How to answer
What if you don’t get in?
It can feel like a trap. Name a backup and you sound less committed; name none and you sound as if you have not thought about it. It is neither. It is a question about how you handle not getting what you want.
What it is really asking
Whether your commitment to medicine survives a setback, and whether you know the routes into it. Starting medicine straight from school is one route. Graduate entry after another degree is another, and the pathway planner on this site draws both.
It also asks how you talk about disappointment, which doctors do with patients every week.
Also asked as: “What is your plan B?” “What would you do instead of medicine?” “How would you take a rejection?”
What interviewers hear too often
- “That will not happen.” Confidence that reads as not having pictured it.
- Another career, said quickly. A backup named with no link to why you wanted medicine, which makes the panel wonder about your first answer.
- Despair. An answer that says everything would be over. A career in medicine has plenty of noes in it.
What a good answer does
- Admits it would hurt. Saying you would be disappointed is honest, and honesty is what is being marked.
- Names a real next step. What you would actually do, with a reason: a degree, a job, or a route back in.
- Keeps the thread. The next step still points back at why you wanted medicine in the first place.
Two openings
Both invented, and neither is yours to borrow.
The first closes the question down. The second is honest, shows a way through, and gives the panel an obvious next question.
The follow-ups to expect
- What do you know about graduate-entry medicine?
- What would you study in the meantime, and why that?
- Tell me about the biggest disappointment you have had so far.
- Is there another career you have seriously considered?
Test your own draft
- The honesty test. Does your answer admit it would hurt? One with no feeling in it sounds rehearsed.
- The step test. Can you name the actual next step, with a degree or a date in it?
- The thread test. Does your plan still connect to the reason you gave for wanting medicine?
What it is marked on
Related questions
Other guides
- Start here What the interview is testing, and how the cycle runs.
- Timeline planner Put in your interview date and get a week by week plan.
- Pathway planner The whole road from school to consultant, drawn around your choices.
- Practice stations Real MMI stations with a two minute reading phase and a station clock.
- By university The interview at every undergraduate-entry school: format, timing, and what is marked.
- What is marked The six things every station marks, and how to practise each one.
- How to answer The questions every panel asks, what each is testing, and the follow-ups to expect.
- Question themes The subjects questions come from, from rural health to the profession, with prompts.
- Interview dates When each school sends invitations, holds interviews and makes offers this cycle.
- When you hear back Every school’s offer dates, and why the wait after the interview is so long.
- Formats What an MMI and a panel interview each are, and how to prepare for each.
- Interview soon? Days to go? What you can still book at short notice, and the prices.
- For parents Who your child is working with, and what I will not promise.
If you want a session
In a session I teach the structure, then ask the follow-ups until your answer holds. Thirty minutes, $40, online, credited to any package.