I had two interviews, one for each science I took. The physics interview was longer - around half an hour and I had two interviewers, each gave one question. Chemistry was 15-20 mins with only one interviewer. Students at the college guided me between interviews and were very helpful, they had an organised set-up where people would wait in the buttery. The interview was very discussional, not unlike solving a problem in class if you were the only pupil in it, and my interviewers were friendly.

There was very little discussion of personal statement aside from a quick query. Each question was subject based, grounded in concepts I knew from class. The physics ones were quite methodical and mathematically grounded, working with kinematics and unit-based analysis, while the chemistry question about isomers went a little deeper in exploring the topic, beyond what I had yet learned in class, though still keeping to things I would later learn before my exams. The physics questions were begun as a broad question, and then broken down by the interviewer if any concepts were unfamiliar, as in one case they were. The chemistry question was much more step-wise, doing a piece at a time and building to something that by itself might have been a trickier question on analysis and isomer separation.

My school had a group where we were asked past interview questions for practice, and in younger years the same group worked with smart students to get them used to debate and discussion. This was really good for confidence building. Most useful preparation was probably an interview at another uni that I did first, as I got all my nerves out the way by spending them on that. Nerves can make you make stupid mistakes, so anything that improves confidence like a practice interview is really good.

Confidence is most important! If you’ve gotten an interview then you’re definitely capable of acing it, you just need to keep calm :)