Common Questions
- Why do you want to be a doctor?
- Where do you want to be in ten years?
- Tell me about yourself.
- Why did you apply here?
- What is your first-choice school? To what other schools are you applying?
- Do you like Harvard? What do/don't you like about it?
- Why choose medicine over some other career in health?
- What field of medicine interests you most?
- What will you do if you fail to gain admission to medical school this year?
- In your opinion, what are the three most important problems in medicine?
- What problems do you see in patient care? Medical school admissions?
- Tell me about your research.
- What is your concentration? Why did you choose it?
- What non-science courses did you like the most?
- What can be done about rising health costs?
- How do you see the field of medicine changing in the next ten years? How do you see yourself fitting into those changes?
- What will you find most difficult about medical school? How will you handle that?
- What are your strong points? What are your weaknesses?
- What has been your biggest failure and how did you handle it?
- How do you feel about animal research?
- How do you work under pressure? Give an example. What, in hindsight, were you most dissatisfied with about your performance? What did you learn from your experience?
- What have you done that shows initiative? What did you gain from that experience? How were you most/least satisfied with that endeavor?
- How do you respond to criticism? Describe a situation where your work was criticized. What was your immediate reaction to the situation?
- What are the negative aspects of being a doctor?
- How could you affect the health care system?
- What do you think of government's involvement in health care?
- If you had to change anything about your education, what would you change?
- How would friends describe you?
- Describe yourself as a team player.
- What do you think about physician-assisted suicide? Alternative medicine?
- Why should we choose you over other applicants?
- What do you think is the most important quality a physician should have?
- Are you interested in research? How do you imagine the balance of research and clinical work in your future?
- What is the reason for your poor grades sophomore year?
- What last bit of information would you like me to know about you?
Difficult/Unusual Questions (from studentdoctor.net)
- If you were a car what, kind of car would you be and why?
- Do you think physicians should lie to patients?
- If the Earth colonized the moon and you were chosen to direct the first lunar hospital, what would be your three most important priorities for that hospital?
- What section of the newspaper do you read first?
- What has been the hardest question that you have been asked at other school interviews so far?
- Who should definitely not be cloned?
- If my grandmother walked into your practice and told you that she was ill because she had had a hex placed on her, what would you tell her and how?
- Describe a situation in which you felt like a fish out of water.
- So you like helping others...why not be a policeman?
- How do you really know that after medical school in 4 years, you'll still want to be a doctor, especially when so many current physicians are unhappy?
- What type of impression do you feel you've left on me in this interview?
