Hopefully, if you’re reading this blog, you’ve either received or are waiting for an interview for Medicine at UCL – regardless you’re, probably trying to find ways to prepare. These are some reflections and tips I came up with in my first year.  

 On my channel there’s a video where I vlog the entire process of the interview.

Preparation – practice makes perfect

 In terms of preparation, I did a lot of mock interview practice with some of my friends, mentors and teachers, and I felt like doing a wide range of interview prep really prepared me for the unfamiliar nature of what an interview is like.  Practicing with different people means that you will receive different styles of feedback which is quite helpful; each different mock-interviewer is like a blank slate for feedback.

What was the interview at UCL actually like?

Beforehand, UCL told us that “we want you to be genuine, and to be yourself” that definitely put me at ease a bit- it made me feel more prepared, helped calm my nerves and let us know that there’s nothing to really stress about. Being in the right mindset is very helpful.

In terms of the actual interview panel, I had two people, they were really lovely. I really wish I remembered their names because now that I’m studying at UCL – I’d love to have a talk with them.

Prepare for obvious questions – but don’t overprepare

Obviously, they asked me the generic questions like why I want to study at UCL, why I want to do medicine, and these were quite straightforward. I was also asked about leadership or teamwork, and this was a question that I love, because everyone prepares for these types of questions, e.g. why is leadership/teamwork important.

 However, I do think be careful that you don’t over prepare for these questions.  The strength in my answers came from the fact that, even though I had prepared for them, I came across quite genuine in the interview and it sounded like I was thinking on the spot, which might sound like a bad thing, but it just makes you sound a lot better. Trust me when I say it’s quite obvious when they can tell you’ve thought about a question quite a lot. It’s something you slowly get better at.

One thing I mentioned about studying in London was that it is unique to other cities, and presents an opportunity to learn about epidemiology of different diseases – for example social determinants of health with COVID and BAME communities – a topic, I’m quite invested in even now. I also talked about knife crime, which is quite a severe problem in london, especially, and it was just the uniqueness of my answer, which I felt like came about, because I was personal and because I was myself and I talked about something that I was genuinely passionate about.

 Resources to use

Thankfully I had quite a lot of resources to draw upon. Here’s a video I made about the books you should read as a medical applicant –  I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I had done quite a lot of extra reading. When asked about challenges of being a doctor, I talked about a TED talk by Dr Mike. Find a book or scientific paper that you are passionate about  – if you’re genuinely passionate about the field or whatever you’re talking about you’ll find that you can talk about it endlessly and not get bored of it. Realising that the people you’re talking to have dedicated their life to health care and to medicine means that for the most part, they’ll understand your passion. When you talk about it, they will understand and they will want to listen, and I think that’s what made my interview feel a lot easier.

They don’t care if you’re the smartest person in the world you’re a robot. If you have the personality of a brick, they do not care how smart you are. So just be yourself, be genuine and you should be fine.