Theology, Religion, And Philosophy Of Religion @ Pembroke, Cambridge in 2016

Interview format

3x interviews (20 mins)

Interview content

1st interview: concept of religion; 2nd interview: aspects of personal statement & A level; 3rd interview: pre-interview text, personal statement & submitted essays

Best preparation

Mock Interviews; Cambridge HE+ website

Final thoughts

Try & visit Cambridge before the interview; enjoy your time while you're in the city

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

3 interviews total. I had two at my chosen college (Pembroke) in the morning, and an additional interview at Newnham in the afternoon.

At Pembroke I first had an interview with the theology DoS (also in the room was a graduate student who was just observing and did not contribute) lasting about 20 minutes. The second interview was a more general interview with an English fellow, which lasted a bit longer. Both were simple question+answer/discussion interviews with no stimuli.

At Newnham just before the interview I was brought to a private office where I had ~15-20 minutes to read over an article related to the subject. I was then interviewed by two fellows, starting by discussing the article and then branching out from there. Interview lasted about 20 minutes.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Pembroke (with DoS) - Discussed the concept of religion & its relationship with/difference to ideologies. I felt ok with this as I'd thought about the idea before. We then discussed prayer, its meaning & significance.

Pembroke (with another fellow) - The fellow told me she was particularly interested in medieval religious writings, and we discussed a lot about language. She knew I had studied Latin A level from my UCAS form and in my personal statement I had said how interested I was to learn a scriptural language. We discussed the value of reading translations vs the original - this interview was more interesting, but I didn't feel like I did very well and came out a bit disappointed.

Newnham (two interviewers) - The article was about the relationship between religion & politics. We didn't discuss the article itself for too long, but I did have to show that I understood it. Later we talked about some stuff from my personal statement and the essays I had sent in which talked about Virtue Ethics. They also picked up on some unfortunate phrasing from my SAQ, where I had said I initially decided to apply for theology "on a whim" (awkward). Some people might think having multiple interviewers would be more intimidating but I enjoyed this interview the most, as it felt more like a relaxed discussion between a group and was pretty chilled out!

How did you prepare?

A couple of mock interviews at school. Cambridge's HE+ website also has some free resources for reading around your subject and looking at topics you might not cover in school - they also have some questions and tasks with them to help you analyse the writing.

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

Open days are definitely helpful so that you're at least a bit familiar with your surroundings/the college grounds to ease interview day stress - or if that's not possible, the porters are very friendly and will be able to direct you! It's also good to potentially be able to see your subject's DoS before applying so if you do get called to interview, you might just know your interviewer already. I met my dos one-on-one at the September open day, and although I don't know if he remembered me, knowing who he was certainly helped before being interviewed by him.

Also, my biggest tip - enjoy your time in the city!!! I see over and over again how you should enjoy your interview because it's a subject you love, which isn't wrong - but make the most of the rest of the day and try and see a bit of the area around you if you can. It might just relieve the stress and nerves before or after interviews. (I had the most delicious blueberry pancakes between my interviews and honestly it was the highlight of my day.)