For many applying medical, dental and veterinary students, the highly anticipated interview season is now upon us. As teachers and advisers, you will now be tasked with juggling UCAS applications for January and helping prepare your early applicants for their upcoming interviews.
Interview invites are starting to be sent to students who have applied to UCAT universities and vet school, but please do not worry if your students are still waiting to hear. BMAT results are confirmed 25/11/22 and these universities will usually send invites out in December. Interview invites can be sent as early as November in an application cycle, through to March in previous application cycles. If your students are showing signs of anxiety waiting, please assure them no news can mean they are still being considered.
It is recommended to prepare your students for virtual and physical invites this year – some admissions teams have reverted to in-person interviews, whilst some are preferring to remain online. Preparing your students for a range of interviews and including everything does not need to be challenging or overly time-consuming.
Here are some tips to prepare your students
- Encourage students to film themselves on phone cameras or on Zoom answering general interview questions, and critique themselves.
- Self-assessment forms can be set up easily, and you can encourage students to reflect on their interview with prompts such as:
- Do they say erm/um throughout their interview?
- Is their body language appropriate for a professional setting?
- For virtual interviews, is the lighting, background, and sound quality appropriate for the interview?
- Attire – are they professionally dressed for an interview, and do they look comfortable in what they're wearing?
- Critique each answer, encouraging reflections on anything which could be added, removed or improved on.
When your students have critiqued themselves, encourage another interview recording and adapt according to their own critique, and this time give the feedback sheet to parents/professionals and/or teachers in the school. Students can use this external feedback to further adapt their skills and develop confidence in interviews, so they are prepared for whichever style of they're invited to.
For more comprehensive interview support, Medic Mentor supports teachers directly for free! You are welcome to email education@medicmentorfamily.org for more information.