English @ Pembroke, Cambridge in 2022

Interview format

ELAT, 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: discussion of pre-reading, personal statement and submitted essays Interview 2: discussion of a poem, personal statement and submitted essays

Best preparation

Re-reading texts mentioned on personal statement, and watching advisory YouTube videos

Test preparation

Past papers and watching YouTube videos

Final thoughts

Try to relax after the interviews and not overthink everything you said

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: ELAT 
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: A couple of hours
Length of interviews: Around 40 minutes
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Both interviews made reference to my personal statements and submitted essays. The first interview focused on an extract I had read 20 minutes before the interview, while the second involved me reading and analysing a poem on the spot. I found the latter particularly difficult, as I had never experienced anything like it.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I re-read every text/source/essay I referenced in my personal statement to strengthen my confidence, and nervously binged a lot of advisory YouTube videos. I wish I'd had the resources to conduct a practice interview, as being from a large state school meant I had little experience with supervision-style learning, and felt much more nervous as a result.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Analysing extracts from past papers and watching a lot of advisory YouTube videos.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

I couldn't believe my interviewers were so kind and chatty. I had expected a very sterile, stuffy conversation in which my every action was loudly critiqued, so if I could tell myself that the interviewers were real people who would actually be quite nice to talk to, it would have helped me relax!

I put an intense amount of pressure on myself to ace the interviews, and remember physically shaking as I clicked to join the call - I thought I was going to be sick! To be honest, I left both my interviews feeling they could have gone either way, and embarrassed over some of the things I said. But it's not that serious! I was accepted during the August Reconsideration Pool (so was initially rejected) but all of the January offer-holders I've spoken to had that same feeling of uncertain failure and were still accepted. After the interview, just put it aside. No amount of criticising what you said, the way you said it, how the interviewer responded, etc will change the outcome, so relax! Easier said than done, I know, but sound advice nevertheless.