In the still-raging debate over my two posts about why “Great People Are Overrated,” the one (and perhaps only) question that went under-discussed might be the most important question of all: How do you know a great person when you see one? Is “greatness” purely a matter of raw brainpower and technical virtuosity, or is it impossible to discuss individual talent without thinking about the team, the enterprise, and the very mission of the organization?
The front page of yesterday’s New York Times offered an in-depth account of how innovators in one industry are wrestling with that very question. The piece reports on the radical new admissions policy at Virginia Tech Carilion, the country’s newest medical school. The process “has enormous consequences” not for just for aspiring doctors, the Times says, but “also for the entire health care system.”
Here’s what the fuss is about. Rather than evaluate candidates strictly on grades, scores on standardized tests, and how they present themselves in an interview, Virginia Tech Carilion now subjects candidates to nine brief interviews “that [assess] how well candidates think on their feet and how willing they are to work on teams.
”The technical term for the process is the M.M.I., or the multiple mini-interview. The Times calls it “the admissions equivalent of speed-dating”: nine eight-minute conversations about an ethical dilemma, on-the-spot decisions, even health-care policy that aim to capture who candidates are, not just how smart they are.
