Interviews of medical school entrants: to what purpose?

Students entering the Faculty of Medicine at The University of New South Wales are selected by one of two methods. Most of the students are selected solely on the basis of results of higher school certificate examinations, the remainder under a special category for mature-age entrants. After they have been accepted into the school, all students are invited to attend a brief interview. This paper is a report of a retrospective analysis of some of the impressions recorded by interviewers over a four-year period. Over a period of three years, interviewers would have rejected from 18% to 29% of students who had been selected on academic criteria. The use of interviews as a screening or rejection procedure rather than a selection procedure is discussed and some future research questions are outlined.