History @ Christ's, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

History Admissions Assessment (HAA); 2x interview

Interview content

Interview 1: discussion of sources; Interview 2: broader theory of history

Best preparation

Mock interviews with unfamiliar teachers

Test preparation

Practised source questions

Final thoughts

The interviewers want to find someone who would benefit from they way they teach

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: History Admissions Assessment (HAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 20 mins
Length of interviews: 20 mins
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The first interview was very nice. I was asked to look at some sources and read an academic text and just had a conversation about that. The interviewers were really nice.

The second interview was about the theory of history and asking broader historical questions. I thought it went awfully and I had to ring my mum afterwards, but then I got an offer anyway. My friend showed me a graph that compared how people thought their interview went and how the interviewers thought it went and there was no correlition at all, which was nice to know.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I asked my teacher to do a mock interview with me. I printed off the mock interview questions from the faculty website. I think this helped my confidence a lot. I was very lucky to have a teacher that had the time to be able to this. If you do this with any adult/your friends it's helpful. You could even just read over the questions. It helped me get a better idea of what to expect. I was also lucky that my head of sixth form took an active interest in my application (and the applications of other oxbridge students) and organised a mock interview with a teacher who went to Oxford from another school to go through a mock source interview. I also disected my personal statement to make sure I knew it word for word. This helped with my confidence a bit but I don't think it helped materially at all.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Practice papers from the faculty website which I self-marked. I also practiced the questions for the sources module we had for A-Level and AS (was all on Weimar/Nazi Germany but it's helpful for the skills)

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Really don't stress too much. They're looking for you and want to assess you so don't change yourself to fit what you think thye want. In my not very qualified opinion they seem to be looking for people both with a real interest in their subject and someone who would benefit from the way they teach.