My Experience with MMI Consultanting / Prep Companies

[i8aSS]

I've had quite a few people message me about the remarks I made about my acceptance from last year. I figured I'll post the gist of what I said to them here just for the sake of fairness. 

I would like to stress that what I'm writing is my opinion which is completely biased by my upbringing and experience. My advice will most likely not apply to all yall folks. 

I've applied and interviewed for quite a few years/schools. In fact, each year I was lucky enough to get 4+ interviews. All 15+ interviews always resulted in below avergage/bottom percentile. I decided to get an MMI coach. I tried 6 different companies. Mind you, these services were EXTREMELY expensive, especially from the trial and error finding the company that suited me best. My logic was that every year I fail to get in I'm losing ~ $250,000-$850,000 in salary  (depending on residency field) so spending a few thousand dollars would be a net gain so for me this was worth it. Mind you, I'm from a...I guess a more culturally homogenous area so I feel this shaped my delivery/mindset that wasnt as palatable for the city folks which was why hiring a company worked/benefited me. Again, I want to stress that hiring these prep companies wouldn't benefit every applicant. I've known some ppl who winged it and got in on their first try / classmates who merely practiced with her mom like 3 times and got in 1st try. 

Much love and best of luck to all yall endeavors  

[bonezMD]

First off, congrats i8aSS on the acceptance!!

For anyone reading this who may be looking into prep companies but can't afford the thousands, there are PLENTY of free opportunities to practice your MMI skills as well, including the many mock interviews being set up (just look around the forum or in fb groups). Alternatively for some more tailored feedback/additional prep, a more affordable option may be to reach out to student run consulting groups. You can check the classified section of this forum for a few options!

http://forums.premed101.com/forum/44-for-saletrade-classifieds/

 

[rmorelan]

15 hours ago, i8aSS said:

I've had quite a few people message me about the remarks I made about my acceptance from last year. I figured I'll post the gist of what I said to them here just for the sake of fairness. 

I would like to stress that what I'm writing is my opinion which is completely biased by my upbringing and experience. My advice will most likely not apply to all yall folks. 

I've applied and interviewed for quite a few years/schools. In fact, each year I was lucky enough to get 4+ interviews. All 15+ interviews always resulted in below avergage/bottom percentile. I decided to get an MMI coach. I tried 6 different companies. Mind you, these services were EXTREMELY expensive, especially from the trial and error finding the company that suited me best. My logic was that every year I fail to get in I'm losing ~ $250,000-$850,000 in salary  (depending on residency field) so spending a few thousand dollars would be a net gain so for me this was worth it. Mind you, I'm from a...I guess a more culturally homogenous area so I feel this shaped my delivery/mindset that wasnt as palatable for the city folks which was why hiring a company worked/benefited me. Again, I want to stress that hiring these prep companies wouldn't benefit every applicant. I've known some ppl who winged it and got in on their first try / classmates who merely practiced with her mom like 3 times and got in 1st try. 

Much love and best of luck to all yall endeavors  

ha so you tried quite a number of them - that probably means you learned a thing or two about what works with them and what won't - even if just from a single perspective I might if you are willing push you for more details. What should people look for? How many sessions do you think would be best and so on. 

and bonezMD is also right there are a number of free resources, career centres that do a lot of this sort of work (from experience I will say doing those from the other side is also a very rewarding thing personally). One of the reasons for the forum is to find and organize such things

 

 

[i8aSS]

On 1/7/2020 at 6:02 AM, rmorelan said:

ha so you tried quite a number of them - that probably means you learned a thing or two about what works with them and what won't - even if just from a single perspective I might if you are willing push you for more details. What should people look for? How many sessions do you think would be best and so on. 

and bonezMD is also right there are a number of free resources, career centres that do a lot of this sort of work (from experience I will say doing those from the other side is also a very rewarding thing personally). One of the reasons for the forum is to find and organize such things

 

 

I don't know about that Moreland, me thinks you're giving me a little too much credit. B.c if that was true, I think I would see a trend of average scores here and there, not an inbox full of below averages and 14th percentile scores . I've been working on a farm/construction field and its not like I'm rude about how I deliver my message/interactions, its just that I'm not as PC as these institutions want students to be. Now mind you, I do realize that there's no way I would know the exact reason for my below average MMI marks. However, the small group preceptors let me know how "one sided" I am during our ethics discussions. I know for a fact that alot of these small group preceptors are interviewers, in fact, I've met 1 of my interviewers a couple weeks ago.  Giving you an example of how I apporach questions may give you a little more insight on why a prep company helped me out (if you care to read this). In one of the small groups that discussed how to be professional, we debated on the limit of what we can say and what would invoke repercussion from UME.

I said ppl should be able to voice their religion/opinions outside of school without repercussions as long as its legal. If there a doc who's a big time Bible thumper and voices that they disagrees with gay marriage on their own time at a bar talking to their friend and someone over hears him and reports him to the school, I said he shouldn't be reprimanded in my opinion. In the small group I said I feel like there's a difference b.t someone's belief vs hate speech. Furthermore, the context of the situation is that he's talking to a friend, not going up to a gay couple and go westboro baptist on them. Well the preceptor definitely let me know how wrong my opinion was. 85% of my small group also let me know that I'm being a "Trumper" . Yes, I do realize that this could cause some patients if they hear that hypothetical statement. WHich is why I was focusing on how to prevent patients from overhearing you or see your Tweet (another example), E.g don't add them on your personal account and don't add ppl who's going to blast your controversial statements all over the internet - you know like in real life. We all make stupid jokes/say ridiculous things to our friends right? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one laughing/re-telling David Chapel's x rated jokes to friends. Let's talk about some pragmatic approaches to prevent others from seeing/hearing the more controversial hot-takes. Call me a hill billy, but my grand daddy fought in the war for freedom of legal expression/speech. 

Sorry I know I'm on a tangent, I'm just saying that I really had to fake 90% of my answers during the MMI and it's kind of silly b.c the "real" me would of never gotten in. And to answer your question about pushing for more details, well that's for them to find out, everyone's situation is different. However, if you're more of a....hmm.... I guess jaded pragmatist like me, then I would suggest my schedule of 2 sessions/week for 1 month and then 1 session / week for 3 months. The question is a little too general to make it applicable, it would be like Px comes in your ER with stomach pain + anemia what's your diagnosis. 

At the end of the day I know for a fact that the MMI prep group helped me. You are right that I would of learned how to answer the questions the way they want, but that would of taken me another couple of years (best scenario). Again I would like to stress that not every 1 will find MMMI prep groups helpful, even if the service was for free. Its a free world so ppl can make their own decision on # of sessions/which company to go with - that's the beauty of Canada. 

 

[AllyOOP94]

On 1/5/2020 at 7:19 PM, i8aSS said:

I've had quite a few people message me about the remarks I made about my acceptance from last year. I figured I'll post the gist of what I said to them here just for the sake of fairness. 

I would like to stress that what I'm writing is my opinion which is completely biased by my upbringing and experience. My advice will most likely not apply to all yall folks. 

I've applied and interviewed for quite a few years/schools. In fact, each year I was lucky enough to get 4+ interviews. All 15+ interviews always resulted in below avergage/bottom percentile. I decided to get an MMI coach. I tried 6 different companies. Mind you, these services were EXTREMELY expensive, especially from the trial and error finding the company that suited me best. My logic was that every year I fail to get in I'm losing ~ $250,000-$850,000 in salary  (depending on residency field) so spending a few thousand dollars would be a net gain so for me this was worth it. Mind you, I'm from a...I guess a more culturally homogenous area so I feel this shaped my delivery/mindset that wasnt as palatable for the city folks which was why hiring a company worked/benefited me. Again, I want to stress that hiring these prep companies wouldn't benefit every applicant. I've known some ppl who winged it and got in on their first try / classmates who merely practiced with her mom like 3 times and got in 1st try. 

Much love and best of luck to all yall endeavors  

I agree with everything you have said! I have personally never used them myself yet but I have a friend who did and based on her experience, she had very below average interviews the first year she applied. Her same logic was that was an investment that is going to help her far more in the future, and then she did get a handful of acceptances the second year she applied

It's so so important for everyone to do their own research of course, but also I think some people are too quick to be skeptical, an interview coach just like a coach for anything is there to help you, not just there to take your money lol. The one my friend worked with had actual doctors doing the mocks with her so they actually knew what she was going through and had been through it themselves, so of course they wanted her to be successful 

Thanks for sharing your experience !