title: Current medical student interviewers add data to the evaluation of medical school applicants.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is evidence that the addition of current medical student interviewers (CMSI) to faculty interviewers (FI) is valuable to the medical school admissions process. This study provides objective data about the contribution of CMSI to the admissions process.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-six applicants to a 4-year medical school program were interviewed by both CMSI and FI, and the evaluations completed by the two groups of interviewers were compared. Both FI and CMSI assessed each applicant's motivation, medical experiences, personality, communication skills, and interests outside of the medical field, and provided a numerical score for each applicant on an evaluation form. Both objective and subjective data were then extracted from the evaluation forms, and paired t-test and rank order tests were used for statistical analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When compared with FI, CMSI wrote two to three times more words on the applicants' motivation, personality, communication skills, interests, and overall evaluation sections (p<0.001) and provided about 60% more examples on the motivation section (p=0.0011) and communication skills section (p=0.0035). In contrast, FI and CMSI provided similar numbers of negative examples in these and in the personality section and equivalent overall numerical evaluation scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that when compared with FI, CMSI give equivalent overall evaluation scores to medical school candidates but provide additional potentially useful information particularly in the areas of motivation and communication skills to committees assigned the task of selecting students to be admitted to medical school.
authors.affiliation: New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, NJ 07101-5292, USA.
authors.forename: Christina J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Gutowski
authors.forename: Nikhil G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Thaker
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Heinrich
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fadem
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D009042:Motivation; D009515:New Jersey; D010551:Personality; D011361:Professional Competence; D012570:School Admission Criteria / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013337:Students, Medical