Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Kings Medicine Interviews

I am a student from New Zealand, currently in year 13 in hope to apply for medicine at Cambridge, Imperial, UCL and KCL as an international student for the 2014 session.

I believe I have the grades required for these universities (as I'm sure alot of others do as well) and am just wondering what is likely to come up in the interviews for these universities?

What is the interview like at these universities? Will the interview at each of them be more academically focused (like I heard of Cambridge) or more personally focused? Being academically focused, what exactly is asked in a Cambridge Interview?

Thanks in advance for replies and solutions.

x

That sounds so interesting. I wish I could apply to Cambridge just for the interview

Yeah I really enjoyed my interview. I really learned something quite cool when I came out of all of them

Why is it just a 'wish.' Are you not applying?

unfortunately I haven't got the UMS (90% avg.) + fact that its 6yrs + I'm applying for deferred entry (financial reasons) which they don't like apparently + being an international student (I live in UK but technically I'm International.

the odds are against me thus its too risky. I'm not bothered about prestige, I would love to go to Cambridge for the course though.

Ah that's a real shame The course is really, really good. Best of luck to you in whatever you decide to do, however If you need any help with anything, please feel free to inbox me. xx

Thank you for your kind reply.

I have not yet taken the UKCAT and am planning to take it around middle of September, therefore depending on it I may change my choices of universities, however I am quite adamant at this stage as to applying to 3 BMAT institutes.

Thank you for your kind concern and advice.

What kind of science questions do they ask? Are there any examples?

Thanks

x

In general, if something you "don't know" comes up in the interview, you say "I don't know but I could guess and say ...". In the cambridge interview, they asked me the definition of "probity" - I said no idea, but i guess it's something to do with (cant remember what i said, it was completely irrelevant), but the guy just said "no its the moral principles of being a doctor".

And for the cambridge question, yes the answer is 50%. Your line of reasoning is what I said practically word for word. I first thought out loud that it can't be 90% because that's too easy, and then said "hmm okay so if we start with 100 people" and the guy said "yep thats right" and took it from there. Follow up question: when designing a screening test, what do you want to reduce as much as possible? The number of false positives or the number of false negatives?

I'm afraid I can't agree with this. If we're going by that logic, I applied to those exact unis and got all 4 interviews... it really depends on how good your grades are, and I'm sure Bomb wouldn't be thinking about it if his GCSEs and AS were bad

Having said that, an application of this sort depends on you not screwing up your BMAT, and ideally doing very well in it. If I might make a shameless plug, some friends and I are running a one-day BMAT course at various points in September (details in my signature). You should check that out

I've had interviews at Imperial, UCL and King's and they were all slightly different from each other

Unlike a lot of other people, my Imperial interview was quite hard. They asked me some questions you would expect at a medical school interview (for example, why medicine, about teamwork, communication) but also quizzed me a LOT on health economics as I did Economics for A level. The lead interviewer challenged everything I said and tried to pick holes in my answers, particularly when I gave my suggestions on how to solve obesity and smoking - at one point, he said that my idea would result in me killing all poor people in the country (which, of course, threw me considering the pressure of the interview situation). I think they were just trying to see how well I could justify my ideas though

UCL also asked me some stuff about health economics but not to the same degree as at Imperial, and the interview felt less of an interrogation compared to Imperial. In general, I enjoyed this interview the most out of them all. At the start there were a few normal questions - the standard why medicine, pros/cons of being a doctor, communication. There were some challenging questions asked but they led into these questions quite well and it felt more like a discussion rather than an interview. They also asked stuff about my BMAT essay - what I thought could have been improved and then asked me to explore a few things I said in my essay a bit further.

My King's interview was hard - the interviewers really grilled me hard and challenged pretty everything I said. They also picked out small details in my personal statement and asked me a lot of questions about it. They make interviewees sign a document saying that we cant discuss the content of the interviews so unfortunately that is all I can give you

Overall, I would say that interview experiences can be variable at all three universities. Almost everyone I talked to about the Imperial interview said that it wasn't too bad, and even the people on my interview day said that most of the interviews were OK. Maybe I was just unlucky and got a harsh panel? The story was similar at King's - lots of people said that the interview was okay but again, I must have got the harsh panel on that day. At UCL, some people said that their interviews were really hard whereas others said that it was okay.

Therefore, be prepared to face a hard interview - even though others may have had a slightly more relaxed one, you may get a hard one!

A gastric band is this band thing they wrap around the stomach to make it artificially "smaller" - I didn't actually know this at the time of the interview though. The gastric band was something I brought up myself (with regards to the obesity ethical question) because I'd heard about it on the news somewhere (though in hindsight, this was a bad idea, as I didn't know wtf it actually was).

In general, if something you "don't know" comes up in the interview, you say "I don't know but I could guess and say ...". In the cambridge interview, they asked me the definition of "probity" - I said no idea, but i guess it's something to do with (cant remember what i said, it was completely irrelevant), but the guy just said "no its the moral principles of being a doctor".

And for the cambridge question, yes the answer is 50%. Your line of reasoning is what I said practically word for word. I first thought out loud that it can't be 90% because that's too easy, and then said "hmm okay so if we start with 100 people" and the guy said "yep thats right" and took it from there. Follow up question: when designing a screening test, what do you want to reduce as much as possible? The number of false positives or the number of false negatives?





I'm afraid I can't agree with this. If we're going by that logic, I applied to those exact unis and got all 4 interviews... it really depends on how good your grades are, and I'm sure Bomb wouldn't be thinking about it if his GCSEs and AS were bad

Having said that, an application of this sort depends on you not screwing up your BMAT, and ideally doing very well in it. If I might make a shameless plug, some friends and I are running a one-day BMAT course at various points in September (details in my signature). You should check that out

It basically comes down to your BMAT score and the vast majority don't get high enough scores to make the cut. To risk everything on a test you haven't sat before applying that is completely different to anything you've done before is completely reckless and slightly arrogant in my opinion. When I applied my priorities were getting in and that's why I got four offers, if you put prestige and how impressed your parents friends will be before your prospects of actually getting in then it's probably not the right career for you. I don't need to check it out thanks.

Although I will agree with you in that I also think it's slightly reckless to apply to more than two BMAT universities - for the same reason you've given - I think it's wrong to assume that people who do take the risk are arrogant or applying to those universities based on prestige.
Some people may see it as a risk worth taking if they really like the unis that happen to take the BMAT and are willing to take it; particularly if they don't mind taking a gap year (and are aware it's a real possibility) if it goes tits up.

I'm sure all of them aren't but the ones I've met are, unfortunately they're also usually the ones with the least work experience or knowledge of medicine and just think their grades will get them in anywhere. Maybe I'm just slightly annoyed because the previously mentioned person who applied to three BMAT unis decided he was definitely (the was no doubt in his mind whatsoever) going to be a doctor/ astronaut.

I'm sure all of them aren't but the ones I've met are, unfortunately they're also usually the ones with the least work experience or knowledge of medicine and just think their grades will get them in anywhere. Maybe I'm just slightly annoyed because the previously mentioned person who applied to three BMAT unis decided he was definitely (the was no doubt in his mind whatsoever) going to be a doctor/ astronaut.