Cambridge Medical Student - AMA

so what is your name

Hi, what year are you in? Do you have any tips for medical school interviews?

Going onto my 2nd year in October. Tips for Cambridge medical interview or tips for every other schools interviews? They are insanely different.

Both please what are their differences?

I'll start off with Cambridge - Cambridge don't really care about things like why you applied for medicine and what makes you different to everyone else (although they will ask you these questions). They care more about how you think, what your scientific mind is like. Cambridge are going to ask you questions to do with science that you will probably not know the answer to, and they don't expect you to get the answer. However, they do expect you to use your knowledge which you've acquired through your life to at least come to some sort of conclusion. They'll ask you some mini questions which you should know the answer to to get towards the answer of the big question if that makes sense.

MMI interviews which occur in some universities were my favorite. You get a varying amount of stations with a limited time period and in that time your simple task is to impress the person who's hosting the station. It'll have some role plays, some scenarios and some standard medical questions. Best thing about an MMI is if you screw up one station, you normally have a lot of other stations to redeem yourself without having to worry about the person judging you because of one of your previous answers.

Finally, a normal traditional interview. Mine focused more on what was going on in the news at the time and why I wanted to do medicine, stuff like that. They mainly stick away from the science and want to interview what you are like as a person.

My advice - focus on some questions. There was a medicine interview question book I used that can help a lot with questions that may be asked. Interviews are a fun experience, try not to worry about them.

Any idea what you're going to study in your 3rd year as part of the intercalated degree? (If that's the correct term?) Just curious

It is the correct term! To be honest, was kind of thinking Psychology. I do like some of the controversial studies that have been done in the world of Psychology such as the Stanford Prison Experiment so I was thinking I could do a dissertation based on that. To be honest with you, at this moment in time, I have no idea how the 3rd year works anyway lmao

That's so interesting! I was planning on doing psychology as well should I be lucky enough to get an offer (2018 entry applicant here). Do you think there's a disadvantage for those choosing psychology/non-purely-science degrees as compared to those who choose pharmacology? It's not considered something "lesser", is it? I was told that some prefer when a person does purely medical-related degrees but I don't think that's true...

The brilliance of the third year is that it exists as to allow you to do something else you are interested in and want to do - not something someone else wants you to do.

I'll start off with Cambridge - Cambridge don't really care about things like why you applied for medicine and what makes you different to everyone else (although they will ask you these questions). They care more about how you think, what your scientific mind is like. Cambridge are going to ask you questions to do with science that you will probably not know the answer to, and they don't expect you to get the answer. However, they do expect you to use your knowledge which you've acquired through your life to at least come to some sort of conclusion. They'll ask you some mini questions which you should know the answer to to get towards the answer of the big question if that makes sense.

MMI interviews which occur in some universities were my favorite. You get a varying amount of stations with a limited time period and in that time your simple task is to impress the person who's hosting the station. It'll have some role plays, some scenarios and some standard medical questions. Best thing about an MMI is if you screw up one station, you normally have a lot of other stations to redeem yourself without having to worry about the person judging you because of one of your previous answers.

Finally, a normal traditional interview. Mine focused more on what was going on in the news at the time and why I wanted to do medicine, stuff like that. They mainly stick away from the science and want to interview what you are like as a person.

My advice - focus on some questions. There was a medicine interview question book I used that can help a lot with questions that may be asked. Interviews are a fun experience, try not to worry about them.

I heard they were becoming more strict about people doing completely unrelated things though.

Just to clarify, was Cambridge's interview process a traditional interview or MMI?

Cheers!

Just got my AS results and got 266/300. Any idea if thats up to scratch for Cambridge? I am looking at Oxbridge because I love the look of the tutorial system. Given I am not averaging 95+ UMS, and that I have strong GCSE's, should I sway more towards Oxford.

Thanks for any insight.