What Is The Difference Between Cda And Mmi Interviews?

[med.goals]

Dentistry uses CDA and MMI interviews. What is the difference? From my limited understanding,it seems that MMI questions are more complex than CDA. Is that right?

[DDSER]

Never did a CDA interview, but I know that its a panel with structured questions. I did an MMI at sask this year and that was quite the experience. Instead of one panel, you have a number of different 1on1 interviews and they can honestly ask about anything. From what I've heard about CDA interviews, I believe that MMI questions are much more random and weird than CDA ones which can be easily prepared for.

[topomax]

Never did a CDA interview, but I know that its a panel with structured questions. I did an MMI at sask this year and that was quite the experience. Instead of one panel, you have a number of different 1on1 interviews and they can honestly ask about anything. From what I've heard about CDA interviews, I believe that MMI questions are much more random and weird than CDA ones which can be easily prepared for.

Actually Western Dentistry still utilizes CDA so I don't know if you have "never" did a CDA interview before since you got in by doing their CDA interview I assume lol. 

 

Although Western's interview is a mix of CDA and "traditional" but from my exp it's mostly CDA. 

 

CDA - 6-7 questions based on 7 competencies (the main characteristics that dental school looks for) 

They are mainly in the format of "Tell me about a time -----" or "Did you ever encounter this problem ----" and there are couple of scenario questions like "If your friend ate your turkey sandwich without telling you what would you do to him?" 

 

These questions are usually asked by a panel of people (2-3) who are either faculty members, dentists, community members or students. 

You usually have around 3-4 minutes to answer a question. 

 

Timing is crucial because CDA has a set marking scheme of 5 points/question adding up to a total of 35 points. To get maximum points you want to go through all the questions - but there may be wiggle room as people who are only asked 6 are still able to get high marks and into dental school. 

 

MMI - approximately 10 stations where you are given 2minutes to read the question outside of the room and after you have to enter the room with one person in it and you are given 8 minutes to answer the question.

 

Similar to the CDA questions - there will be questions that try to ask about your previous life experiences or put you in a scenario. There will also be very random questions from time to time and also they can throw in traditional questions at you ("why do you want to be a dentist")

 

The biggest difference between CDA and MMI is that MMI you have 10 stations so you see 10 diff people and CDA you are only talking with 2-3 people the whole time. Although the marking scheme is diff - both CDA and MMI are looking for people who have the 7 competencies and you are able to bring up relevant experiences that show you have all of these competencies in a structured and coherent manner.  

 

**During my MMI at USask - I found majority of their questions to be very standard and something I prepared for while studying for CDA style but ~3 questions were very random and since I didn't really expect to be asked about those topics it did throw me off a bit. However these are questions that you will already have some knowledge and opinion of like what do you think about global warming.

[DDSER]

Actually Western Dentistry still utilizes CDA so I don't know if you have "never" did a CDA interview before since you got in by doing their CDA interview I assume lol. 

 

Although Western's interview is a mix of CDA and "traditional" but from my exp it's mostly CDA. 

I'm pretty sure they stopped doing the CDA interview last year and started making their own questions. It still resembles the CDA format, sure, but officially they do not utilize that format

[topomax]

I'm pretty sure they stopped doing the CDA interview last year and started making their own questions. It still resembles the CDA format, sure, but officially they do not utilize that format

I found no difference between UofT CDA format and Western's "CDA" format for my interviews. The only difference is that after your 7 questions in western they like to ask you 1-2 random question + some traditional questions if they have time. 

 

**oh and the 7 questions - I'm pretty sure they don't make those...they seemed liked very standardized questions to me for my western interview. 

The only questions that they make up are probably those random questions that I talked about above... but maybe that was just for my interview and other's had less of a CDA style interview and more of "western" questions. 

[longhaul]

I found no difference between UofT CDA format and Western's "CDA" format for my interviews. The only difference is that after your 7 questions in western they like to ask you 1-2 random question + some traditional questions if they have time.

 

**oh and the 7 questions - I'm pretty sure they don't make those...they seemed liked very standardized questions to me for my western interview.

The only questions that they make up are probably those random questions that I talked about above... but maybe that was just for my interview and other's had less of a CDA style interview and more of "western" questions.

I'm on mobile so I can't tell if you have a sig, but western's interview this cycle was definately not CDA at all. Last year's cycle, it still had elements of CDA as you mentioned

[DDSER]

I found no difference between UofT CDA format and Western's "CDA" format for my interviews. The only difference is that after your 7 questions in western they like to ask you 1-2 random question + some traditional questions if they have time.

 

**oh and the 7 questions - I'm pretty sure they don't make those...they seemed liked very standardized questions to me for my western interview.

The only questions that they make up are probably those random questions that I talked about above... but maybe that was just for my interview and other's had less of a CDA style interview and more of "western" questions.

I didn't interview at UofT, so I wouldn't know their questions. But from my understanding, in CDA interviews they don't ask specific dental related questions. In western's interview they do ask dental related/ethical questions, so thats another way its different. They probably are structured similarly, but the way its marked and the style of questions they ask are different. I heard they don't mark based on competencies anymore.

[Waves]

I found no difference between UofT CDA format and Western's "CDA" format for my interviews. The only difference is that after your 7 questions in western they like to ask you 1-2 random question + some traditional questions if they have time.

 

**oh and the 7 questions - I'm pretty sure they don't make those...they seemed liked very standardized questions to me for my western interview.

The only questions that they make up are probably those random questions that I talked about above... but maybe that was just for my interview and other's had less of a CDA style interview and more of "western" questions.

Did you do it this year? It definitely wasn't CDA style at all.

[topomax]

Did you do it this year? It definitely wasn't CDA style at all.

Yep I interviewed this year - I find it very weird that a lot of people dont find it that its not like CDA AT ALL when they just basically ask like past experience and scenario questions for the 1st part which is basically what CDA is. However I agree (now that I think about it harder lol) that the style in which they asked the questions differed a lot from how UofT asked their questions. And if it's also true that they dont mark based on competencies anymore then well I guess Western is no longer CDA. 

 

** i guess my interpretation of what CDA style is that they ask you like 7 questions in the beginning which to me it seemed they just wanted to know more about my past experiences and scenario questions (which both UofT and Western has). but of course after those initial questions the interview was definitely not like CDA AT ALL. 

Ethics was a part of both UofT and Western interviews but I agree that Western uses more "dental" related questions.

 

 

Well it seems like Western is no longer CDA then.