My interview was in December, and when I arrived someone gave me a little tour of the college and showed me all the rooms I would be having my interviews in, and since they were also a languages student they were able to tell me a little bit about my interviewers. I had two interviews, one for each language, and one written test. My first interview was for my ab initio language and I had two interviewers, one German fellow from another college and a Spanish fellow from my college, but as I was applying for German only she spoke, and it felt very informal. Then I had an at-interview assessment, and after that I received some pre-reading for my French interview. I was sent to the library to look over it for about 15 minutes and from there I went to my interview, which only had a French fellow this time. In between various activities we were able to hang out in the JCR - I think I had time for this between everything.

For my German interview it felt very informal. I was introduced to both my interviewers and they told me to make myself comfortable, then we spoke generally about how I learnt and why I wanted to do my degree. We also talked a little bit about some German things I'd read or watched, so I was able to talk about my personal statement a little here.

My French interview felt a bit more formal as I was sent to do pre-reading in the library. From there I went to my interview room. We spoke about the passage and discussed various different philosophical ideas and things like ego. It didn't seem to go very well at the time - I nearly fell off his bench as I was fidgeting so much!

I looked at the online practice at-interview assessment papers, and my school also organised with another local school a mock interview day where their subject teachers would give us Oxbridge-style interviews. However, I'm not really sure this was the most helpful in terms of actually replicating the experience, although it was really useful to talk to some strange clever old adult so I felt a little more confident when I came to do it for real.

The interview is not the only part of your application, and just because you don't think you shone here doesn't mean you won't get in. Equally, Oxbridge is not the be all and end all. You'll be sad and disappointed if you don't get in, as you might be if you get pooled, but people always say you love the college you end up at, and the same goes for universities.