How to Ace Weird or Intimidating Medical School Interview Questions

Why Do Interviewers Ask Weird Medical School Interview Questions?

Medical school interviews are notoriously difficult, and it’s well known that sometimes outlandish, unique, or downright weird questions will arise. Via interviews, admissions committees want to evaluate your personality, motivations, and soft skills, and judge how suitable you would be as a future medical student…and part of this includes rattling you, or, catching you off-guard.

Whether it’s a multiple mini interview (MMI), panel/traditional med school interview, or hybrid interview, the ultimate goal is to obtain a holistic picture of you that goes beyond the quantifiable information related to your application.

By amping up the pressure, they can see how well you react under stressful conditions and how quickly you can adapt to new challenges – both crucial skills for a successful medical professional. To that end, they ask intimidating or weird questions so they can assess your emotional reactions and how well you can self-regulate.

Interviewers know students practice their answers to commonly asked questions and come prepared with talking points related to common medical school interview topics. That’s part of their expectation! However, questions such as “why do you want to be a doctor?” or, “why this medical school?” may be well-rehearsed ahead of time. While these types of questions are very important, they don’t always help to reveal the natural personality of the student. That’s why, with quirky, unexpected questions, the “content” of your answer is less important as opposed to your overall communication skills and other “soft” skills you can demonstrate.

It’s important to understand what the interviewer is trying to assess with these questions so you can try and highlight these qualities in your answer.

What are interviewers assessing in your response to intimidating or weird medical school questions?

Different Types of Weird and Medical School Interview Questions and Sample Answers

Though you can’t predict exactly which weird questions you might get, you can practice answering such questions from previous years. This will help you develop the skills and strategies you need to handle whatever questions come your way in the final interview.

Here, we’ve compiled a list of weird and unexpected medical school interview questions that our students have actually faced in the past. We’ve also outlined a few broad categories that these questions fit into, and provided strategies to help you tackle each category, as well as sample answers for your benefit.

Personal Medical School Interview Questions

Personal questions are never easy to answer, especially if you’re not comfortable talking about yourself! In some ways, however, they are easier to “prep” for, since many personal questions are commonly asked. Check out some MMI personal questions or CASPer personal question examples.

These questions allow interviewers to see how you can discuss your life and your experiences without preparation, and how well you know yourself and your strengths.

Scenario and Ethical Medical School Interview Questions

The scenario-based, “if-then” questions are amongst the weirdest, most confusing questions you’ll face in a medical school interview. They generally follow the template of setting out a generally improbable, fantasy scenario, and asking you what you would accomplish in these scenarios. They may take the form of MMI ethical scenario questions or even pop up in MMI acting stations.

These questions can even be kind of fun to answer in a general conversational setting, but in the context of your interview, can throw you for a loop. The biggest worry is wondering if there’s a single “ideal” answer they’re looking for – let me reassure you, there isn’t! These questions are designed to test your creativity, your ethics-based reasoning, and reveal how you engage with the broader issues of the world we live in. 

Quirky Medical School Interview Questions

Though the format of quirky MMI questions is often similar to the “if-then” questions, the key difference is that these questions are aimed at self-analysis and reflection, rather than understanding larger questions of the world. Interviewers want to see how well you know yourself and your confidence in your own abilities and skills. These questions can be confusing on the surface, but they actually present an excellent opportunity to expand on your strengths and emphasize again your suitability for medical school.

Challenging Policy-Based Medical School Interview Questions

Policy-based questions can be of all different types, and some are easier to prepare for than others. If you’ve taken the time to stay informed about current affairs in healthcare, then you won’t find it too difficult to coherently discuss policy-based questions related to pressing issues in healthcare today. However, some MMI policy-based questions often veer into sensitive territory, asking students to comment on issues like religion and politics, or providing a difficult moral conundrum related to a complicated healthcare policy for them to solve. These questions can naturally intimidate students!

Tips to Answer Weird or Intimidating Medical School Interview Questions

#1 Manage Your Nerves

Interviewers use tough questions to gauge your ability to stay calm under pressure. It’s crucial to remain cool, think rationally, and answer confidently, as there’s often no single “right” answer. Your presentation and communication style are key; here are some tips to consider:

• Pay attention to your body language.
• Sit comfortably and relaxed.
• Avoid restless behaviors like fidgeting or crossing your arms.
• If you feel anxious, take a deep breath and steady yourself.
• Maintain eye contact.
• Use a warm, engaging tone without filler words (try to avoid saying ‘ummm’).
• If you need time, politely ask for a moment to gather your thoughts.
• Incorporate breathing exercises or meditation into your daily life; these are effective techniques to physiologically calm down your parasympathetic nervous system.

How else can you master your nerves ahead of your medical school interview?

Well, preparation is essential. Research the interview format, practice questions, and participate in mock interviews to build confidence. Contrary to common myths, thorough preparation is vital, especially for curveball questions. Consider working with medical school advisors or professional medical school interview prep services to improve your communication skills and strategies (and receive valuable feedback). These tools will help you excel not only in interviews but throughout your professional life. The last thing you want to do is draw a blank and be left nervous and fumbling; remaining as collected and confident as possible is one way to ace even the most unusual questions.

In the short-term, make sure you have a good night’s sleep before your interview. Plan out your day in advance carefully, keeping buffer time for external factors such as traffic, accidents, and other delays. This ensures that you don’t enter your interview with already elevated stress levels. 

Want to learn more about med school interviews? Check out this video!

#2 Be Concise and Don’t Ramble

First of all, remember that it’s very important to take the time to practice your answer for the “conventional” medical school interview questions, such as “tell me about yourself”, “why do you want to be a doctor”, “what’s your greatest limitation” and so on. If you’ve done your interview prep for these commonly asked questions that you are most likely to face, it’s much easier to deliver a coherent, eloquent, precise answer on interview day.

Conversely, one of the biggest challenges with weird and intimidating medical school interview questions is that they throw you for a loop and you may even have to come up with an answer on the spot! This often results in students delivering rambling, unstructured answers that don’t show their best self to the interviewers.

The key to overcoming this obstacle is to have a general “road map” or clear strategies to answer different types of questions, which you can then apply to understand and respond to every question.

First, try and identify what kind of question it is, and what the interviewers want to know:

1. Is it a policy-based question – do they want you to deliver a reasonable argument for a sensitive issue?
2. Is it a scenario-based ethical question – do they want you to show your compassion, empathy, and impartiality?
3. Or is it a personal question – do they want to assess your self-confidence and self-knowledge, and judge how well-suited you are for medicine?

Practice with all types of different medical school interview questions until this quick analysis of question type becomes natural and easy for you.

Based on this knowledge, you can then develop a central argument for your answer. Make sure you answer the question directly; interviewers can instantly see when someone is evading the question to buy themselves some time! Whatever your central argument or theme, make sure you also defend it rationally, with evidence (as applicable). Finally, deliver a calm, confident response that shows your faith in your judgement and abilities.

Remember that interviews, by their very nature, are “extempore” events. This means you won’t get much time to think and analyze your way to the right answer! These strategies we’ve outlined above will be most useful to you if you practice answering questions with them, until they become part of your natural way of thinking. Once you’ve mastered these interview skills and strategies, no matter what kind of strange, out-of-the-box, complicated, or challenging questions you get, you’ll be ready with a response. 

Here's how professional med school interview coaching can help you!

#3 Always Refer to Your Suitability for Medical School

Another common misconception among students is that in a medical school interview “there are no wrong answers.” It’s true that medical school interviews generally focus on testing a students’ soft skills and evaluating their personality and overall suitability for medical school – but that doesn’t mean there are no wrong answers!

Interviewers are still employing certain criteria to evaluate you at all times. At a broad level, these are the key evaluation criteria in medical school interviews: communications skills, strengths of argument displayed, and suitability for the profession.

Some aspects of your suitability for the medical profession can be communicated via your communication style and body language. For example, while asking intimidating MMI questions and traditional interview questions, interviewers sometimes put on a harsh, hostile, or unfriendly demeanor. This part of their strategy to create a high-pressure environment and see how students react. As a practicing physician, you might face aggressive, uncooperative, or argumentative patients, and interviewers want to make sure you have the right skills and personality to handle such situations. By staying professional, polite, calm, and rational at all times, you prove your ability to handle tough questioners and sensitive medical situations.

We also recommend trying to highlight your suitability for medicine by directly referencing relevant supporting experiences, achievements, qualities, and behaviors in your answers, as far as rationally possible. Don’t stretch the boundaries of logic to make these connections – interviewers can tell when you’re trying too hard – but just make sure you’re on the lookout for every opportunity to highlight your unique suitability for the medical profession. In fact, keeping this strategy in mind can help you find inspiration for how to respond to the most intimidating or weird medical school questions!

This aspect of answering medical school interview questions requires a certain amount of advance preparation. If you’re applying to medical schools in the US, familiarize yourself with AAMC’s 17 core competencies for the medical profession. If you’re applying to medical schools in Canada, you should know all about the CanMEDS roles. In fact, irrespective of where you’re applying to medical school, we recommend going through both these resources to fully understand what soft skills and personal attributes medical school admissions committees are looking for.

Next, go back to your application and go through all of your various application components. Read your medical school personal statement, medical school secondary essays, and activity descriptions. Go over your medical school resume to refresh your memory about your key achievements, experiences, and extracurriculars. Analyze your life, your experiences, your strengths and weaknesses, and compare them to the competencies for the medical professions so you can identify what your key talking points should be for the interview. 

#4 Stay Up to Date on Medical News, Developments, and Research

Many of the most intimidating questions that students face in medical school interviews are related to the latest medical developments, research breakthroughs, on-going studies, and pressing issues in the healthcare industry. The medical profession intersects with many other disciplines including psychology, sociology, religion, and politics, which is why many policy-based questions bring up “sensitive” topics that make students uncomfortable. With such questions, it’s important to have a clearly reasoned, logical answer, but also to avoid taking an extremist or overtly aggressive stance.

That’s why, as part of your interview prep, you should keep reading the latest medical journals and newspapers and stay abreast of the latest developments and most pressing issues of the day. This will help you expand your own perspective on these types of issues. Most importantly, you’ll be able to answer such intimidating questions in an intelligent, coherent manner, taking a well-reasoned stand while providing plenty of support for your arguments. 

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To your success,

Your friends at BeMo

BeMo Academic Consulting 

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