Engineering @ Sidney Sussex, Cambridge in 2016

Interview format

2x interviews (30 mins each), 1x test (1 hr).

Interview content

Very academic; A Level standard; thinking under pressure

Best preparation

Mock interview at another school; "I-want-to-study-Engineering" website

Final thoughts

Don’t stress! If you got an interview place, it’s probs because they know you can make it!

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

My interview was in the beginning of December and mine started at 8am so I had to have breakfast super early. It consisted of 3 parts. At first, I had a one hour questions paper made of 10 long questions. After that, I had a half hour interview to go through my answers with one interviewer (my current DOS). I then had another half hour interview with one interviewer asking Engineering related questions.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Very academic but the questions were majorly A Level standard. Just there to test how you react under pressure and don’t necessarily expect you to know the answer straight away. I even forgot how to integrate x^2 at some point and he was super helpful.

How did you prepare?

So I had a mock interview arranged by another school which I found super helpful. I was lucky the teachers who interviewed me were Cambridge graduates. I also used the "I-want-to-study-Engineering" website a lot and it turned out that their questions were super similar to interviews and the ENGAA.

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Don’t stress! If you got an interview place, it’s probs because they know you can make it!