A longitudinal study of the impact of interviews on medical school admissions in Taiwan.

Medical schools in Taiwan have recently adopted the U.S. medical school admissions model by incorporating interviews into the selection process. The objective of this study was to investigate factors that contribute to successful medical school applications through the national entrance examination and interview admission routes. The sample consisted of survey data from five entry cohorts of medical students admitted to the National Yang-Ming University Faculty of Medicine from 2003 to 2007. Of the 513 students, 62% were admitted through the traditional national entrance examination route and 38% were admitted early after achieving a threshold score on the composite national exam followed by a structured interview. Students admitted through the interview route were more likely to be female, with an odds ratio (OR) of 2.17 (1.20-3.93). Maternal education level was an independent predictor of both early admission through a successful interview and higher medical school grade point average (GPA). Students admitted through the interview route had a 3.20 point higher first-year medical school GPA (p < .001) as determined by regression analyses. Those students who were admitted via interview did not have significantly different personality traits than those admitted through the traditional route. This study calls into question the ability of an admissions interview to select for noncognitive character traits.