What TMU has actually said about the assessment
There's a lot of guessing online, so here's what comes straight from TMU's own admissions pages for the 2027 cycle, before we get into strategy.
- •It's run by a third-party company, Kira Talent, and it's asynchronous, meaning there's no live interviewer. You record and type your answers on your own schedule within the window.
- •There are six timed questions, and they're a mix of video and written responses.
- •TMU says it assesses communication, reasoning, and problem-solving, and that it's meant to evaluate your understanding of and commitment to the school's mission and values.
- •Invitations go out November 12, 2026, and the assessment has to be completed between November 19 and 22, 2026. You can do it from any country.
- •TMU doesn't use CASPer at all, which makes this assessment carry more weight than it might at a school that has both.
- •Anything found to be written by a third party or by generative AI gets the application disqualified. That applies here too, so please don't experiment with it.
What mission and values means once you're actually answering
TMU's stated mission is to advance health equity and address primary care needs in diverse communities. Almost every applicant reads that sentence, and that's exactly why reciting it back doesn't help you. If your answer to a question sounds like it could be pasted onto TMU's website, a reviewer learns nothing about you from it, and hundreds of other applicants said the same thing that week.
What actually comes through on camera is when you connect the mission to something you've done or seen yourself. That might be a shift at a community clinic where someone couldn't afford their prescription, a family member who spent years without a family doctor, or a volunteer role where you noticed who wasn't showing up and wondered why. You don't need a dramatic story. You need a real one that you've thought about honestly, so that when a question about equity or primary care shows up, you're reaching for a memory instead of a slogan.
The kinds of questions to expect
I won't share actual questions from TMU, both because applicants sign confidentiality agreements and because memorizing leaked questions is a terrible way to prepare for a format built to test how you think on the spot. What I can do is describe the broad categories that one-way assessments like this tend to draw from, so your practice covers the right ground.
- •Motivation and fit questions, like why medicine, why primary care, or why this particular school. These sound easy and are where the most generic answers come from.
- •Past experience questions that ask you to describe a time something happened, such as a conflict, a mistake, or a moment you advocated for someone.
- •Scenario questions that drop you into a situation, often involving a patient, a team, or a community, and ask what you'd do and why.
- •Reflection or values questions that ask what you think about an issue in health care, where there's no right answer but there is a clearly reasoned one.
- •Written prompts, where you type instead of speak. Kira's written questions generally have no prep time, but they usually give you a longer response window than the video ones.
A prep plan for the next four weeks
- •Between now and November 1, build what I call a story bank. Write down six to eight real experiences from your life and your ABS, and for each one note what it shows about communication, equity, teamwork, or a mistake you learned from. On assessment day, this list is what keeps your mind from going blank.
- •From November 2 to 11, start doing timed answers on camera. Use your phone, give yourself about thirty seconds to think and around ninety seconds to speak, and then actually watch the recording back. It's uncomfortable, and it's also where almost all of the improvement happens.
- •When the invite lands on November 12, open it right away. Kira lets you check in before starting and see the assessment details, including the number of questions, their types, and the expected timing. Adjust your practice timing to match whatever you see there, and run the tech check early so a broken webcam doesn't become a crisis on November 22.
- •From November 13 to 18, do two or three full mock runs of six mixed questions in a row, including at least two written ones, so you know how your energy holds up across the whole thing.
- •Do the real assessment early in the window, ideally on November 19 or 20. If something goes wrong technically, you want days left to sort it out with Kira support and TMU, not hours.
The mistakes I'd most want you to avoid
- •Spending the whole prep window deciding which story to use, so you start talking with no idea where the answer is going. Pick in the first few seconds and commit.
- •Talking to your own face on the screen instead of the camera lens, which reads to a reviewer like you're looking slightly away from them the entire time.
- •Answering only the first half of a two-part question because you ran out of time telling the story.
- •Writing a polished essay on the written questions and running out of time before your conclusion. A clear, complete answer beats a beautiful unfinished one.
- •Doing the whole thing at 11pm on November 22, exhausted, with a roommate in the next room.
The frustrating thing about Kira is that you can't see how you come across. You know what you meant to say, but you don't know whether you looked nervous, rambled for forty seconds, or said um every third sentence, and that's exactly the stuff that's easy to fix once someone points it out. If you want a second set of eyes before November 19, I do Kira prep where we run timed questions and watch your recordings back together. I'll never write your answers for you, both because TMU forbids it and because it wouldn't help, but I can help you find your own stories and say them clearly. If you're not sure whether you even need that, book the free fifteen minute call and I'll tell you honestly.