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Written by Albie Cohen
I’ll be honest with you – I don’t know if I aced my Warwick interview. No one does. What I do know, is that Warwick is looking for a prescribed set of values and base their interviews around that. This is how I used that knowledge to prepare.
Before my Medical School interview, I researched the Warwick MMI process, how the course is run, and what Warwick is like as a university. This gave me a nice foundation to prepare and helped to give me a feel for what being a Warwick student is like.
Getting to grips with the timing and structure of Warwick’s MMIs was key to helping me feel comfortable on the day. I perform best in interviews when I am comfortable. The best way to do this is to practice with mock interviews – I practised with my friend and careers advisor, but anyone will do! I made sure to get lots of feedback and worked to improve my technique based on that.
I found that areas I needed to work on included talking more slowly and staying on topic. While these were specific to me, they are still key points that every interviewee should take on board.
And finally – I made sure that I knew why I wanted to be a Doctor and could communicate that reason well!
Unlike some universities, Warwick is kind enough to give you a list of values that they are looking for in an interviewee. Each station is designed to reflect one or more of those values. They are:
As Warwick ask for a list of work experience prior to the interview, I figured that I may be asked some work experience questions. I went through each value and reflected – because Warwick loves reflection- on a time during my work experience when these values were present.
For example, I thought: “How did this teamwork well; was it because of their clear communication?” and “What specific example can I give to back this point up?”
Applying a tangible experience to each value helped me gain an appreciation for them. Hopefully, this showed during the interview!
I was fortunate enough to spend my undergraduate degree surrounded by Medical Students, so I always had a reasonable idea as to what it was like to study Medicine. The hours are long, the work is hard, but the payoff is incredibly rewarding. By this point, I’m assuming that you know this!
Having an appreciation for the course was key, and the best way I did this was by speaking to a Warwick Medical Student. I found out that Warwick loves peer teaching, and that student seminars are a massive part of the course.
With this information, I was able to go to the interview with an appreciation of the parts of the course that aren’t explicitly advertised. I was able to bring these points up when asked if I had any questions about the course. Hopefully, these were more interesting questions to answer than those about commuting…
If you don’t have a Warwick student to hand, then I’d recommend listening to The PostGrad Medic on YouTube, who is currently a final year student at Warwick.
It is easy to fall into the trap of giving prepared answers. But if you do, you can completely miss the point of a question and sound dull and monotonous. My interview preparation allowed me to give unique answers in the interview. I was able to draw on my experiences that I had previously reflected on, to give what I felt was a full and honest answer (that also ticked the classic interview boxes).
If I didn’t know how to answer the question straight away, I took a few seconds to compose myself. Obviously, I didn’t just sit there in silence, but let the interviewer know that I was having a think about it! I believe that it is better to give a slower, but well thought out answer, rather than one that is rushed and completely misses the point. As this is a postgraduate-only course, you may not get the same leeway for a slightly garbled answer as a student straight out of school.
Finally, and without sounding too cheesy – I tried to enjoy myself! The Warwick interview process was one of the most pleasant ones I’ve had, and I would recommend anyone to enjoy the process.
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