Maths @ Sidney Sussex, Cambridge in 2017

Interview format

1x test (1hr); 1x interview (1hr)

Interview content

Test solutions & problem solving

Best preparation

Talking to current students

Final thoughts

Nope

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

I had one interview on one day. It was made up of a 1-hour test followed by a 1-hour interview. The idea was that you sat down for an hour in the test and thought about some hard maths problems, then talked for the hour-long interview about what you had solved. The advice given by the college was, "do three out of the ten questions, and more if you have time." - my advice would be to try and solve as many as you can.

There were two interviewers - a fellow and a PhD student. Between them they kept me calm, encouraged me, and brought out the best mathematician in me. They didn't ask about my personal statement.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In the interview itself, we spent around half an hour talking through my test solutions. The interviewers seemed very happy with them, so after that they came up with some more classic maths puzzles for us to think about. They made me feel very at ease and confident in what I knew and what I could learn there and then to solve problems.

How did you prepare?

Talking to current students who knew the interview format.

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Nope!