History @ Corpus Christi, Cambridge in 2019

Interview format

History Admissions Assessment (HAA); 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: discussion of A Level choices; Interview 2: discussion of submitted work

Best preparation

Mock interviews with a teacher

Test preparation

Practice papers

Final thoughts

Don't be afraid to ask for a question to be rephrased.

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: 2 hours
Length of interviews: About 20-30 mins
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Both my interviews were about the essay I submitted, although they were about different aspects of the essay. In the first one I was asked about my A Level choices and why I was doing history if I also took maths and biology. The first one was in a sitting room so I sat on a sofa and the two interviewers were on armchairs, but the second was in an office where we sat at a table. The interviewers want to know about you so they were friendly.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I did a mock interview with a teacher at school which ended up being quite different to the actual interview but talking to someone about history and about my personal statement was definitely helpful. Before the interview itself I read over my personal statement, the essay I submitted, and some of my history A Level notes just to refresh my memory a bit. I also researched my interviewers once I got their names so I could see what they specialised in.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Practice papers, just having a look at an unseen source and writing as much as you can about it in a set amount of time.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Take a moment to think, the silence is perfectly okay. Explain your thought process and don’t be afraid to ask them to rephrase a question - I did it and it was totally fine.