My interview was in early December, and I stayed the night before my interview in a room at the college. The next morning I had a test where I had to harmonise a piece of music (I think I was given about an half an hour - I remember working quite quickly), a first interview mainly analysing a short extract of music (which you were given time to make notes on just before the interview), and a second interview mainly discussing a written extract about music (which you were also given time to make notes on beforehand). Both interviews were with two interviewers.

The first interview, we started by going through the harmony I had just written, and I had to play parts of it on the piano. We discussed what I could have done to make it better, and they also gave me a few tips on writing generally (which was very useful for my A-level coursework!). I discussed the analysis I had already made of the extract, and we discussed other, more complex analysis. Then they asked me general questions about my personal statement. For example, I remember talking about the music in a film and whether I thought it was effective.

In my second interview, I started by reeling off everything I had found from the extract. I talked about things that weren't necessarily directly linked, but I mentioned and elaborated on things which I knew from pre-reading etc. Then we had a discussion about my ideas, and I remember talking really quite passionately (and therefore quite flustered!) about my thoughts, which they seemed to really like! We went through things I had written in my essays I had submitted, and I couldn't grasp something they asked me to do, but that was fine. We then talked about general interests in Music.

I read about three books in preparation, one quite general one, and two more specific ones about areas of music I was interested in. I did quite a lot of listening, again to areas of music I mentioned in my personal statement that I was interested in. I also did general research online into the history of my interests etc. My school organised a mock interview for me. It wasn't really much help in terms of teaching me what the interview questions would be like. But it was more like a teaching session of things I didn't know in areas I said I was interested in.

The interviews can actually be quite fun! I found it really quite stimulating being able to talk to people, who I knew were experts in their field, about things that I was really passionate about. It's almost like a practice for the supervision teaching that you would get at Cambridge.

Also, trust that they know what they're doing when it comes to putting you in the right college. I actually didn't like Pembroke as a college that much when I stayed overnight, and now I know that them putting me in Newnham was a much better fit for me! I was also interviewed by the Director of Studies at Newnham as part of the interview at Pembroke, and I liked her best out of all the interviewers. So being pooled can actually be a really great thing.