Yale Medicine Interview Questions

General/Personal Statement – Interviewers may use a line-by-line questioning technique to clarify the anecdotes and phrases in a candidate’s personal statement.  Alternatively, they may simply ask the candidate to provide a synopsis of their background, from which the interviewer then selects discussion points. Recent questions have included the following:

• Tell about yourself
• Tell me about your family life.
• What do your parents do for a living?
• Tell me about ____________ experience on your application.
• What volunteer experience do you find most significant?
• What have you learned by being having ______________ role?
• Tell me about the best/worst situation you experienced with a patient.
• What is the ONE important lesson you have learned from all your clinical experiences?
• Describe your most challenging experience
• Have you ever experienced a situation where your integrity was compromised?
• What was your proudest moment?
• What is your weakness?
• What were your happiest and saddest moments?
• What did you do in your undergraduate degree?
• Why did you study what you did at college?
• What classes have most affected you?
• What was your favourite class in college?             
• What was your most influential experience in college?
• What is your greatest failure since being in college?
• Tell me about your basic science research. / Describe the significance of your research using layman’s terms.
• Tell me about your clinical research.
• Tell me, in layman’s terms about your research.
• Who has been the fundamental figure in your life that has made everything click for you?
• What do you do to relax?
• What do you do when you feel overwhelmed?
• If you were on an admissions committee, what would you look for in an applicant?
• Where do you see yourself in 15 years?
• What are your short term and long-term goals following your completion of medical school?
• Anything else you want to tell me?”
• What are the three most important things to know about you? They don’t have to be on your application.

• What do you do for entertainment?
• If there were one reason for us to not accept you, what would it be?
• What do you think about the curriculum at other med schools?
• What qualities about you make you good/bad for the Yale system?
• What are some challenges you’ll face as a physician?
• What problem in the medical field would you want to fix/make your impact?
• What activities did you do in high school?
• When you said “_________________” on your essay, what did you mean?
• When you look in the mirror, what do you like and not like about yourself?
• One of your recommenders said “_________________”  about you – why do you think s/he said that?
• What would you write on your epitaph?
• What’s your unique factor that means we should take you over other applicants?
• Additional example questions with model answers can be found in the MMI Question Bank.

 
Motivation and Insight into Medicine – These questions examine both your desire to study medicine as well as your general interest in the issues facing the medical community. While an in-depth knowledge is not expected, an awareness of topical issues, particularly those in the media is highly recommended. Questions may include:

• How do you know you want to do medicine, apart from those few clinical volunteering experiences?
• Pin-point the exact time in which you knew you wanted to be a doctor?
• Why is medical school right for you?
• Give me a selfish reason why you want to pursue medicine.
• If, for some reason, you could not be a doctor, what would you be?
• Where do your future interests lie?
• What do you think will be your biggest challenge in becoming a doctor?
• Have you had enough clinical experience to be certain that you can handle being a doctor?
• What fields of medicine do you think you are interested in?
• What does a doctor do?
• What are the three skills/traits that all doctors should possess?
• What does it mean to be a doctor?
• How does your research fit in with your medical vision?
• Why study at Yale? / What about the Yale system appeals to you?
• Why should Yale choose you?/ What can YOU contribute to Yale?
• What extracurricular activity/ volunteer work would you engage in if you go to Yale medical school?
• List some ways that you will not fit into the Yale System.
• Why shouldn’t we accept you?
• What challenges do you think you will face as a physician?
• How does your research apply to medicine or how would you translate it?
• What is the point of medical research?
• What are you going to do to change the world?
• What is the greatest impact you plan on having in the medical field? How would you go about doing this?
• Tell me how you would fix the health care system.
• Technology has made it possible to perform a wide array of medical procedures. Would you be willing to go to all lengths for your patients? (Specifically, would you help a pregnant patient change the sex of her child?)
• What something that prevents US Health Care from delivering optimally for underserved communities?
• Predict how medicine will change in 30 years.
• What challenges do we face over the next 30 years in terms of health care policy?
• What are several medical discoveries that you believe have revolutionized medicine today? What are their limits?
• As an international student, how would you compare the level of training of a medical student in the best medical school in Ethiopia with that of a mid-tier medical school here in the US? Are there any successful lessons in medicine in Ethiopia that can be brought back and introduced to the US?
• What are some important issues in health care?
• Additional example questions with model answers can be found in the MMI Question Bank.