UK Medical School Interviews: MMI, Panel & Online Formats
Nearly every UK medical and dental school interviews before making an offer. Formats vary more than most applicants expect: here's what to know before yours.
Interview format is one of the biggest differences between UK medical and dental schools, and it changes how you should prepare. The two dominant formats are the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) and the panel, or structured, interview. A smaller number of schools run interviews fully online, and at least one runs a fully asynchronous format where you record answers rather than speaking to a live assessor.
It is also worth knowing what is not published. 14 of the 68 courses in our directory describe an interview without ever naming it an MMI or a panel, Cambridge among them, so for those you are preparing against a description of the day rather than a format label.
Multiple Mini Interview (MMI)
The most common format nationally, named by 48 of the 68 courses in our directory. You rotate through a circuit of short, independent stations, each testing something different: an ethical scenario, a role-play with an actor, a data or prioritisation task, or a direct question about your motivation and experience. Where schools publish a station length it is usually between five and ten minutes, and most put a different assessor at each station, which means one weak station rarely sinks your overall result the way one bad answer can in a single long interview.
Panel and structured interviews
A smaller number of schools, 10 of the 68 courses here, use one continuous interview with two or three interviewers working through a fixed or semi-fixed set of questions. Published lengths run from up to 15 minutes at Sheffield dentistry to 30 minutes at Glasgow. This format rewards a coherent, sustained conversation more than the ability to reset quickly between unrelated tasks, so preparation should focus on connecting your answers into a consistent narrative about why you want to study medicine or dentistry and what you've done to test that.
Online and asynchronous formats
Some schools interview over video call rather than in person, particularly for international applicants or as a standard policy. A small number go further: Brunel runs a virtual asynchronous MMI of six seven-minute stations, where you record video responses to pre-set prompts at a time you choose inside a five-day window, with no live interviewer at all. If you're applying somewhere with this format, the preparation is closer to a timed written task delivered on camera than a conversation.
When interviews run
Of the 68 courses in our directory, 37 publish months you can plan around, and those run from November through to July. The rest either say outright that they publish no dates or have never put a window in writing. Two schools make the point on their own: King's holds interviews between November and May, and the University of Lancashire's interview-selection section says January to June. If you are booking work, travel or a resit around an interview season you assume ends in March, check the schools you actually applied to first.
How to prepare
- Check the specific format for every school you're interviewing at, in our school directory, rather than assuming one format applies everywhere.
- Practise answering out loud under time pressure, not just thinking through answers silently. MMI stations in particular reward a clear, structured answer delivered inside the five to ten minutes a station allows.
- Keep a running log of your own work experience and reflect on what it actually taught you, not just what you did. Interviewers probe for insight, not a list of activities.
- Follow current healthcare ethics and NHS news. Most stations are built around real-world scenarios, not abstract hypotheticals.