Natural Sciences (Physical) @ Selwyn, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment; 3x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: personal statement; Interviews 2 and 3: subject specific questions

Best preparation

Practise the NSAA under timed conditions and get used to explaining your thinking.

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: Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA)
Number of interviews: 3
Time between interviews: ~5 minutes
Length of interviews: ~10 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The first was a general interview more about me and why I chose the course. This allowed me to talk a bit about my personal statement as well as ask questions on the course. Overall the first interview was a pretty relaxed one.

The second and third were subject related (Physics and Chemistry respectively). These interviews focused on a particular area of the subject and would expand outwards, encouraging application of different areas of the subject. These two interviews contained questions to work through where I had to show my reasoning to get to a solution. They were more intense, and one I enjoyed more than the other as I felt I was on top of the questions whereas in the other I felt I was a few steps behind which played with nerves a bit.

How did you prepare?

For the NSAA, I did past papers under timed conditions. If at all possible, practise interviews with teachers and school staff. This is so important for getting over that 'I don't know what to do' feeling and being more confident in yourself, especially when you don't know the answer straight away. Not knowing something immediately is normal and another piece of advice would be to practice explaining what's going through your head when approaching a problem.