Engineering @ Newnham, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

Engineering Admissions Assessment (ENGAA); 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: personal questions, reasons for applying; Interview 2: problem-solving questions

Best preparation

Re-reading personal statement

Test preparation

Past papers

Final thoughts

Express your enthusiasm for the subject

Remember this advice isn't official. There is no guarantee it will reflect your experience because university applications can change between years. Check the official Cambridge and Oxford websites for more accurate information on this year's application format and the required tests.

Also, someone else's experience may not reflect your own. Most interviews are more like conversations than tests and like, any conversation, they are quite interactive.

Interview Format

Test taken: Engineering Admissions Assessment (ENGAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 2 hours
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

They started with questions about me, why I wanted to be an engineer. Lots about my personal statement and then they moved onto interview questions which was problem solving.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I did interview style questions from the internet and I watched a practice interview from Cambridge on YouTube. Most importantly memorising things in my personal statement.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Past paper questions

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Tell them your thought process. If you don’t know an answer, talk about the basic steps. They asked me at the end if I would like to ask them a question, so I would recommend preparing one for each interview. Think of it as a chat, that’s all it is. Most importantly, express your enthusiasm for that subject - that sounds really difficult to do, but if you can have a interesting conversation about a topic giving your opinions, then that expresses interest.