Context  Some medical schools have recently replaced the medical
school pre-admission interview (MSPI) with the multiple mini-
interview (MMI), which utilises objective structured clinical
examination (OSCE)-style measurement techniques. Their
motivation for doing so stems from the superior reliabilities
obtained with the OSCE-style measures. Other institutions,
however, are hesitant to embrace the MMI format because of the
time and costs involved in restructuring recruitment and
admission procedures.  Objectives  To shed light on the
aetiology of the MMI’s increased reliability and to explore the
potential of an alternative, lower-cost interview format, this
study examined the relative contributions of two facets (raters,
occasions) to interview score reliability.  Methods 
Institutional review board approval was obtained to conduct a
study of all students who completed one or more MSPIs at a large
Midwestern medical college during 2003–2007. Within this
dataset, we identified 168 applicants who were intervie