient from different ethnicity than yours?
  • What will you say to an intern who is having troubles effectively communicating with patients?
  • How would you communicate with patients from the underserved communities who don’t want to be treated or are afraid to be treated?

 
Prioritisation Tasks

  • How will you balance between the medical workload and life?
  • If you had to get out of your burning apartment in 2 minutes, what three things would you take with you?

 
Teamwork Tasks

  • Tell me about a time when you have displayed leadership skills.

 
MMI Sales Pitch Station

  • What is one thing you would like me to inform the admission committee about you?
  • Why should Pritzker choose you?

 
General / Personal Statements:

  • What are some non-academic activities you like to do outside of school?
  • Have you been to Chicago before?
  • Will the high crime percentage deter you from coming here?
  • If you were an organ, what would you be?
  • At Chicago we work with underserved populations such as Hispanics and African Americans, have you had experience with underserved populations before?
  • How did you decide to study your X undergrad major?
  • Can you give me a book recommendation?
  • Tell me about yourself.
  • Why did you get X on your verbal section?
  • How did your time at X program change you?
  • What is the most challenging time you have gone through in the last 3 years?
  • How would your friends describe you?
  • Why did you get X grades in X class?
  • What is your favorite novel?
  • What have you been doing since graduation?
  • Tell me more about the X experience on your application.
  • Tell me about your college experience.
  • What was your favorite class as an undergrad?
  • What was a turning point for you in your life?
  • If you could meet anyone from the past, whom would they be and why?
  • If you could go anywhere right now, where and with whom would you go?
  • What do you do for fun?
  • What are your biggest strength and weakness points?
  • Who do you go to when you need support?
  • Tell me about a time you failed or a moment of regret you had.
  • What would your parents say if you suddenly decided to become a manicurist?
  • What does diversity mean to you?
  • How do you define empathy?
  • What activities are you still involved in?
  • What has been your greatest accomplishment so far?
  • How do you define maturity?
  • What biases do you have?

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