Dental School Interviews

MMI or panel, which school runs which, what they say they are assessing, and how to build a mock circuit without paying anyone.

Dental Schools Council, 2027 entryChecked 26 September 2026Written by a practising dentist
Open Interview Prep
The thing students worry about most

You do not need work experience in a dental practice.

Schools ask for evidence that you understand the job and are committed to it. What matters is how you discuss an experience, not where you got it.

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The Dental Schools Council's position is that you should be able to show you are making an informed choice through career exploration — that you know what the profession involves and can explain what drew you to it. Experience in a healthcare setting is described as something you would ideally have, not something you must have. Cardiff states that obtaining work experience in a dental setting can be challenging and is therefore not a specific requirement. Portsmouth uses almost the same wording and calls it desirable rather than required. Plymouth does not require demonstrable work experience as part of the admissions process at all. Lancashire has stopped using it. A part-time job can answer an interview question about working with difficult people better than an afternoon standing quietly in a surgery.

The format

01. Two kinds of interview

An interview means a dental school has decided you are worth their time. It tests whether you understand the job, and whether you can think out loud while someone watches.

A student in a clinical tunic watching closely as a dentist in magnifying loupes and a mask works at the chairside
MMI: multiple mini interviewA circuit of short stations on a timer, each with its own assessor and score. A bad station is survivable.
Panel interviewOne longer conversation, usually with two or three people.
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What happens next is not a test of how much dentistry you know. The structural difference matters more than it sounds: in an MMI each station is scored on its own, so a station that goes badly is survivable in a way that a bad twenty minutes in a panel is not. The skill worth practising for an MMI is resetting — walking out of a station you fluffed and arriving at the next one without carrying it with you.

School by school

02. Which school does which

From the Dental Schools Council guide for 2027 entry. Online or in person is confirmed in your invitation, not here.

Multiple mini interviews (11)
BirminghamCardiffDundeeGlasgowLeedsLiverpoolManchesterPlymouthQueen's BelfastAberdeen (graduate entry)Lancashire (graduate entry)

Lancashire also includes group tasks. Dundee runs its MMIs in person for 2027 entry, online for international applicants.

Panel or structured interview (5)
BristolNewcastlePortsmouthQueen MarySheffield

Sheffield adds a separate interpersonal skills test. Portsmouth and Sheffield both describe theirs as semi-structured.

No interview for standard school leavers (2)
University College CorkTrinity College Dublin

Both interview only for international, mature or non-traditional entry routes.

King's and Portsmouth

One school is missing from those lists on purpose. King's College London lists its interview method for 2027 entry as yet to be confirmed, and so does its Enhanced Support Dentistry Programme. Its recent pages have described a remote panel of two interviewers, replacing an in-person MMI circuit, but do not prepare on that basis until King's confirms it. Portsmouth takes its first dental students in September 2027, so as a new school its arrangements may still change.

The criteria

03. What they say they are assessing

Schools converge on one anchor: the GDC's Standards for the Dental Team. If you read one document before an interview, read that one.

CardiffMaps most of its stations to the attributes the GDC expects of dental professionals.
BirminghamMotivation, communication, empathy, self-insight, ethical reasoning, manual dexterity and leadership.
SheffieldMotivation, independent thinking, experience, communication and personal qualities: how you think, not what you know.
Treat everyone, all day, as part of the interview. Cardiff scores suitability separately, and a high station score with a low suitability score can still mean no offer. That includes how you speak to receptionists, student guides and the other candidates.
Five differences

04. What makes a dental interview different

Most free interview advice online is written for medicine. Most of it transfers. Five things do not.

Manual dexterityTested directly (bending wire, threading a needle, copying a shape) or through a hobby with controlled hand skill.
Why dentistry, not medicineName something specific: continuity with the same patients, diagnosis and treatment in one appointment.
The physical realityLong periods in one position, close repetitive precision, and the strain that comes with it.
The dental teamKnow roughly who does what: therapists, hygienists, nurses and technicians.
NHS accessLive policy, not background reading.
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Dentistry is a practical craft carried out in a space a few centimetres across, to tolerances measured in fractions of a millimetre. Anything needing controlled, repetitive hand skill counts as evidence: an instrument, drawing, model-making, sewing, nail art, cake decorating. A weak answer to “why dentistry” treats dentistry as a smaller version of medicine; a strong one adds the immediacy of fixing something in one sitting. Knowing the team separates candidates who have been inside a practice from those who have only read about one.

Avoid

05. What loses marks

  • 1Generic answers: ‘I want to help people’ describes about forty professions.
  • 2A rehearsed monologue delivered regardless of what was asked.
  • 3Being unable to expand on your own personal statement.
  • 4Rudeness or impatience with anyone, at any point in the day.
  • 5Carrying a bad station into the next one.
  • 6Describing an experience without reflecting on what you took from it.
Free preparation

06. Build your own mock circuit

You do not need paid coaching. What closes the gap is familiarity with the format, which costs nothing: a friend, a teacher and a timer. If money is tight, spend it on travel to an in-person interview.

  1. 1Write six promptsWhy dentistry, an ethical scenario, teamwork, explaining something complicated, a dexterity task, your own statement.
  2. 2Six minutes a stationSomeone reads the prompt, then stays quiet and lets you talk.
  3. 3Move on at onceNo discussing how it went: the discomfort of moving on is the skill you are training.
  4. 4Debrief at the endAsk your helper one question: what did I say that you did not understand?
  5. 5Record yourself onceWatching it back is unpleasant and more useful than any amount of reading.
  6. 6Anyone can run itA careers lead, teacher, parent or friend. Their job is to time you and to listen.
Common questions

07. How to structure the common answers

Why dentistryWhat you saw or did, what it showed you about the work, why that suits you.
Ethical scenariosName the competing interests, say what you would do and why, and what else you would need to know.
Role playListen more than you talk, and check the other person has understood you.
Any experienceFinish with reflection. If you stop before that, the answer is not scoreable.
What we could not confirm

Most dental schools do not publish station numbers and timings (Birmingham does: four to ten stations of five to ten minutes each), and the figures circulating online come from candidate reports that vary year to year. Delivery mode for the coming cycle changes at several schools, and your invitation is the only reliable statement of it. King's has not confirmed its format for 2027. Portsmouth's panel is new, so how it is scored is not yet known. If a school's own page contradicts anything here, the school is right and we are out of date.

Drawn from the Dental Schools Council, 2027 entry guide and checked on 26 September 2026. Source: Dental Schools Council: 2027 entry requirements. Written and checked by Dr Julius K. Babayemi, GDC number 76198.

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