About the AAMC Video Interview Tool for Admissions
What Does the AAMC VITA Interview Measure?
The AAMC VITA interview is designed to provide admissions officers with information about your journey to medical school and five of the core competencies for entering medical students. The AAMC collaborated with subject matter experts in the medical school community, including faculty, admissions officers, and student and diversity affairs officers, to tailor the interview for medical schools.
In addition to your journey on the path to medical school, interview questions target the following core competencies:
- Social Skills
- Cultural Competence
- Teamwork
- Reliability and Dependability
- Resilience and Adaptability
While every video interview will assess the same general domains, the specific questions asked may differ. The questions are designed to be unrelated to medical experience; therefore, the lack of medical-related experience should not impact your ability to answer questions.
What Do AAMC VITA Questions Look Like?
The interview consists of six questions and is a combination of:
- Personal experience questions, which ask you to describe your journey and/or the experiences that led you to pursue a career in medicine.
- Sample: Why did you decide to pursue a career in medicine?
- Past behavior questions, which ask you to describe previous experiences that demonstrate your level of knowledge and skills related to the various competencies.
- Sample: Describe a time when you experienced a conflict with a classmate or a coworker. What did you do? What was the outcome?
- Situational questions, which ask you to demonstrate your level of knowledge and skills related to the various competencies by describing what you would do in different hypothetical situations.
- Sample: Imagine you are working in a group project and one of your teammates is not doing their share of the work. What would you do?
Interview Format
The AAMC Video Interview Tool for Admissions is a one-time, online, unidirectional interview. Six questions are presented in text prompts, and applicants record an audio/video response; there is no human interviewer. You will have one minute to read and reflect on each written question and up to three minutes to record a response. You may complete all six questions in one sitting, or you may complete any number of questions you choose, as long as all questions are completed by the required medical school deadline. The break between questions may be as long as you choose.