Medicine @ Emmanuel, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

BMAT; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: biochemistry and physiology questions; Interview 2: ethics questions

Best preparation

Watched a mock interview on YouTube

Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Focus on consolidating the material covered at school, not learning new information especially for the interview

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: BMAT

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: no

TIme between interviews: 2 hours

Length of first interview: 20 minutes; Length of second interview: 30 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Going into the interview, I couldn’t have been any more nervous. The interviewers were actually very reassuring and calming, but it was quite a nerve wracking experience altogether. Each interview had two interviewers and they each had a specific “theme”, such as biochemistry or physiology or ethics. The questions started off with concepts I had covered at school and the interviewers guided me into adding more detail and expanding my knowledge, much like real supervisions.

How did you prepare?

I only used past papers to prepare for the Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT), maybe from the last 5 years or so. I also watched a mock nterview on YouTube for medicine, which was very reflective of what the real interview is like.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

My advice would be to do as many mock interviews as possible - the scarier the interviewer, the better, so you can be as composed on the day! I think as long as you know the content you’ve already been taught, you should be fine. The interview really isn’t about how much you know, it’s about how you use what you already know. Try to stress as little as possible and don’t worry about learning crazy amounts of anatomy or advanced metabolism because it’s not necessary. The interviews were much more relaxed than I had expected, and because of this I wish I could have felt less nervous.