After being greeted and signed in at theporters lodge I was shown where each of my two interviews would be and where I could wait. They also told me the time at which I could pick up the unseen text from the porter’s lodge. After I picked up the text I returned to the waiting room which was kept quiet for this purpose and made notes on the text. I then had to make my own way to each interview at the right time.

The first interview began with discussing the unseen text and moved onto discussing one of the pieces of written work I had sent in. This interview felt the better as they asked me more specific questions (either about the language in the text or my own ideas in the written work) giving me a good base to expand on. The two interviewers were also friendlier and the one who was taking most of the notes and mainly observing did also join in so that it wasn’t as unnerving.

The second interview was altogether very uncomfortable, they weren’t very welcoming when I came in and I felt I was sat very far away and at an odd angle to be able to look and communicate with both easily. They also didn’t give me water which resulted in me having a coughing fit halfway through and having to ask to go to my bag (across the room) for water. In this interview they first asked me about my second written essay and then about a couple of authors/texts I mentioned on my personal statement. This time I was still given prompts in the form of questions but instead of picking up on what I answered and asking new questions about my answers they instead repeated questions, which made me feel I was doing poorly. We spoke about what I'd been reading recently but as they hadn’t heard of the poet I mentioned this discussion was cut short.

Re-eading my written work, texts in my personal statement and practicing reading and making comment on unseen texts under time pressure

Everything will get weighed in balance, so if you don't feel the interview went well (like I did) you may still get an offer!