You made it to the interview stage. Now what?

Big congrats!

You’ve received the much hoped for email from your Oxbridge college with an interview invitation. This is an occasion to be truly proud of yourself. The invitation means that you have a realistic chance of being admitted to your dream university.

The job is halfway done. 

The next thing to think about is preparation. What can you do to maximise your chances of actually securing an offer?

Here are some tips you can follow to make sure that you will be in top form when you walk into the room of some esteemed professor who will be interviewing you: 

1. Go through your personal statement and written work very thoroughly. Make sure you know exactly what you meant by everything you said in your PS.

Think about the implications of what you’ve said. If you talked about nationalism or malaria cures, think about different ways to reframe/rethink the problems you presented.

The important question to ask after reading every single sentence is ‘So What?’ because that is something that your interviewer will have in mind.

If you said that you are interested in, let’s say, inequality, ask the ‘so what?’ question. How does that make you a qualified applicant and what does it reveal about your interest in the course?

2. Challenge yourself. The interview is a pressurised situation in which you will have to explain your thinking to the interviewer. To be at your best, you will need to practice.

For science applicants, do TONS of math. A good way is to try to practice in a ‘pressurised’ situation in which you would have to explain your calculations to someone else.

For humanities/social sciences, practice replying to complex questions as quickly as possible. I would recommend using past IB/YO papers and sketching out a reply in English within a minute.

Another useful way to prepare is to read academic literature/ complex texts and summarising their arguments in written form. Also, pay attention to any possible weaknesses in argumentation. 

3. Continue reading around your subject. Make sure that you know thoroughly the literature that you’ve mentioned in your PS. Also, don’t forget to read new stuff.

If you have any questions, you can always reach out to your PA mentor! In the meantime, best of luck with the interviews. 😊

We’ve written about interview preparation before. Read more here.