It helps to prepare for your interviews by considering what the questions are really asking. There are several reassurances medical school, residency and fellowship interviewers are seeking:

1. Are you sure you know what you’re doing? If you’re applying to medical school, can you demonstrate that you are familiar with what being a doctor entails? (Giving examples of clinical experience helps.) If you are applying for residency or fellowship, are you confident you want to be a [insert specialty or subspecialty here]? Institutions do not want to accept someone who later quits. It looks bad and can be very inconvenient, especially for residency and fellowship schedules!

2. Are you crazy? Is there anything that tips the interviewer off to some problem personality? Are you going to harass your colleagues, commit a crime or do anything that will cause the institution extra work and embarrassment? (A colleague told me about an applicant who started his interview by putting his feet on her desk and ended it by winking at her. Needless to say, he was not ranked to match.)

3. Are you really interested in this institution? If we send you an acceptance/ put you high on our match list will you really come here? You can try to convince them by knowing the institution and the city it’s in.

For individualized help on your interviews give me a jingle: insidermedical@gmail.com. I have excellent feedback from my clients on my personalized mock interviews: http://insidermedicaladmissions.com/about/testimonials.shtml .