Who Interviews You, and What That Actually Means
100 of 189 programs interview, across 14 countries. But the multiple mini interview is a British institution: 21 programs use one, and every single one is in the UK.
Quick Answer
More of them than you would guess, and in more countries. 100 of the 189 programs whose exact requirements we hold name an interview — the United Kingdom accounts for 49, then Romania with 12, Hungary and Poland with 7 each, Cyprus with 5, and Greece and Ireland with 4. Fourteen countries in total. What differs is not whether you are interviewed but what an interview means. The multiple mini interview — a circuit of short timed stations, each with its own task and assessor — is named by 21 programs, and every one of them is British. Nowhere else in Europe does our data record one. Outside the UK an interview is far more likely to be a single conversation, sometimes online, and at a few universities it is where knowledge is tested directly rather than where personality is assessed. So the question that matters when you see interview on a requirements page is not how do I prepare for an interview, but which of these very different things is this one.
Source Status
Interview presence and format are read from the exact admission requirements recorded per program from each university's own page. A program that does not name an interview may still hold one; these are counts of what is published.
Quick Take
- 100 of 189 programs name an interview, across 14 countries.
- All 21 multiple mini interviews in our data are British.
- Outside the UK an interview is usually a single conversation.
Where interviews happen
| Country | Programs naming an interview |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 49 |
| Romania | 12 |
| Hungary | 7 |
| Poland | 7 |
| Cyprus | 5 |
| Greece | 4 |
| Ireland | 4 |
| Czechia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2 each |
| Portugal, Serbia | 1 each |
The headline is that interviewing is normal rather than exceptional — a majority of the programs that publish detailed requirements include one.
The second headline is that it is not evenly spread, and the spread does not follow country size. Romania interviews at 12 programs, which is most of its catalog; Czechia interviews at 2 out of 9 recorded, because Czech and Slovak selection runs on entrance examinations instead. Bulgaria, with 9 recorded requirement sets naming an entrance examination, names an interview at none.
That gives you a genuine fork when building a shortlist. If you interview well and test poorly, Romania, Hungary and the UK reward you. If the reverse is true, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Czechia do. The published selection methods across the whole catalog make the same point at the level of process; this is the same split seen through one stage of it.
The multiple mini interview is a British format
21 programs in our data name a multiple mini interview, and all 21 are in the United Kingdom. Nineteen are medicine and two are dentistry — Cardiff University and the University of Manchester.
The MMI replaces one long conversation with a circuit of short timed stations, each with a separate task and a separate assessor who does not see the others' scores. The University of Manchester's dentistry entry is the only one in our data that publishes the number: a five-station Multiple Mini Interview, following academic screening.
The design intent is to reduce the influence of a single bad rapport, and it changes preparation completely. A panel interview rewards a coherent narrative told once. A station circuit rewards the ability to reset — the fourth station does not know the third went badly, and neither should you.
The universities naming one span the range of British medical schools: Aston, Brighton and Sussex, City St George's, Hull York, Imperial College London, Keele, King's College London, Lancaster, Newcastle, Queen's University Belfast, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Buckingham, Dundee, Exeter, Leeds and Leicester, plus Cardiff and Manchester for dentistry. If you are applying to UK medicine, you should expect this format rather than treat it as a possibility.
The interviews that are not really interviews
Several programs use the interview slot for something other than assessing motivation, and these are the ones that surprise people.
At some universities it is where knowledge is examined, and all three cases we hold are pharmacy programs. The University of Bath runs a selection interview that examines organic chemistry and pharmaceutical calculation skills. Brighton pairs an online maths test with its interview. Turning up prepared only to discuss why you want to study pharmacy would be a serious misreading of either.
At the University of Zagreb, dentistry adds a psychomotor test to the assessment — a manual-dexterity component that has no analogue in a conversation and cannot be prepared for by rehearsing answers.
Leicester runs two-stage NHS values-based recruitment for pharmacy: an online situational judgement test first, then an interview only for candidates who pass it. That makes the first stage a filter rather than a component, which changes what you should prepare first.
And four programs name an online interview specifically: Queen's University Belfast for dentistry, Cardiff for pharmacy, the University of Latvia for medicine, and the Medical University of Białystok, whose entry describes an online Zoom interview covering two subjects chosen from Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics plus English and general knowledge. That last one is an examination conducted over video, not a conversation. For a North American applicant an online interview is a materially different proposition from an in-person one — no flight, no visa appointment, and a time-zone conversion to get right. Several other stages of European admissions have moved online too, which is worth knowing before you budget for travel.
How to prepare for the one you actually have
Find out the format before you prepare for it. Panel, MMI, online conversation and knowledge test require four different kinds of work, and the requirements page usually names which. If it does not, ask — admissions offices answer this question readily because it is not confidential.
For an MMI, practise resetting rather than performing. The circuit is designed so that stations are independent; the most common self-inflicted damage is carrying a bad station into the next one.
For a single conversation, prepare evidence rather than answers. The questions vary; the material you draw on does not. This is the same evidence the restructured UCAS statement now asks for explicitly, so the work is not duplicated if you are applying to the UK as well.
For the pharmacy programs at Bath, Brighton and Leicester, and for dentistry at Zagreb, prepare for the specific thing named on the page. A chemistry question in an interview is a chemistry question, and a psychomotor test is not an interview at all.
And keep the stage in proportion. An interview is one component of a selection process that also weighs your academic record and, in many countries, an entrance examination. Where no grade bar is published at all — 123 programs — the interview or the exam is carrying more of the decision than it would at home.
FAQs
Do European medical schools interview applicants?
Many do. 100 of the 189 programs whose exact requirements we hold name an interview, across 14 countries. The United Kingdom accounts for 49, followed by Romania with 12, Hungary and Poland with 7 each, Cyprus with 5, and Greece and Ireland with 4.
What is a multiple mini interview?
A circuit of short timed stations, each with its own task and its own assessor, replacing one long conversation. 21 programs in our data use one and every single one is in the United Kingdom. The University of Manchester's dentistry entry is the only one publishing a station count, at five.
Do any non-UK European programs use the MMI format?
None in our data. Outside the UK an interview is far more likely to be a single conversation, sometimes conducted online. That does not mean it is easier — at several universities the interview is where knowledge is tested rather than where motivation is discussed.
Which countries do not interview?
Bulgaria stands out: 9 of its recorded requirement sets name an entrance examination and none names an interview. Czechia and Slovakia lean the same way, running selection through examinations. If you would rather be tested than interviewed, those are the systems built for you.
Can a medical school interview include an exam?
Yes, and a few do. For pharmacy, the University of Bath runs a selection interview examining organic chemistry and pharmaceutical calculation skills, Brighton pairs an online maths test with its interview, and Leicester runs an online situational judgement test as a first stage you must pass to reach the interview at all. For dentistry, the University of Zagreb adds psychomotor-ability testing alongside its written entrance test.
Are any interviews held online?
Four programs in our data name an online interview specifically, including Queen's University Belfast for dentistry. For a North American applicant that removes a flight and a possible visa appointment, and adds a time-zone conversion to get right — worth confirming before you budget for travel.