Interview

You may argue, “We should put more weight on the admission interview. A comprehensive face-to-face assessment by an expert would not only give insight to the humanistic character of an applicant, it may also provide supplementary information about their intellectual capability which the result of open examination does not reveal.”

Very true – if we have the right persons and format.

You see? Not only are there dramatic inter-individual variations (or, actually bias) in the content of interview, professors who do the admission interview are merely experts in clinical medicine (or, nothing personal, even worse, basic science) – most of them have little experience in conducting an admission interview. (How could they be if they only spend a few hours each year on this matter that has little in common with their everyday work?)

And, it is both common sense and evidence-based conclusion that conventional interview with open-ended questions is an unreliable method for the determination of personality trait or prediction of subsequent performance.

Again, go read Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.