Yale Medicine Interview Questions
General Interview Information
Interview Format
Yale School of medicine holds two traditional open file, formal interviews. Each interview is conducted with a different member of the Admissions Committee, which includes senior medical students and faculty staff members.
The interview itself is a “two-way conversation” between the candidate and the interviewer, lasting approximately 60 minutes, with interviewers assessing candidates on the following domains:
Key Dates
Interviews generally take place between September and February.
Recent Interview Questions
General/Personal Statement – Interviewers may use a line-by-line questioning technique to clarify the anecdotes and phrases in a candidate’s personal statement. Alternatively, they may simply ask the candidate to provide a synopsis of their background, from which the interviewer then selects discussion points. Recent questions have included the following:
Motivation and Insight into Medicine - These questions examine both your desire to study medicine as well as your general interest in the issues facing the medical community. While an in-depth knowledge is not expected, an awareness of topical issues, particularly those in the media is highly recommended. Questions may include:
Additional Medical School Interview Questions
Click Here (Available to Online MMI Question Bank Subscribers)
Yale School of medicine holds two traditional open file, formal interviews. Each interview is conducted with a different member of the Admissions Committee, which includes senior medical students and faculty staff members.
The interview itself is a “two-way conversation” between the candidate and the interviewer, lasting approximately 60 minutes, with interviewers assessing candidates on the following domains:
- Depth of knowledge,
- Communications skills,
- Personal qualities, and
- Commitment to medicine
Key Dates
Interviews generally take place between September and February.
Recent Interview Questions
General/Personal Statement – Interviewers may use a line-by-line questioning technique to clarify the anecdotes and phrases in a candidate’s personal statement. Alternatively, they may simply ask the candidate to provide a synopsis of their background, from which the interviewer then selects discussion points. Recent questions have included the following:
- Tell about yourself
- Tell me about your family life.
- What do your parents do for a living?
- Tell me about ____________ experience on your application.
- What volunteer experience do you find most significant?
- What have you learned by being having ______________ role?
- Tell me about the best/worst situation you experienced with a patient.
- What is the ONE important lesson you have learned from all your clinical experiences?
- Describe your most challenging experience
- Have you ever experienced a situation where your integrity was compromised?
- What was your proudest moment?
- What is your weakness?
- What were your happiest and saddest moments?
- What did you do in your undergraduate degree?
- Why did you study what you did at college?
- What classes have most affected you?
- What was your favourite class in college?
- What was your most influential experience in college?
- What is your greatest failure since being in college?
- Tell me about your basic science research. / Describe the significance of your research using layman's terms.
- Tell me about your clinical research.
- Tell me, in layman's terms about your research.
- Who has been the fundamental figure in your life that has made everything click for you?
- What do you do to relax?
- What do you do when you feel overwhelmed?
- If you were on an admissions committee, what would you look for in an applicant?
- Where do you see yourself in 15 years?
- What are your short term and long-term goals following your completion of medical school?
- Anything else you want to tell me?"
- What are the three most important things to know about you? They don’t have to be on your application.
- What do you do for entertainment?
- If there were one reason for us to not accept you, what would it be?
- What do you think about the curriculum at other med schools?
- What qualities about you make you good/bad for the Yale system?
- What are some challenges you'll face as a physician?
- What problem in the medical field would you want to fix/make your impact?
- What activities did you do in high school?
- When you said “_________________” on your essay, what did you mean?
- When you look in the mirror, what do you like and not like about yourself?
- One of your recommenders said “_________________” about you - why do you think s/he said that?
- What would you write on your epitaph?
- What's your unique factor that means we should take you over other applicants?
- Additional example questions with model answers can be found in the MMI Question Bank.
Motivation and Insight into Medicine - These questions examine both your desire to study medicine as well as your general interest in the issues facing the medical community. While an in-depth knowledge is not expected, an awareness of topical issues, particularly those in the media is highly recommended. Questions may include:
- How do you know you want to do medicine, apart from those few clinical volunteering experiences?
- Pin-point the exact time in which you knew you wanted to be a doctor?
- Why is medical school right for you?
- Give me a selfish reason why you want to pursue medicine.
- If, for some reason, you could not be a doctor, what would you be?
- Where do your future interests lie?
- What do you think will be your biggest challenge in becoming a doctor?
- Have you had enough clinical experience to be certain that you can handle being a doctor?
- What fields of medicine do you think you are interested in?
- What does a doctor do?
- What are the three skills/traits that all doctors should possess?
- What does it mean to be a doctor?
- How does your research fit in with your medical vision?
- Why study at Yale? / What about the Yale system appeals to you?
- Why should Yale choose you?/ What can YOU contribute to Yale?
- What extracurricular activity/ volunteer work would you engage in if you go to Yale medical school?
- List some ways that you will not fit into the Yale System.
- Why shouldn't we accept you?
- What challenges do you think you will face as a physician?
- How does your research apply to medicine or how would you translate it?
- What is the point of medical research?
- What are you going to do to change the world?
- What is the greatest impact you plan on having in the medical field? How would you go about doing this?
- Tell me how you would fix the health care system.
- Technology has made it possible to perform a wide array of medical procedures. Would you be willing to go to all lengths for your patients? (Specifically, would you help a pregnant patient change the sex of her child?)
- What something that prevents US Health Care from delivering optimally for underserved communities?
- Predict how medicine will change in 30 years.
- What challenges do we face over the next 30 years in terms of health care policy?
- What are several medical discoveries that you believe have revolutionized medicine today? What are their limits?
- As an international student, how would you compare the level of training of a medical student in the best medical school in Ethiopia with that of a mid-tier medical school here in the US? Are there any successful lessons in medicine in Ethiopia that can be brought back and introduced to the US?
- What are some important issues in health care?
- Additional example questions with model answers can be found in the MMI Question Bank.
Additional Medical School Interview Questions
Click Here (Available to Online MMI Question Bank Subscribers)