GUIDE: Hull York Medical School Interview Explained 2023
Whether you’ve just received your interview offer or are just looking to see which medical schools you want to apply to, being informed is crucial. The better informed you are the better prepared you will be come the day of your interview. MasterMedPrep have guides for general interview tips as well as individually tailored interview coaching.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) interview selection criteria
All applicants will be screened to ensure they reach the minimum academic requirements. All applicants will then be scored on a number of criteria for a total score of 100, after which point they are ranked, and offered interview places. The scoring criteria are:
UCAT SJT Banding - 15 points
UCAT score - 40 points – This score is based on how your UCAT score compares to the rest of the country and is decided after the UCAT deadline.
GCSE results - 30 points – This score is decided by the top 6 grades a candidate achieved at GCSE.
Contextual data – 15 points – These points are used to help widen participation and awarded to candidates who meet 2 of the following:
Home postcode from an area with low participation in medicine
Neither parent participated in higher education
Receiving the UCAT bursary.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) interview structure
Hull York medical school (HYMS) use a modified version of the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) structure for their interviews. There are 3 classic MMI interview stations focusing on current medical issues, your insight into a medical career and critical thinking. These are mixed with a group-work station, a scenario station, and a station on your personal qualities.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Question/ Station 1: Current Issues in medicine
This station will assess your understanding of these issues, and the ethical and professional principles that underly them. These issues can be general and long lasting, such as antibiotic resistance. Alternatively they can relate to issues more recently in the news, such as the junior doctor vote to strike. With these issues remember to consider both sides, and that you aren’t expected to give an answer either way. It’s crucial that you relate your answers back to ethical issues, and quality of care,
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Question/ Station 2: Insight into a medical career
This station will call on you to draw on your work experience and volunteering. Key qualities of a doctor, such as the importance of empathy in clinical scenarios, are likely to come up. The more negative and challenging aspects of medicine are also likely to be asked. It is okay to acknowledge these issues, just make suer to explain how you would deal with them.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Question/ Station 2: Critical thinking
This is a crucial skill for a doctor to have and hard to assess outside of interview. You will be presented with a number of scenarios and asked to explain how you would approach them. Don’t become too bogged down on finding a “perfect” answer. Your reasoning and explaining your thought processes are more important.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Question/ Station 2: Group Scenario
This will asses crucial skills such as team work, communication skills and empathy. A common scenario is a practice PBL session or other situations relevant to medical students. The most important thing to remember is you are NOT competing against the other students. Trying to stand out and do all the work shows you cannot work well in a team, instead try to delegate and bring the other candidates into the discussion.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Question/ Station 3: Scenario
The scenario you will be presented with could be anything, from seeing a child lost in a shop to seeing a classmate being bullied. The key thing to remember is that they’re assessing the values and skills required of a doctor. Once again don’t worry about getting the “Right” answer instead focus on demonstrating these skills and explaining how you would use them.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Question/ Station 2: Personal station
This station explores a candidate's motivation for doing medicine. This will be similar to the understanding of medicine station, and you will be expected to draw from your own experiences and reflections.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) interview scoring
Your performance across all these stations will be collated to give a total score out of 80. This score is then combined with your SJT band (10 points), and your contextual data (10 points), to give a score out of 100. A cut-off will then be decided based on the score distribution of all the candidates and places offered according to this.
In 2021, 815 applicants were invited to interview, with 505 places being offered from this.
Hull York Medical School (HYMS) Interview Top Tips
The key to succeeding is don’t fall into the trap of overpreparing. Overly polished answers can lose any sense of individuality and come across as sounding scripted and disingenuous. Interviewers will see hundreds of applicants every year and will be able to see right through these kinds of answers.
Instead, focus on specific personal qualities, ethical principles and NHS values; then aim to have valid experiences and reflections for each of them. Our interview tips can give you a great starting point and we have detailed breakdowns of ethical principles.
To further strengthen your application book interview tutoring with us to make your application the strongest it can be.
To test yourself in a simulation of the real thing, book a 1-1 HYMS mock interview with us today. We have built this using the information published by the university online.