General Interview Discussion and Questions - 2021 Entry

[Unluckydude]

I'm already in Sydney so I wouldn't have to spend too much time/money getting to WSU for an interview. I hadn't thought of attending it for practise though lol

You said you completed yr 12 in HK, are you an international student? The atar/IB threshold for international students applying for WSU med is 93.5/36. But I'm not sure if JMP allows international students to directly apply for medicine without completing their foundation program.

 

[missyallie]

Is it reliable to liken UMAT percentiles to UCAT? For example looking at 2019 invite data to get an idea of atar/percentile combinations

I doubt it's accurate to compare UMAT or UCAT. They are different exams.

 

[DrDrLMG!]

I doubt it's accurate to compare UMAT or UCAT. They are different exams.

It doesn’t really have much to do with the content of the exams, but rather the interview invite and offer spots available (which is why percentile ranks do offer some degree of useful comparison). That said, 2019 interviews were based on UCAT as well, anyway, so unless a university changes how they use UCAT scores to determine interview invites (they may do due to Covid/other reasons), then the 2019 interview data will be a useful indicator.

 

[missyallie]

You said you completed yr 12 in HK, are you an international student? The atar/IB threshold for international students applying for WSU med is 93.5/36. But I'm not sure if JMP allows international students to directly apply for medicine without completing their foundation program.

I'm international too and I doubt JMP allows direct international entry. From what I know.

 

[yihola7542]

You said you completed yr 12 in HK, are you an international student? The atar/IB threshold for international students applying for WSU med is 93.5/36. But I'm not sure if JMP allows international students to directly apply for medicine without completing their foundation program.

Not international, I'm an Australian citizen, so domestic. Just used to live in Hong Kong, so my threshold is 95.5/38.

 

[garmonbozia]

Sure, but say at one of the stations which is more a panel stye interview, and say the question "why med?" would a science student not come across (even at a surface level) as more passionate than a law/humanities student?

No, why do you think that would be the case? Whether you convince your interviewers that you're passionate is entirely a function of how much thought you've given to your motivations and how well you articulate yourself -- there is no intrinsic 'passion for medicine' that doing a science degree automatically confers on you.

Like from an interviewers perspective is science-> med not a more logical progression than Law-> Med?

Similar to the above -- interviewers and med school staff recognise that applicants come from a wide variety of backgrounds and welcome this diversity rather than being apprehensive of it. In fact, an applicant who's completed an entirely unrelated degree like law or the humanities, and is able to articulate their reasons for deciding to switch paths, will probably strike the interviewers as more well-rounded and mature than someone following the comparatively more run-of-the-mill science-to-medicine pathway.

 

[Chimchim]

Sorry if this is a weird question, but would having braces have a detrimental factor on my interview or look bad in front or the interviewer?

 

[dotwingz]

No, Medical School Interviewers try to impartial as possible

 

[ucatboy]

Sorry if this is a weird question, but would having braces have a detrimental factor on my interview or look bad in front or the interviewer?

Might be a good conversation starter for a dent interview Jokes aside, it doesn't matter, how you present yourself body-language-wise and speaking-wise are far more important.

 

[Chimchim]

Aso to clarify for wsu interviews u get to choose ur location and date whereas jmp is automatically done for u? Thnks

 

[dotwingz]

Yeah, For JMP IIRC you gave a location preference and they decided a date/time/location for you

Whilst WSU is letting you book

MD Important Dates and Deadlines | Western Sydney University

Applicants for the Doctor of Medicine (MD) should note these important application dates and deadlines and interview information.

www.westernsydney.edu.au

 

[DrDrLMG!]

No, why do you think that would be the case? Whether you convince your interviewers that you're passionate is entirely a function of how much thought you've given to your motivations and how well you articulate yourself -- there is no intrinsic 'passion for medicine' that doing a science degree automatically confers on you.

Similar to the above -- interviewers and med school staff recognise that applicants come from a wide variety of backgrounds and welcome this diversity rather than being apprehensive of it. In fact, an applicant who's completed an entirely unrelated degree like law or the humanities, and is able to articulate their reasons for deciding to switch paths, will probably strike the interviewers as more well-rounded and mature than someone following the comparatively more run-of-the-mill science-to-medicine pathway.

I agree with everything you’ve said above Helmut and would only just add that interviewers won’t know the student’s degree background (or pretty much anything about them in most cases beyond that they qualified for an interview and their name), it’s utterly irrelevant to interviews unless the student brings it up.

 

[Chimchim]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but if theoretically u get a wsu and jmp offer since wsu allows u to choose dates for interviews, does anyone know which uni usually sends offers first for interviews

 

[A1]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but if theoretically u get a wsu and jmp offer since wsu allows u to choose dates for interviews, does anyone know which uni usually sends offers first for interviews

Some schools release interview invites a month before interview dates, some 1-3 weeks so the two dates are sort of unrelated to each other. See in this post the dates for last year (but no guarantee they will be the same this year)

> Interview Invites and Dates 2019-20

EtA: You will notice there was a week of interview date overlap between WSU & JMP. Students who received a WSU invite first needed to wait for a JMP invite with a given interview date before booking WSU to avoid clashing.

 

[dande]

I was looking on the interview practice question forum and some of the responses look amazing already. this looks quite daunting. whats the best way to begin prepping?

 

[DrDrLMG!]

I was looking on the interview practice question forum and some of the responses look amazing already. this looks quite daunting. whats the best way to begin prepping?

Just jump in and have a go. If you wait until you have the perfect strategy (which doesn’t exist!), you’ll just keep coming up with reasons to put it off. Be prepared to receive some constructive suggestions and then move on to your next try.

 

[threefivetwo]

With many universities moving interviews online due to COVID, has anyone done a MMI interview online? It feels like you'd lose much of the nuances in face-to-face communication, not to mention technical issues.

I've found this information on UQ's website about how they conduct online MMIs:

Videoconference MMIs will be conducted in the same way as the in-person MMIs in that each circuit will include the same number of stations and interviewers ... Unlike face to face MMIs, the interviewers move between computers as opposed to the applicant. In this way, each candidate will also be required to answer the MMI questions from different interviewers, just like the face-to-face MMIs.

 

[Crow]

With many universities moving interviews online due to COVID, has anyone done a MMI interview online? It feels like you'd lose much of the nuances in face-to-face communication, not to mention technical issues.

I've found this information on UQ's website about how they conduct online MMIs:


View attachment 3872

I honestly think it will depend on the university in question. The interviews I've attended are all completely feasible to be run online, but there are some universities which would usually include "activities" in their interview that involve you performing practical tasks - these ones will likely need to design new stations to replace those if they end up running the interviews online.

As a student, I have to say that transitioning our communication skills sessions from in-person to online has been a mildly difficult change, as you lose the in-person connection and ability to read body language as effectively, but overall it's worked really well and I think interviews will be pretty similar.

 

[yihola7542]

Was chatting to someone at the Adelaide University open day, at present they say that they are monitoring the situation for domestic applicants and will be updating information if necessary on their website.

 

[A1]

TBH, this is absolutely the most likely outcome moving ahead

It'll be interesting to see how JMP will organise for online PQA