English @ Newnham, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT); 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: analysis of unseen poem; Interview 2: unseen text, personal statement

Best preparation

Mock interviews at school

Final thoughts

Think out loud during the interview

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: English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 2 hours
Length of interviews: 30 mins
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

For both interviews, I was given an unseen text and had ten minutes to annotate it. I then had to talk about it with the interviewers for the rest of the interview. One was a poem, one was an excerpt from a historical document.

I had one question about my personal statement in my second interview. My first interview was nerve-wracking and had a tense atmosphere, but my second one was more relaxed.

How did you prepare?

For the test, I did past papers and had about three tutoring sessions with a PhD student. For the interview, I had a mock interview with a teacher at my school. I also read the book “So you want to go to oxbridge?” which had some good interview advice.

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

The mock interview was helpful, but the best advice I got was to do your thinking out loud during the interview, and to try to relax. To potential applicants: just be yourself.