Jefferson Sidney Kimmel Interview: Two One-on-Ones

SKMC's mission, as its About page puts it, focuses on educating physicians who will form and lead the integrated healthcare delivery and research teams of tomorrow, discovering new knowledge from the laboratory to the bedside and into the community, and setting the standard for high-quality, empathetic, compassionate and efficient patient care. Its selection factors page says a diverse and inclusive environment is key to excellence in patient care, education and research.

Qualities the committee looks for

Its 2027 prospectus lists the qualities the Committee on Admissions looks for beyond academics: a service orientation, cultural competence, teamwork skills, strong oral communication, ethical responsibility to self and others, reliability and dependability, resilience and adaptability, and the capacity for improvement.

Service and class size

SKMC's selection page also says almost every applicant selected for interview has demonstrated a commitment to community service through volunteer work, and that the committee selects a class of 272 from an applicant pool of approximately 13,700, inviting approximately 600 applicants to interview.

When "Why SKMC?" comes up, use facts the school itself puts forward, tied to something in your own background. One real connection beats a tour of all of them.

• Physician Shortage Area Program (PSAP). Started in 1974 to put more physicians, especially primary care doctors, in rural areas and small towns in Pennsylvania and Delaware. It has up to 24 places in each first-year class. It looks for applicants who grew up in a rural area or small town and plan to practice in one, with priority for students at the PSAP Cooperative colleges. You opt in on the SKMC secondary and send three extra letters by November 15. Jefferson says PSAP graduates are more than eight times as likely as their peers to become rural family physicians.
• Health Mentors Program. An interprofessional program in which small groups of 4 to 6 Jefferson students meet three times over 1.5 years with a community volunteer living with a chronic condition or impairment.
• JeffBEACON. A cocurricular program promoting health equity for disadvantaged urban communities in Philadelphia, with students applying in the fall of their first year.
• JeffHOPE. A student-run free clinic that Jefferson says holds weekly clinics at four homeless shelters and one needle exchange program in Philadelphia.
• Puentes de Salud at Jefferson. A student organization whose stated purpose is the health and wellness of South Philadelphia's Latino immigrant community, with attention to social determinants of health.
• Jefferson Scale of Empathy. Created at SKMC; the prospectus says it has been translated into 59 languages.

Keep your claims to what Jefferson publishes. Do not describe services or clinic details you have not confirmed yourself, and bring up a program only if it matches something you have actually done.

Pennsylvania's Medicaid expansion under the ACA was implemented on January 1, 2015, according to KFF. Jefferson's own PSAP page says Pennsylvania has the third largest rural population of any state and that almost one-half of its doctors practice in three counties (Philadelphia, Montgomery and Allegheny), which is the problem PSAP was built to address.

Those are the policy and workforce facts verified for this guide. If you cite one in an interview, connect it to a patient or experience of your own rather than reciting a statistic.

• Format. SKMC's interview is in person for 2026/2027: two one-on-one interviews, one with a current medical student and one with a faculty member. It is not an MMI.
• Open file. As of October 2026, SKMC's pages don't give interview length or questions. The faculty interview is open file, so know every line of your application.
• Qualities. Prepare stories for the qualities SKMC lists: service orientation, cultural competence, teamwork, communication, ethics, resilience and capacity for improvement.
• Why SKMC. Anchor "Why SKMC?" in one real connection to a program Jefferson describes, such as PSAP, the Health Mentors Program, JeffBEACON or JeffHOPE.
• Specific stories. Use specific, experience-driven stories that connect patient needs, systemic barriers and realistic next steps.

Ready to practice like you will perform on interview day? Confetto simulates traditional one-on-one interviews with follow-up questions, coaches you on service and teamwork storytelling, and builds your fluency with targeted analytics.

Start a Confetto session now and walk into the Sidney Kimmel Medical College interview prepared and precise.

Also applying to the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple? See our interview guide for that school.