History @ Robinson, Cambridge in 2022

Interview format

History Admissions Assessment (HAA), 2x 20 minute interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: questions on pre-reading extract Interview 2: discussion on personal statement

Best preparation

Reading beyond what was mentioned on personal statement, and practice answering interview-style questions

Test preparation

Practice analysing sources, using past papers for HAA and similar exams (e.g. HAT)

Final thoughts

Remember the interviewers want to see your critical thinking, not how much information you can regurgitate

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: c. 1 hour
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I had two interviews, one being an extract-based interview and the second being based on my personal statement. The extract I was given was about 5 A4 pages long, and I had I think about 30 minutes of reading time during which I highlighted and annotated the passage. It was a topic I had never studied, but one of my interviewers was specialised in I believe. They asked me questions around its general argument and any historical comparisons I could draw from the content of the extract. The professors were friendly but reserved, and they do not agree or disagree with you but simply nod slightly and move on which means there's no time for overthinking which is great. The 20 minutes flew by really quickly.

The second interview based on my personal statement was much more bubbly, I was greeted with lots of smiles and there was a sense of levity in the conversation. They asked me first broad questions about why I am interested in the themes of my personal statement, and questioned some of the essays I mentioned in my PS as well. Then they got more specific on terminology and they disagreed with me here and there.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

The foundation for my preparation was reading books BEYOND the ones I mentioned in my personal statement so that I had lots of talk about and to accessorise the content they have already read about me. I annotated my personal statement with this extra reading and key phrases or ideas that they inspired. Then the most useful thing was undoubtedly practice interviews- while doing them with a friend is great, I would say it is much more accurate to ask a teacher to do a mock interview as they're less likely to go easy on you. I also had a teacher contradict every sentence of my personal statement before the interview so that I was prepared to defend my perspectives and justify myself fully.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

For the History Admissions Assessment, because you cannot predict the content of the source you will get I focused on practicing analytical skills on random written sources. You can access some past papers or practice sources on the Cambridge website, but also if you burn through all of these Oxford's HAT past papers also have source extracts which you can practice annotating and debating with someone so your critical thinking is up to scratch for the HAA. I did 3 proper timed mocks which I then asked my history teacher to read through.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

My biggest advice for history applicants would be not to treat your previous reading as content bullets that you have to memorise and regurgitate because the interview is out of your hands in terms of topics so you can rarely bring them up regardless, and memorising things sort of paralysed my brain for the first 5 minutes of each interview because I was trying to remember what I had prepared. It seems the interviewers want to see your critical thinking not how many books you could cram, so mentioning books is great to make you appear curious but listing has the opposite effect.