Engineering @ St John's, Cambridge in 2021

Interview format

Engineering Admissions Assessment (ENGAA), 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: questions on personal statement, motivation for studying subject, then going through pre-set questions Interview 2: more questions based on personal statement

Best preparation

iwanttostudyengineering website, practice explaing solutions

Test preparation

iwanttostudyengineering and examsninja websites, past papers and going over incorrect answers

Final thoughts

Start preparing as soon as possible, you won't run out of material

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: 1 or 2 hours
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

There were a few questions about my personal statement at the start of each interview, and I was asked why I wanted to study my subject. There were two people interviewing me in each one. The college sent us a choice of two maths/ physics questions to prepare a week or two before the interview, and we went through our question of choice during one of the interviews. They then used the question we’d chosen to build upon and ask more difficult questions.

During the other interview, they took something I’d mentioned on my personal statement and created a physics question based on that.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I mostly used iwanttostudyengineering, and I practiced explaining my solutions to the questions on that website out loud. I would time myself and try to complete the questions as quickly as possible.

I did a few mock interviews through a company and I used the feedback from those interviews to become better at talking through my solutions.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

I started revising about 6 weeks before the test. I completed all of the past papers and whenever I got questions wrong, I would tab them and regularly review them in the run-up to the exam. I used the website iwanttostudyengineering a lot; it has really helpful video solutions that explain some concepts that are tested in the ENGAA but aren’t really on the a-level curriculum. I also used a website called examsninja, but access to the solutions required payment. There were also lots of incorrect answers on there so it’s not the most reliable resource.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

I would start preparing as soon as possible! Don’t worry about running out of material because there are more and more resources online every year.