How should someone respond to a confrontational interviewer?
Answering this question is a bit difficult in that we don’t know exactly what you mean by “confrontational.” If we take it to mean that you feel you were being attacked, you could opt to let your interviewer know “in the moment” that you feel that way, and/or you could let the admissions staff know and we will consider another interview. We specifically orient interviewers to make you as comfortable as possible. However, please keep in mind that we are trying to find out how you think about problems and what you know about yourself and medicine all in a 30 minute period. This naturally leads to the interviewers asking questions in rapid succession and sometimes challenging one of your answers to get to your reasoning behind an answer. This might feel like confrontation. Sometimes, when students let us know that they thought a particular interviewer was difficult we find that the particular interviewer has often written the best evaluation of the student!
Answering this question is a bit difficult in that we don’t know exactly what you mean by “confrontational.” If we take it to mean that you feel you were being attacked, you could opt to let your interviewer know “in the moment” that you feel that way, and/or you could let the admissions staff know and we will consider another interview. We specifically orient interviewers to make you as comfortable as possible. However, please keep in mind that we are trying to find out how you think about problems and what you know about yourself and medicine all in a 30 minute period. This naturally leads to the interviewers asking questions in rapid succession and sometimes challenging one of your answers to get to your reasoning behind an answer. This might feel like confrontation. Sometimes, when students let us know that they thought a particular interviewer was difficult we find that the particular interviewer has often written the best evaluation of the student!
