Multiple Mini Interview (MMI): Stations, Timings and How to Prepare

In an MMI you move around a circuit of stations. Each station has its own interviewer, its own task and its own mark. Across UK medical schools a circuit has 3 to 9 stations, most often 6, and each station lasts 4 to 10 minutes, most often 5.

Medical schools use MMIs because several short, independent judgements are fairer than one long one. A single interviewer's impression, or one bad answer, has less weight when a different person marks each station.

1. 1.You wait outside the station and read the prompt. Where schools give reading time, it is 1 to 5 minutes.
2. 2.A bell or announcement tells you to go in.
3. 3.You answer the question or carry out the task for the full station time.
4. 4.A second signal ends the station, even if you are mid-sentence.
5. 5.You move to the next station and repeat until the circuit is complete.

Where a school publishes a total, the whole session takes 27 to 90 minutes, which can include a briefing as well as the stations. Interviewers are usually clinicians, academics and medical students. They mark you against a set scheme, usually without seeing your grades or UCAT score.

Each school name links to its full interview profile. A dash means the school has not published that detail.

The other 8 schools use a panel or another format. See the interview format at every UK medical school.

Schools mix their stations differently, but almost all draw on the same types:

Motivation

:

Why medicine, why this school, and how you reached the decision.

Ethics

:

A dilemma with no clean answer, such as confidentiality, consent or a colleague behaving badly.

Role play

:

You speak to an actor as a patient, relative or colleague, often to explain something or handle upset.

Teamwork

:

A time you worked in or led a team, or a task done with other candidates.

Personal reflection

:

Mistakes, stress, resilience and the qualities of a good doctor, with real examples.

Work experience

:

What you saw and, more importantly, what you took from it.

NHS and topical issues

:

The pressures on the NHS and both sides of a current healthcare debate.

Knowledge of medicine

:

The training pathway, how doctors are regulated and who is in the healthcare team.

Data and calculation

:

Reading a graph or table, or working out a dose.

Abstract tasks

:

Describing a picture or giving instructions, to test how clearly you communicate.

For worked examples of each, see the 25 most common medicine interview questions with model answers.

This is a typical ethics station. Give yourself two minutes to read it and plan, then five minutes to answer out loud before opening the model answer.

Each interviewer marks you against a scheme for that station, typically covering what you said, how you reasoned and how you communicated. Station scores are added up, often standardised, and candidates are ranked.

Some schools also set minimums: an overall pass mark, a floor for every station, or a floor for particular areas such as ethics and communication. Miss one and you are not ranked, however strong the rest was. Not every school does this.

At most schools the interview score then decides who gets an offer. See how each medical school decides offers after interview.

Of the 38 MMI schools, 16 interview in person, 13 online and 8 use both, usually depending on where you apply from (1 has not said). An online MMI keeps the same stations and timings, with you moved between video rooms instead of walking a corridor.

• Test your camera, microphone and connection on the platform the school names.
• Sit facing a window or lamp, with a plain background.
• Look at the camera, not at your own picture, when you speak.
• Have your ID to hand; you may be asked to show it on camera.

MMI performance improves with practice more than with reading. Start no later than the UCAS deadline in October, since invitations can arrive from November.

Know the material

• Ethics: the four principles (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice), plus confidentiality and capacity.
• The NHS: how it is organised, primary versus secondary care, and its current pressures.
• Your own application: every claim in your personal statement and what each experience taught you.

Use a structure

• Ethical scenarios: identify the issue, set out both sides, apply the principles, reach a decision and justify it.
• Role play: introduce yourself, listen, signpost what you will cover, explain plainly, check understanding and agree next steps.
• Personal examples: the situation, what you did, what happened and what you learned.

Practise under real conditions

• Answer out loud. Thinking an answer through is not the same as saying it clearly under pressure.
• Use your school's timings, including the reading time.
• Get feedback after every answer, then repeat the station.
• Do full circuits before the day, so moving straight from a hard station to the next one is familiar.

• Reciting a script. Follow-up questions expose it, and it stops you listening.
• Carrying a bad station forward. The next interviewer has no idea how the last one went.
• Sitting on the fence in ethics stations. Weigh both sides, then commit to a view.
• Ignoring the actor in role play. Responding to how they feel matters more than delivering information.
• Listing experiences without reflection. What you learned is the answer; where you went is only the setting.
• Running out of time. Make your main point early instead of building up to it.