Most Recent Interview Study

[Guest MDWannabe]

For those of you fascinated with / interested in / dumbfounded by the current Mac interview process, you might be interested in a presentation done by Mac professors who conducted a test of the multi-mini interview concept (the MMI).

 

The idea was to provide applicants with multiple opportunities to show their abilities by presenting them with 8-10 short questions and/or scenarios. If successful, this would replace all or part of the current interview structure. I understand that about 120 of those who went for Mac interviews last spring also participated in the MMI study.

 

You can see the presentation (from June 20, 2002) for yourself at

 

cre.med.utoronto.ca/omen/...struct.htm

[Guest mo]

Just to add...I was a participant in both the regular interview process this year, and the study. I found the concept of the MMI to be both interesting and refreshing. In my opinion, I felt I was really able to express a variety of the characterists that will help to make me a well rounded doc in the mini interviews...so congrats to mac for trying to be innovative with this new approach to interviews...and look forward to other peoples comments

[Guest Ceds]

I just watched the video and it was very informative. MMI seems to be a promising potential component of future admissions processes. MMI consists of a series of "stations" tackling various areas and one interesting point that was made was that the domains that these stations cover can vary from school to school depending on the qualities that they are looking for in a potential medical student. With respect to McMaster's program, it did address the gender bias issue which we have discussed in previous threads. I find that to be quite comforting seeing that I am of minority gender of McMaster students... Hopefully I'll be one of the few guys admitted to the program next year!!!

 

I suggest that everyone interested in any med school take a look at this. Maybe it's something for future applicants to look forward to?

[Guest Beaver]

Interesting Video!

 

There is also an article that was put out by the OMA regarding the strong gender bias at Mac. It was quite probing and stated that according to OMSAS, more males actually apply to Mac relative to females, yet yr after year the ratio shows a wide disparity favouring females. It will be interesting to see whether or not these new interview methods will be effective in removing the handicap that male applicants face when applying to Mac.

 

Great presentation, thanks for posting !

[Guest Carolyn]

Wow - I've never heard of such an article Beaver -- as my experience was very similar to gucio's in having a huge majority of applications to read from females, I'm really surprised to hear that!

 

Could you pass along the source citation?

 

Thanks

 

Carolyn

[Guest Beaver]

Hi Carolyn:

 

I hope you are having a great summer. Actually I was surprised to see that as well. My dad who is a facutly member read essays and echoed your sentiments regarding a higher number of female applicants. Perhaps the study was older, I'm not sure. I actually read the article on the CMAJ website one and half years ago when I was first starting to think about essays and applying to med school. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I see it's a bit of hot topic, for med school applicants. It should be interesting to see what this year's M:F ratio will be.

[Guest MDWannabe]

mo,

 

I also found the MMI interesting. I actually had a blast - it's a lot of fun if you're into the problem solving thing. I will say that it was probably more difficult to get a feel for how you have performed under this structure, compared to the 3 on 1; but maybe that's a good thing!