Qualitative Studies on Implicit Criteria during the Individualized Selection Procedure for Medical Studies at Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H).

The individualized two-stage selection procedure for medical studies at Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H) has been in use for more than 30 years and comprises explicit and implicit selection criteria. This analysis aims at identifying the implicit criteria and answering the question whether an internal consistency of these implicit criteria may be verified for the different phases of the selection procedure (when evaluating the statements of purpose, during the selection weekend and during the concluding discussions of assessors). Three qualitative studies on all phases of the selection procedure at UW/H have been conducted for determining the implicit assessment criteria of assessors: statements of purpose in extreme group comparison (12 admissions versus 18 rejections); semi-structured expert interviews (N=25) on the selection weekend; focus group analysis of the concluding discussions on two selection weekends (N=16).