Natural Sciences (Physical) @ Newnham, Cambridge in 2019

Interview format

Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment; 2x Interviews.

Interview content

Mix of personal statement questions and proble questions.

Best preparation

Read over your personal statement and do mock interviews.

Test preparation

Do practice questions and understand the test specifications.

Final thoughts

Don't be afraid if you make mistakes! The interviewers are there to guide you throughout the interview.

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: 2
Time between interviews: 4 hours
Length of interviews: 45 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Both interviews followed a general pattern of personal statement questions and then two problem questions delivered by one interviewer while the other took notes. The atmosphere was slightly stressful at the beginning for both but I relaxed way more as I worked through the problems and focused on them. In the second interview I often got stuck and had to be helped through the problem, but rather than that being an awful mistake as some people may say, those were the problem questions I enjoyed the most and I think showed my enthusiasm for the subject as I came up with different approaches and wasn't daunted when some weren't exactly the right path to take.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I read over my personal statement and identified any key areas the interviewers could ask me about to make sure I understood them and could talk about them fairly confidently. As well, I asked my teachers for a lot of mock interviews which were very useful for getting me used to the feeling of an interview and hence how to keep my cool in the real one.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Lots and lots of practice questions as well as looking over the specification closely to see exactly what areas I needed to concentrate on for different sections of the exam. Closer to the exam I did more timed practice papers and decided how much time I'd allow myself for each section before moving on.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

My advice would be don't panic when you think you've made a mistake or haven't got the solution the interviewers were looking for. They are there to guide you and are more interested in your thought process rather than you giving a 'perfect answer'. Also try to remain confident in yourself between interviews, it's often easy to over-analyse your previous interview and psyche yourself out for the next one. Rather just take on board what you think could have been better in the previous interview and treat the next one, as much as possible, as a fresh attempt with lots of willingness and enthusiasm.