Interview consistency between panels

[Guest MrsHouse]

I was just wondering how, with so many different interview panels, the schools insure consistency/fairness? For instance from speaking to other people after my first interview, some seemed to have only been asked questions about themselves, while others got asked all kinds of questions about world issues, history, healthcare, and ethics that required a lot of background knowledge.

Do the interviewers account for this type of thing at all or at least record what questions they asked?

[Guest Zuckman]

Hey,

Honestly I don't think there is much consistency. The panel interview is not a really good method for acceptance. It really only picks out the REALLY good applicants and gets rid of the REALLY bad applicants. All the rest of the applicants are somewhere in the middle and gpa usually determines whether they ultimately get in. Those people who have extremely good answers are usually in and those that can't really develop a conversation whatsover are usually out. That's my feeling on it.

Zucker

[Guest MrsHouse]

Thanks very much for the input. I was also thinking that was probably the case, but I guess part of me hoped they had it worked out to some kind of a system by now (naive of me, I know).

Just another challenge of the process!

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Some schools, e.g., UBC, normalize the panel interview scores. So those panels which, on average, give higher interview scores are brough down a little, and the scores from those panels which give lower marks are boosted a bit. I'm not sure how many schools do this, but it seems a little more fair than not doing it at all and simply ignoring inter-panel variability.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen