Tell me about a time you disagreed with a supervisor or someone with authority over you.
Whether you can push back professionally. Critical in dentistry — you will one day disagree with an attending about a treatment plan.
The trap
Two ditches. Claiming you've never disagreed with anyone reads as either passive or dishonest. Telling a story where you were right and they were an idiot reads as someone who'll be a problem in clinic.
How to structure your answer
The disagreement and what was at stake → how you raised it → how you handled the outcome, including if you lost.
- Show you raised it privately and respectfully
- Explain the reasoning you brought, not just the objection
- Describe accepting the final decision gracefully
- Say what you learned about how to disagree well
A weak answer
Honestly, I've been lucky with my supervisors and I haven't really had a serious disagreement with one. I try hard to understand where they're coming from, and if I do see something differently I'll usually just adapt, because they have a lot more experience than I do and they're seeing the whole picture.
Never having disagreed reads as passive, or as a question being dodged.
A stronger answer
I was a shift lead at a coffee shop and my manager wanted to put a new hire alone on Saturday opens after four training shifts. I thought that was too fast, so I asked to talk before the schedule posted, not in front of him, and I brought the specific things I'd still been fixing that week. Grinder settings and the till count. She heard me out and went ahead anyway, with a floater on call. It was fine, actually. What I took from it is that I'd rather be told no early than be right later.
Raised privately with reasons, lost, accepted it, and says what losing taught her.
The second answer includes losing. An applicant who has only ever been right in these stories is telling you something about clinic.
These are illustrations, not scripts. An answer you memorize sounds memorized — the point is the shape and the specificity, in your own words and about your own life.
Reading it isn't the same as saying it.
Most people can explain a good answer and still fall apart saying one out loud. Admitted asks you all 100 questions in a faculty voice, records you, and scores your pace and filler words.
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