What questions do you have for us?
Depth of interest and quality of thinking. Your questions are scored as much as your answers.
The trap
Asking anything whose answer is on the school's website. Class size or tuition tells them you didn't look. And 'I don't have any' ends the interview on a flat note.
How to structure your answer
Two or three prepared, specific questions → follow up genuinely on their answers → close by thanking them.
- Ask things the website cannot answer
- Good ones: what surprises students in third year, how the school supports someone who's struggling, what they'd change
- Ask them something personal — why they teach here
- Actually listen and follow up rather than moving down a list
A weak answer
I did have a couple. Could you tell me a little about the class size, and how the curriculum is structured across the four years? I'd also be curious what your board pass rates have looked like recently. I just want to make sure I really understand the program before I have to make a decision.
Every one of those answers is on the school's website, and they know it.
A stronger answer
Two, if that's all right. First — what surprises your students most in third year, when they go from typodonts to actual people? Everyone tells me that transition is the hard part, and I'd rather hear it from you than from a forum at midnight. Second, and this one's more personal: you've been teaching here a long time. What made you stay? I swam for a coach who could have gone anywhere and didn't, and the reason he gave me changed how I choose places. So I'd like to know what the answer is here.
Questions the website can't answer, one of them personal, each with a reason attached.
One set could have been answered by the website. The other could only be answered by the person sitting across from her.
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.
Try one interview freeGet the guideMore fit questions
- Why did you apply to our school?Fit
- What will you contribute to our class?Fit
- If we admitted you, what would you want to get involved in here?Fit
- What other schools are you considering? If we accepted you today, would you come?Fit
- What concerns do you have about dental school?Fit
- Is there anything we haven't asked that you'd want us to know?Fit