Welcome back!
In the week that I have been away from the blog, a lot has happened. A national Lockdown, bonfire night, and some people are even starting to get medical interview offers! If that is you, congratulations! Stick around to find out how to knock socks off at your panel interviews.
If you haven’t had offers yet, even better! It’s time to get stuck into Panel interview preparation so you will be ready to go when you get your invite.
Today we are going to talk about everything you need to know about panel interviews, from top tips from medical students, to how you can prepare. This is going to be a good one.
If you don’t follow my Instagram, Lots of these tips are going to be coming from my Interview Prep Live seres, go and check them out, you don’t want to miss it!
Last week I spoke to Fran, a second-year medic at Oxford, about Panel and Oxbridge interviews. She is an interview pro having applied to Kings College, Edinburgh, Oxford and Imperial and getting offers from all four!
She has kindly allowed me to share some of her top tips, in addition to some bonus content from me to all you blog readers!
Go and follow her on Instagram and her amazing YouTube channel too!
Fran’s top tips for panel interviews:
- The interviewers are human beings. They have gone through the process themselves. They don’t expect you to be 100% perfect. Keep a positive mindset, and remember you can easily pick yourself back up if you stumble. It’s only about 20 minutes of your time, so you have to practice bouncing back quickly in practice.
- Be 100% transparent and real, if you Don’t know the answer, be honest and give it your best shot! Authenticity goes a long, long way.
3. The Oxbridge interviews simulate tutorials. Be prepared to be asked “why?” questions continuously. Practice asking “why?” questions in lesson, to current affairs, to medical topics to practice. See it as an opportunity to apply concepts.
4. Use gesticulation and overemphasise all your emotions. For example, if you are trying to convey enthusiasm, add a little bit more enthusiasm than you normally would and it should come across just right over the camera.
5. practice articulating concepts in front f a mirror, a freind using key words, and practicing that style.
6. Don’t memorise your answers. prepare, but don’t rope learn them.
My top tips for panel interviews:
1.The interviewers, are expecting you to make mistakes, if you say the wrong thing, take a few seconds to regain your composure, don’t just keep rambling on. It’s better to rectify yourself halfway through than continue to ramble for another five minutes.
2. If you are being invited to interview, they already want you at their school. They already think you are great, the interview is just a final confirmation.
3.At the interview put your UCAT, predicted grades and everything else behind you. It’s a completely fresh start. You have earned your place, just like everyone else in that room. All of you are equally deserving of being there.
4. Be friendly and focus on building a rapport. Having 20-30 minutes with the same people is actually a great thing. It allows you to build a good relationship, and gives you more time to make them like you as a person too!
5. Remember that the interview as a whole is a test, not just the questions. The one is going to be looking at you for 30 minutes, make sure you are dressed professionally.
Be yourself, they will be thinking about how friendly you are and whether they think you would fit in well at their medical school.
Be polite, normally you would shake every interviewer’s hand and introduce yourself, online this may be different but when you first see them, introduce yourself and thank them for their time.
6. Look at the webcam and not at the screen, so you make better eye contact.
How to prepare for panel interviews:
Each person on the panel can ask you specific questions relating to their specialism.
Many Panel interviews love to talk about your personal statement, so the first step should be to make sure you know your personal statement back to front and upside down.
That means making sure you have read any books that you mention in your statement, revisiting any talks or lecture notes you spoke about.
I would also recommend, writing out some more in-depth reflections on key skills you learned on your work experience, in case they ask you to elaborate. Also, think of some more examples of where you have shown those skills.
This blog post has some great tips on how to reflect on work experience!
At some panel interviews, they will also ask questions based on your BMAT essay too, write down as much as you can remember from your essay and research some extra talking points you can use to elaborate on it.
Make sure you have a sound A-level and GCSE biology and chemistry knowledge, a great youtube channel for consolidating content, and putting a medical spin on it would be Khan academy medicine
They have super interesting Medical videos aimed at an A-level difficulty. I would recommend revising:
- The cardiovascular system
- HIV/AIDS
- TB
- Cystic Fibrosis
- Diabetes
- Respiratory disease.
And other diseases you might learn about at A- level. Make sure you look at what other exam boards teach too, so you don’t miss anything.
Revise a few UCAT style Situational judgement questions! Questions like this might come up at interview.
However, unlike the UCAT, take your time with these questions and work through important factors, and considerations. Practice explaining your reasoning out loud
To conclude:
I hope that has been interesting and useful!
Best of luck to anyone with panel interviews coming up! Make sure you stay tuned to my Instagram for a load more really exciting live streams to prepare you for the interview!