My interview was during interview week in early December. I went to the porter’s lodge and was directed to the Newnham Buttery, where all the applicants were waiting. There was tea and biscuits there, and I hung around for about an hour before I was taken to my first interview.

First interview was with an Admissions Tutor for Newnham. It was described as a ‘general’ interview, in that she wasn’t a geographer, but the stuff that we discussed was still geography-related.

Afterwards, I made my way back to the buttery, where I waited some more until I was taken to my second interview. I was first taken to a separate room (one of the Director of Studies' offices), and given a text to read. I had 30 mins to read, annotate - there were some questions for me to consider and I made notes on that. Then, I was taken to my interview. I had 2 interviewers (one human geographer, one physical geographer).

Interview one: about 15 minutes spent talking about geography, why I wanted to study it, discussing some points in my personal statement. Then, she gave me a map to interpret, and after that, some charts. I answered her questions as best as I could, and I could answer most of them. There were a couple where I took a wild guess, but she would help guide my thinking when I got quite stuck.

Interview two: I had a lot to say about the text that I was given, and we spent about 10 mins on that. I remember my interview feeling quite rushed, as I think they had quite a lot to cover and not a lot of time. I was given a chart to interpret and I had LITERALLY zero clue what it was trying to show. I made some very vague descriptions/observations about it, and when I couldn’t go further, my interviewers asked me some questions to help prompt my thinking. We spent about 10 mins with the chart, then 10 mins talking about general ‘geography’ stuff, including some points I mentioned in my personal statement.

Lots of reading (books, news articles), and lots of talking to myself about the stuff I'd read.

My school had me do an interview with a very senior member of staff to help me get over the 'scary, unfamiliar person' factor.

I also had weekly meetings with a geography teacher (not my teacher), who acted as my mentor, and we had 'mock interviews' every week. He'd give me feedback after each one.

It's perfectly okay to not know something (and you should expect to be pushed to a point where you can't answer the Q [Editor's Note: question]). Don't say 'I don't know' immediately, but say something like 'I'm not certain, but I would guess that....based on the fact that I know...." - say you're unsure, and then say how you would go about answering the Q