Six Tips for Discussing Research Experiences in Medical School Interviews

Consider your medical school interviewer's professional interests as you decide how to tailor your talking points.

Medical school hopefuls who included research in their application need to be able to discuss it during interviews.




You've done the research, taken the MCAT and now you've received interview invitations. The next big hurdle is the interview process.

If you included research in your medical school application, it will likely to be a topic of conversation during the course of your interview. Having been on the interview trail, I know firsthand how daunting discussing your research with an interviewer can seem.

As a current student interviewer for applicants to my M.D.-Ph.D. program, I am familiar with what makes applicants stand out in this process, as well as common pitfalls you should try to avoid. However, a little preparation can help you ace this part of your interview and leave a lasting positive impression on your interviewer.





1. Know your research in depth: It is critical that you are able to explain research included in your medical school application in depth. Prior to your interview day, spend the time to refresh your memory on the project's hypothesis, experimental design, results and interpretations, as well as the logical next steps.

This is especially important to review if time has passed since you were involved in the research. While it is unlikely that you will be asked specifics about the techniques employed in the project, you should nonetheless be prepared to answer these types of questions.


The good news is that if you know your research in depth, this is one area where you will likely know more than your interviewer. Discussing my research gave me a great deal of confidence throughout the interview process since – unlike hypothetical scenario-based questions – I was confident that I could clearly answer any questions my interviewer had.



2. Explain your role in collaborative research: When presenting research that others have participated in, be sure to specify which particular facets of the research you contributed to. Interviewers want to know that your involvement was more than simply running protocols for a more senior member of the lab.


Highlight the experiments that you designed, performed and interpreted. Describe how your interpretations of the data informed your design of subsequent experiments and how the data supported or refuted your hypothesis.

Finally, do not overstate your role in the research; interviewers are adept at picking up on exaggeration and lack of humility. For example, in my interviews, I chose to discuss the particular figures and results that I contributed to substantially in the course of my undergraduate research.

3. Tailor your message to your interviewer: Are you sharing research on HIV replication with a public health researcher, or is your interviewer a virologist who runs an active HIV research lab? The focus and level of detail you present should be tailored to each of these interviewers.

For example, you might choose to emphasize the implications of your research for reducing HIV transmission to the public health researcher, while it may be more appropriate to focus on the specifics of how your research has advanced the field of HIV replication to the virologist.

4. Use a visual aid: This tip is specific but makes a lasting impression; bring to your interview several copies of a miniature poster – printed on letter-size paper – that displays your research and use the poster to walk the interviewer through key figures that illustrate your findings.

If you have presented your research in a poster format as an undergraduate, the poster may need to be adapted to reduce the amount of text and enlarge the figures. When the interview is complete, leave the poster with the interviewer. This will give the interviewer something to remember you by when he or she writes the evaluation.


5. Suggest faculty interviewers: If you are an applicant to a dual-degree program or an M.D. with distinction in research, request ahead of time to meet with faculty members who share your research interests.

Admissions offices usually try to accommodate this type of meeting, and this gives you an opportunity to discuss your research with a faculty member who shares your interest in a particular field. Since my undergraduate research was related to hematology, I contacted programs soon after receiving an interview invitation and provided them with a list of faculty members engaged in similar research with whom I was interested in meeting.

6. Remember, research is about more than the science: Don't be afraid to discuss your research in different contexts throughout your interviews. What has research taught you about being a member of a team? What has it taught you about working with individuals with backgrounds different from your own? If conflicts arose among members of the research team, how did you resolve them?

These lessons are as applicable to collaborating on a project with several members of the lab as they are to managing a patient with other members of the health care team.

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