General Interview Discussion 2018

[Ethereal0218]

Hey, I know there isn't really an exact answer for this, but can someone give me a rough idea of how long it should take us to answer general questions like 'why do you want to be a doctor' and 'tell me about yourself' etc as I feel like I'm rambling on too much.

 

[Potater]

Good question... I had three rural candidates in my group at the JMP... do they have a set number of rural applicants they have to accept. Also was just reading through the JMP site ( cause I am driving myself insane waiting and praying! lol) and it mentioned that they do not take international students... so realistically what is the breakdown between Rural, non standards and school leavers ( and internationals)... guess just wonderin what my chances are

Im not sure if this is correct but just from their page about rural applicants, it says they aim to see 30% of students in the program to be from rural/remote locations (18 at UNE and 33 at UoN). Found it at Entry support schemes

 

[Crow]

Hey, I know there isn't really an exact answer for this, but can someone give me a rough idea of how long it should take us to answer general questions like 'why do you want to be a doctor' and 'tell me about yourself' etc as I feel like I'm rambling on too much.

As you’ve pointed out, there really is no set time frame that you need to stick to for these sorts of questions; different people will answer them differently and therefore some may take longer than others. Naturally you should be aiming to keep your answers concise and avoid paraphrasing/explicitly repeating the same point you’ve already made - if you find it’s taking you longer than ~3-4 minutes then it’s very possible you’re doing this. You’ll also get a rough idea of how long you should be speaking for in the interview itself, e.g. if it’s a ~40 minute panel interview your interviewers will likely be more lenient with the time frame than if it’s a 5 minute MMI station where you’ll need to be asked 4 questions within the 5 minutes.

While I strongly recommend against coming up with rehearsed/memorised answers for these questions, you should definitely try answering these questions out loud and timing yourself as part of your interview preparation. Many past interviewees (including myself) have also recorded themselves answering practice interview questions to a) identify flaws in speech, body language etc and b) identify parts of their responses that are being repeated without them releasing it - I’d recommend you do the same, as this is an opportunity to cut down your response time to questions like the above.

Hope that helps and best of luck with your interview(s)!

 

[Numerouno]

Im not sure if this is correct but just from their page about rural applicants, it says they aim to see 30% of students in the program to be from rural/remote locations (18 at UNE and 33 at UoN). Found it at Entry support schemes

Yes.. it seems correct from the link. They like to give 30% to rural every year and additionally they set aside 17 places for Indigenous category. So, in effect it takes up 50 places from the 110 available in Newcastle. Even before going to the interview these figures pose the difficult nature for getting into JMP. They get around 800 candidates for interviews, I heard that 64 candidates are put through in two big batches 32 each in the morning and afternoon in Newcastle. The first batch is again split into two groups 16 each (8+8 in two buildings for MSA) and the remaining 16 take PQA in one session. I also noted that both Mondays are only half day interviews. So 8 days of 64 candidates and two half days, 32 each make the total in Newcastle to be 576 candidates. Considering 400 are no-rural and we have 60 spots for non-rural (110-33-17), it makes the chance to get an offer is 1 in 7 almost. There are assumptions in this calculation. All the best folks.

I believe the deciding factor for an offer heavily rests on PQA score compared to the performance in the MSA. Marking on MSA may not be like rating from 1 to 10 and it will be simpler than this scale to eliminate or subjectivity in scoring...my hunch.

 

[Potater]

I believe the deciding factor for an offer heavily rests on PQA score compared to the performance in the MSA. Marking on MSA may not be like rating from 1 to 10 and it will be simpler than this scale to eliminate or subjectivity in scoring...my hunch.

I've heard that the PQA isn't super important and that it only eliminated 'extreme' personalities or people who are lying, completely anecdotal though...

 

[DrDrLMG!]

I've heard that the PQA isn't super important and that it only eliminated 'extreme' personalities or people who are lying, completely anecdotal though...

This is exactly what was explained to me when I attended an interview for JMP last year. I also know someone who has been involved in the MSA process from the Uni side. It’s definitely the MSA that carries much, much more weight.

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Yes.. it seems correct from the link. They like to give 30% to rural every year and additionally they set aside 17 places for Indigenous category. So, in effect it takes up 50 places from the 110 available in Newcastle. Even before going to the interview these figures pose the difficult nature for getting into JMP. They get around 800 candidates for interviews, I heard that 64 candidates are put through in two big batches 32 each in the morning and afternoon in Newcastle. The first batch is again split into two groups 16 each (8+8 in two buildings for MSA) and the remaining 16 take PQA in one session. I also noted that both Mondays are only half day interviews. So 8 days of 64 candidates and two half days, 32 each make the total in Newcastle to be 576 candidates. Considering 400 are no-rural and we have 60 spots for non-rural (110-33-17), it makes the chance to get an offer is 1 in 7 almost. There are assumptions in this calculation. All the best folks.

Where did you get the 17 indigenous students at UoN figure from? This seems very, very high. I’m in a cohort of 100 domestic students (not at JMP) and we have 2. I’d be all for this figure to be accurate, but it just seems very high.

ETA: yeah, I just checked. It’s 17 across the whole JMP (“the program”), not just at UoN.

ETA2: just checked with some current JMP students. There are ~10 indigenous students in the UoN cohort that started last year. And 0 and 1 indigenous students in the UNE cohorts that started four and three years ago (respectively). Apparently they’ve never filled all 17 spots allocated to the program. Also, there are ~127 domestic students in the UoN cohort that started two years ago, not 110.

 

[Smelly Boy]

Hey LMG! I had a question about deferring a spot in the JMP course

I want to finish my degree since I’m already 2 years complete (out of 3 years). Also I’d wanna try to get somewhere closer to home (I live about 2.5hrs drive from Newcastle and also I’m a huge mummas boy so I’d love to stay with mum if possible) & also have a shot at applying for a grad entry spot too.

Is deferring a lengthy process and based on really extreme circumstances or can u just say u want to defer & they say yes?

 

[Q3]

Hey LMG! I had a question about deferring a spot in the JMP course

I want to finish my degree since I’m already 2 years complete (out of 3 years). Also I’d wanna try to get somewhere closer to home (I live about 2.5hrs drive from Newcastle and also I’m a huge mummas boy so I’d love to stay with mum if possible) & also have a shot at applying for a grad entry spot too.

Is deferring a lengthy process and based on really extreme circumstances or can u just say u want to defer & they say yes?

"If you wish to defer:

Requests to defer should be completed before the expiry date of the offer of admission. Deferment requests from the Joint Medical Program are not guaranteed and will require you to submit an additional written statement outlining why deferment is sought."

From their website

Edit: I think you are looking for specific info from people who have actually deferred and what they said in their application

 

[Potater]

Where did you get the 17 indigenous students at UoN figure from? This seems very, very high. I’m in a cohort of 100 domestic students (not at JMP) and we have 2. I’d be all for this figure to be accurate, but it just seems very high.

ETA: yeah, I just checked. It’s 17 across the whole JMP (“the program”), not just at UoN.

ETA2: just checked with some current JMP students. There are ~10 indigenous students in the UoN cohort that started last year. And 0 and 1 indigenous students in the UNE cohorts that started four and three years ago (respectively). Apparently they’ve never filled all 17 spots allocated to the program. Also, there are ~127 domestic students in the UoN cohort that started two years ago, not 110.

do you have any idea how many rural applicants they actually take/if they actually fill their rural aim of 30%? anyone have any clues as to the odds of getting into JMP as a rural applicant

 

[DrDrLMG!]

do you have any idea how many rural applicants they actually take/if they actually fill their rural aim of 30%? anyone have any clues as to the odds of getting into JMP as a rural applicant

I would say they’d have little trouble filling their rural target as they get many more applicants than spots on offer (I understand this is not the case with indigenous applicants yet, but they’re certainly focussed on improving this). As I said, there is a document detailing rural intakes somewhere, I just can’t remember where.

 

[Numerouno]

This is exactly what was explained to me when I attended an interview for JMP last year. I also know someone who has been involved in the MSA process from the Uni side. It’s definitely the MSA that carries much, much more weight.

I agree that both MSA and PQA scores are important but the third hand information I received through a current student with affiliation to the person involved in the MSA process made me think PQA could be the decider...reason being MSA is marked either 0, 1 or 2 in a station (2 given to the best performance). As all stations carry equal weight I am not sure how this little scores of 1 and 2 are weighted to segregate students on ranks from the MSA output. I thought we need a bigger range to rank, so PQA may come into picture as a decider for ranking candidates along with MSA scores, that was my understanding. The top score a candidate can receive is only 16 from the MSA 8 stations if they follow such marking guideline. I am sure there will be some other weighting factor must be applied to have clear ranking demarcation. I am rambling and going insane as I think more about this process. Apologies.

 

[Josht4971]

The top score a candidate can receive is only 16 from the MSA 8 stations

I dont think this is correct, some stations have multiple questions and each question can be given a score of 0,1,2. i also saw the marking sheet whilst interviewing and some instances did have multiple rows with 0,1,2. hence the top score a candidate can receive will vary from station to station.

 

[justwannawish]

Anyone else feeling really unsure of their JMP? I did mine today and I'm not sure how to feel about it. I'm trying not to think about it because I keep on imagining how I could have gone better :/

On another note, I'd like to say a big thank you to all the student volunteers who were there for their calm nature and positive vibes. I thought they did an excellent job in selling the uni to us and they did make me and a lot of others feel better throughout the day!

 

[Numerouno]

I dont think this is correct, some stations have multiple questions and each question can be given a score of 0,1,2. i also saw the marking sheet whilst interviewing and some instances did have multiple rows with 0,1,2. hence the top score a candidate can receive will vary from station to station.

I agree and did not think they will mark each question within a station to a top score of 2 so naturally depending on the number of questions in a station the top score would vary. This takes me into another spin "Why was I told that all stations carry equal weight"? From the above discussion, definitely, each station vary in max score depending on the number of questions. So, the information I received from the student seems to be wrong and that each station's total mark is different. Thanks for your observation in the mark sheet.

 

[drpkjr]

Yes.. it seems correct from the link. They like to give 30% to rural every year and additionally they set aside 17 places for Indigenous category. So, in effect it takes up 50 places from the 110 available in Newcastle. Even before going to the interview these figures pose the difficult nature for getting into JMP. They get around 800 candidates for interviews, I heard that 64 candidates are put through in two big batches 32 each in the morning and afternoon in Newcastle. The first batch is again split into two groups 16 each (8+8 in two buildings for MSA) and the remaining 16 take PQA in one session. I also noted that both Mondays are only half day interviews. So 8 days of 64 candidates and two half days, 32 each make the total in Newcastle to be 576 candidates. Considering 400 are no-rural and we have 60 spots for non-rural (110-33-17), it makes the chance to get an offer is 1 in 7 almost. There are assumptions in this calculation. All the best folks.

I believe the deciding factor for an offer heavily rests on PQA score compared to the performance in the MSA. Marking on MSA may not be like rating from 1 to 10 and it will be simpler than this scale to eliminate or subjectivity in scoring...my hunch.

Just to add to this... I had my interview in Armidale (JMP) on the 28th... I expected like you said that there would be 16 people but total there was only 7 or 8 people. Now I know that some people couldn't make it from Sydney due to the storm and cancellation of flights... but 8 or 9 people missing that morning session seems high...doesn't it? So do you think they interview less people than we expect?

 

[drpkjr]

I dont think this is correct, some stations have multiple questions and each question can be given a score of 0,1,2. i also saw the marking sheet whilst interviewing and some instances did have multiple rows with 0,1,2. hence the top score a candidate can receive will vary from station to station.

I agree, I saw the same marking system at my interview as well. Also I remember someone saying that went to JMP that the PQA isnt as highly weighted as the interview itself.

 

[drpkjr]

Anyone else feeling really unsure of their JMP? I did mine today and I'm not sure how to feel about it. I'm trying not to think about it because I keep on imagining how I could have gone better :/

On another note, I'd like to say a big thank you to all the student volunteers who were there for their calm nature and positive vibes. I thought they did an excellent job in selling the uni to us and they did make me and a lot of others feel better throughout the day!

where did you interview at? une or uon?

 

[Potater]

Just to add to this... I had my interview in Armidale (JMP) on the 28th... I expected like you said that there would be 16 people but total there was only 7 or 8 people. Now I know that some people couldn't make it from Sydney due to the storm and cancellation of flights... but 8 or 9 people missing that morning session seems high...doesn't it? So do you think they interview less people than we expect?

From my understanding, at the UNE, they split the 16 people of that time slot into 2 groups of 8, one group does the PQA first while the other group does the MMI, and then they swap.

 

[A1]

As I said, there is a document detailing rural intakes somewhere

Probably this one although they were 2015 numbers. Several schools at 20% or below have bumped up their ratio by 5-10% since
> Non-Rural / Rural intakes by med schools

anyone have any clues as to the odds of getting into JMP as a rural applicant

Just speculating, with the target of 30% rural intake did JMP pro-rata the interview cohort to 30% rural as well?
If they did then with the same interviewee-to-place ratio I figure the odds is the same as for non-rural, since any Atar/Umat "discounts" are no longer helpful.