The day consisted of a 1 hour exam paper in the morning followed by two interviews in the afternoon. The exam paper was an essay question and you were given 1 hour to write the essay. It was on a fairly well known subject so that that all candidates could write a suitable answer. The key part was that you were only given 1 A4 piece of paper to write your essay so the emphasis was on being concise.

I had two interviews scheduled in the afternoon. There was a short break of 30 minutes between the two interviews. Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes. Each interview was conducted by two interviewers, all of which were fellows at the college. Both interviews were of the same nature, with the fellows presenting different problems to cover a number of topics.

On the whole, the interviewers were welcoming and did the best they could in order to make me feel relaxed in the obviously stressful circumstances. One of the the interviews was quite stand-offish, however. Each interviews took theur turn to discuss a different topic with me. They began by presenting a problem to me at the beginning. They then observed how I approached the problem and helped me along the way when I got stuck.

Other interviewers presented me test results from immunological experiements relating to blood group. Another interviewer asked me to form an equation about blood flow including the factors that affect it. I got the impression they were not there to stun you with a hard question, any time I got stuck, they tried to give me a helping hand.

I didn't really prepare in any way other than knowing my A-level syllabus well.

Nope!