What are University Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI’s)? Read Our Guidance

MMI’s – multiple mini interviews

University MMI’s are used for a variety of courses, mainly medicine, veterinary medicine and pharmacy. How each university structures them is slightly different, but in essence there will be a range of different short interview ‘stations’. These will range from 7 to 12 in number, each lasting between 5-8 minutes. Dates wise they will usually happen between mid November and mid December, with offers getting to you in mid January. These decisions will be based on a combination of factors, including your personal statement, reference, any additional tests you have done (e.g. BMAT or CMAT) and your performance at the MMI. All these separate factors will be considered before a decision is made.

So what is the purpose of the University Multiple Mini Interviews? The questions and ‘stations’ are designed to check out your attributes, skills and motivation. Just to reassure you, they are not trying to test your clinical knowledge for the subject you are going for. Your current studying of science at A level/IB will be sufficient to support you here, you won’t need to know degree level content!

So what sort of skills are the interviewers looking for? Communication skills, teamwork and leadership, problem solving, empathy, critical thinking and interpersonal skills will be the main ones. They will also ask you an ethical question or two. This isn’t meant to catch you out but to see if you can think through how you might approach a real life situation – dealing with humans and animals can be messy, for all sorts of reasons!

So, what might the actual ‘stations’ actually cover or ask about? Each university course will structure their stations slightly differently, but these may well come up –

Current affairs in the veterinary/medical/pharma industry

Ethical or animal welfare topic

An ethical dilemma, how would you approach it?

Prioritisation questions – e.g. how would you prioritise some tasks

Relevant maths tasks

A level anatomy/physiology questions

Pre-Covid there was also a group task element to the interview with a number of other interviewees.

Self-directed learning and motivation

Work experience

Your personal statement

You may well be asked some open ended or competency based questions, for instance, ‘how did you cope with…?’, ‘if this happened, what would you do?’. The best way to cope with these is to take a STARR approach. So reflect on the Situation (what happened?), what the Task was (what were you and others trying to achieve?), the Actions you took or would take and the Results (the outcomes!) of what happened. The second R is Reflection, i.e. what have you learnt from the situation. It’s this reflection which showcases how you will approach developing your professionalism as a doctor, vet or pharmacist – this is harder to teach than the knowledge, and hence why its being reviewed now!

So what can you do to improve how you do? There are a few things. Make sure you read up on what the current ethical issues are, what’s been in the news recently? Is there any legislation being discussed at the moment? Another tip is to practise. Who else in your 6^th form or college is likely to be having a University Multiple Mini Interview? Can you practise on each other? Other tips include making sure you plan your route, and give yourself some ‘slack’ time, to make sure you aren’t rushing to get there on time. And lastly, dress smart – mainly to give yourself confidence in how you look, this will hopefully boost your performance!

Would you like to find out more? Why not take a look at this RVC information? https://www.medicmind.co.uk/medicine-ucas-guide/royal-veterinary-college-interview-questions/ or if you are aiming for medical school this resource will give you more information, https://www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2602/how-to-run-a-mock-mmi.pdf. Several of the universities also have information on their websites too, as they want to enable you to do as well as possible – Aston have produced this information https://www.aston.ac.uk/hls/aston-medical-school/advice-zone/mmi .

Here at My Uni Choices we specialise in helping students, parents & educators make the best choices. Review all the Universities & Courses here or discover more About Us & the best uni courses for you, finally if you’re ready let’s take The Test to find out what course or degree you should do.