Preparing for the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry (Western University) interview

The Western ABS comes before the interview

Schulich asks every applicant to complete the Western Autobiographical Sketch (Western ABS) through Kira Talent. It has written and oral (video) parts. For this cycle Schulich lists it as opening October 8, 2026 and closing at 4:30 p.m. ET on October 14, 2026, with no extensions or exceptions. The questions are posted on Schulich's website in advance. In our words, they ask you to describe a real experience that shows:

• teamwork or leadership, and why it matters in medicine
• respect for diversity, equity and inclusion
• critical thinking and problem solving
• commitment to serving or advocating for others
• a personal challenge that is not about academics or research, what you learned from it and why it would be an asset

This matters for interview prep for two reasons. First, it is part of the composite that decides who is invited. Second, your ABS stories become the base of your interview answers. Interviewers who have read nothing about you still ask about the same themes, so pick stories you can tell again in two minutes without sounding rehearsed. Schulich also warns that it discourages AI-written answers, uses plagiarism detection, and treats flagged submissions as ineligible, so write and record in your own voice.

What the numbers say

Schulich's admission statistics page for the Class of 2029 lists 3,623 applications, 696 interviewed and 190 incoming students. That is roughly 27 incoming students for every 100 interviewees, so the interview is a real decision point, not a formality. The same page lists average MCAT section scores of 129 (BBFL), 128 (CPBS), 127 (CARS) and 129 (PSBB), and average GPAs of 3.96 and 3.91 for the two years Schulich uses. Schulich's minimum GPA is 3.70 in each of those two years.

Rules that affect your application

• Ontario residents. Schulich states that since July 1, 2025, publicly assisted Ontario universities must reserve no less than 95% of their annual admissions to medical health education programs for Ontario residents, with exceptions for Military Medical Training Program seats and MD/PhD and MD/Master's seats. Read Schulich's and OMSAS's definitions of "ordinarily resident in Ontario" before you decide how to position yourself.
• Citizenship. Applicants must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Schulich does not accept international applicants.
• Pathways. Schulich has Access, Black Applicant, Indigenous Applicant, Military Medical Training Program and Southwestern Ontario pathways. It says there are no fixed seats or quotas, and a pathway does not guarantee an offer.
• Campus. Students study on the London or Windsor campus with the same curriculum. Schulich's pages describe campus assignment in two ways (a lottery in the FAQ, and "campus preference is considered but cannot be guaranteed" on the requirements page), so don't build an answer around getting a specific campus.

What Schulich says it values

The vision on Schulich's undergraduate medical education site is to graduate "competent, reflective, caring physicians," committed to patient and family centred care and lifelong learning. Its mission lists patient and family centred care, research and evidence-based decision making, experiential learning, social responsibility, effective and collaborative leadership, technology, lifelong learning, collaboration and professionalism. The admission pages tie the ABS to the school's mission "to serve diverse communities with integrity and care."

Mission or value	How it might show up (our suggestion)
Patient and family centred care	A time you listened to someone in a hard moment and changed what you did
Social responsibility	Service where you stayed long enough to see what the community needed, not what you assumed
Collaborative leadership	A team where you led, followed or mediated, and what you would change
Reflection	A mistake you can describe plainly, with the specific change you made afterward
Research and evidence	A decision where you looked for evidence before deciding

What to know about the curriculum

You don't need to memorize Schulich's website, but a specific "why Schulich" is stronger than a general one. From Schulich's curriculum page:

• Early patient contact. Clinical Methods starts in first year, and Year 1 ends with Rural & Regional Discovery Week in a Southwestern Ontario hospital or clinic.
• Case-based learning. Principles of Medicine courses use case-based, small-group and team-based learning.
• Experiential Learning. Students choose a longitudinal project in research, quality improvement or service learning and present it in fourth year.
• Distributed education. Clinical training takes place at London and Windsor teaching hospitals and in community sites across Southwestern Ontario. Every student completes at least four weeks of community or rural clerkship.
• Competency-based progression. Schulich describes a competency-based model guided by Entrustable Professional Activities and regular feedback.

Only mention one of these if it connects to something you have done. "I grew up in Huron County, and the Discovery Week is why I want my first hospital experience to be in a community like mine" is more convincing than reading the curriculum back to the panel.

How to prepare

1. Reread your ABS answers. Treat them as your outline. For each, practice the two-minute version, the 30-second version and the follow-up "what would you do differently?"
2. Prepare for three people. Look at the person who asked, then include the others as you finish. In a virtual panel, keep your camera at eye level and look at the lens when you make your main point.
3. Expect structured, repeated questions. In a standardized interview each candidate is meant to be assessed on the same things, so a clear structure beats a clever answer: situation, what you did, result, what you learned.
4. Practice ethical and scenario questions. Schulich doesn't publish its question types, so practice both personal reflection questions and scenarios.
5. Do three timed mocks. Use a friend or mentor who will interrupt with follow-ups, and record at least one.

Practice questions (written by us, not Schulich)

Schulich doesn't publish its interview questions. We wrote these around its public mission and the ABS themes. They are for practice and don't predict what you'll be asked.

1. Tell us about a time you led a team through something difficult. What did you learn about yourself as a leader?
2. Describe an experience that changed how you think about equity or inclusion. What did you do afterward?
3. Tell us about a problem you solved with incomplete information. How did you decide?
4. Why do you want to practise medicine in a distributed model, with training across hospitals and communities?
5. Describe a time you advocated for someone who couldn't speak up for themselves.
6. A patient's family asks you not to tell the patient a serious diagnosis. What do you do?
7. A teammate in your study group is struggling and has stopped contributing. You are about to hand in a group project. What do you say, and to whom?
8. Tell us about a time you received feedback that was hard to hear. What did you change?
9. What does it mean to you to be a "reflective" physician, and how have you practiced reflection?
10. Tell us about a personal challenge that isn't about school. What would a classmate learn from hearing about it?
11. Ontario has too few family physicians in many regions. What is one thing a medical student can do about that?
12. What question were you hoping we would ask today?

Our free question bank preview has more medical school interview questions, and the full bank has over 500.

A 30-minute practice run

1. Ask three people to play the panel on video. Give one of them a printout of your ABS answers.
2. Have them pick eight questions from the list above, including at least two scenarios, and agree on one follow-up per answer.
3. Run it for 30 minutes, cameras on. Keep each answer to about two minutes.
4. Record it. Afterward, watch two answers and check three things: did you look at the lens, did you land a clear point, and did you answer what was asked.
5. Ask each person which answer they would remember tomorrow and which they would forget. Rebuild the forgettable one with a more specific example.

Practicing alone? Confetto's AI mock interviews run traditional and panel-style interviews as well as MMIs, ask follow-up questions based on what you said, and give rubric-based feedback afterward. You can start with a 7-day free trial.

Schulich interview FAQ

Is the Schulich interview an MMI?
No. Schulich describes a structured, standardized interview with a 3-person panel.

Is it in person?
No. Schulich says interviews are virtual.

When are interviews held?
Late February and early March. Invitations and declines go out by email in late January or early February.

How many applicants are interviewed?
Schulich says it invites approximately 700 of its top-ranked candidates. For the Class of 2029 it lists 696 interviewed and 190 incoming students.

Do I need Casper?
We found no Casper requirement on Schulich's MD admissions pages. Applicants complete the Western ABS through Kira Talent instead.

Can I use AI for the Western ABS?
Schulich strongly discourages it, uses plagiarism-detection tools, and says flagged submissions make an application ineligible for the cycle.

Applying to other Ontario schools? See our guides to the McMaster and Queen's interviews, the University of Toronto MPI, or our medical school interview prep page.

Confetto isn't affiliated with Western University or the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. Details about the school come from its public admissions, statistics and curriculum pages as of October 2026. Dates and formats can change between cycles, so go by what your invitation says.