History Admissions Assessment (HAA), MML test; 2x interviews
Language interview: conversation in target language, discussion of pre-reading, then discussion of personal statement, then more general questions about the study of History History interview: conversation of History studied both inside and outside of school
Immersion in subjects e.g. podcasts, and rereading personal statement
Practice papers, and preparing phrases/ideas/grammar structures
Everyone in the interview knows you don’t know everything yet - so own that and use it as a learning experience.
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.
Test taken: History Admissions Assessment (HAA), MML test
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 5 hours
Length of interviews: 20-30 minutes
Online interview: Yes
My language interview began with a conversation in the target language. In the half hour before the interview I had to read a piece in the language and they asked me questions about the text and about the grammar, etc of it. I found this the hardest of everything I did at interview but they tried really hard to put me at ease which helped a lot. At one point I just didn’t have an answer so I told them that and they explained it to me simply and then moved on. I think it’s important to see it as a discussion where they aren’t trying to catch you out and they’re really trying to get the best out of you and it’s ok to not know. Then the discussion moved on to my personal statement and things I’d written on it. They asked me which of the three books I’d read I wanted to talk to them about and then they asked me questions on that, picking my knowledge and really just trying to see how I thought I think. It was really quite relaxed at this point.
For the History interview, it began with a discussion about what History I was doing at school at that time. The questions were testing my ability to construct arguments and seeing how much attention I had paid I think. Although it was nominally about what I was learning in school. I think they really wanted to see what I was doing myself to further my own education. Then the interview switched to more general questions about History and particularly the discipline of History. This part of the conversation was really led by what I was saying. I made a flippant statement about pots for example, so the next question was about pots. I really enjoyed this part of the interview and I think this really helped. Because I was enjoying it and finding it really interesting I was more at ease and it really built my confidence. Realising that I had a good amount of control over what was going to happen meant I could steer the conversation towards things I was more confident on.
Over the months in between applying and actually getting to interview I tried to immerse myself in my subjects as much as I could using easily accessible media outside of school. For History I found listening to podcasts on the way to and from school particularly useful. Just having lots of random historical knowledge to pull out to illustrate my points in the interview is probably what got me in. This also helped me build my own excitement towards history which makes the whole experience much easier and less scary, plus it can’t be a bad thing if it comes across how interested you are in what you’re talking about during the interview.
Rereading my personal statement a few times in the days leading up also helped me to remember what I’d said and think about how I’d develop on the ideas I’d touched on in it if I was asked about it (which I was). I hadn’t done it deliberately, but in my history interview I was asked what further reading I had done surrounding the topics I was studying at school. So being able to say you’ve read x book/article/opinion piece/primary source to develop your own interest and crucially being able to say what it argued and what you think about that is really helpful.
I found some practice papers on the faculty website for the MMLL side and asked my
Don’t rush into your answers. It’s ok to take a moment to think. Getting something wrong/not knowing isn’t a bad thing. If you can correct yourself, great. If you ask for help they’ll give it to you. But it’s good to know your limits. I think it’s more important to show that you want to learn. Everyone in the interview knows you don’t know everything yet - so own that and use it as a learning experience. Remember how cool it is that you get to speak to some top academic about their subject field. That’s not something many people get to do. When you think of it as an experience and as something to learn from it takes some of the pressure off you. It’s important not to pressurise yourself to do/say a certain thing or be a certain person. You’ve just got to put yourself forward and see what happens from there.