Music @ Christ's, Cambridge in 2016

Interview format

2x interviews

Interview content

1st interview: personal statement, aural tests, played prepared piece; 2nd interview: unseen extracts

Best preparation

Independent research is useful, essay competition - engage with the subject more widely

Final thoughts

Have a look at the colleges in advance & pick one that you think will suit you

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

2 interviews each about 20-30 minutes I think, one before lunch and one after. 1 interviewer in each.

First interview was quite informal - mostly about me & my musical interests, some discussion of personal statement. Some harmony and aural, unseen music extract to identify. Also played a prepared piece (this turned out to be optional!)

Second interview slightly more formal - was given an article to look at 10 minutes before. Discussion of that article, plus more general questions about music. More unseen music extracts.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

First interview was about finding out about me - what music I liked / disliked, what music I like to play, what aspects of music interested me and why. Also a bit of discussion of my personal statement. Some aural tests, sight-singing, a little bit of harmonising. Given a piece of classical music to identify composer / period. I also thought you had to play a piece so I prepared one and played it at the end of the interview - turns out this was optional so maybe make sure you clarify before!!

Second interview was slightly more academically challenging but I found it really interesting! Was given an article to discuss, and asked general questions about music.The extracts in this interview were more obscure - really early music and contemporary pieces that were much more unfamiliar, but they were just interested in the approach to identifying it and talking about music (I think!)

How did you prepare?

Our school encouraged us to do an 'independent research project', sort of like an EPQ but not a proper qualification, so I researched the symphony a little bit by watching a documentary and reading a bit of a book I found in a charity shop (!) and generally researching a little bit online.

I also entered an essay competition in year 12 which was helpful in that it gave me some specific knowledge about that topic outside of our school studies!

I read a little bit of The Rest is Noise which was helpful as a starting point for thinking about wider questions in music (be careful though - pretty much everyone reads this book!! so some interviewers might not want to hear about it...)

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

I would really recommend looking at the directors of studies at the different colleges, as I had quite a positive interview experience overall because my DOS is so relaxed and friendly!

Equally, some colleges like Clare, Trinity, Selwyn, Caius etc. get a lot of music applicants and people are often pooled from there - this shouldn't stop you applying, but potentially the interviews there are more gruelling

If you are not a choral person you might also want to check if the Director of Studies is also the choir director - again this shouldn't make a difference but I think you should be prepared to be asked about the choir just in case!