Classics And English @ St Anne's, Oxford in 2017

Interview format

4x 30 min interviews, over 2 days

Interview content

Interview 1: unseen English passage, personal statement; Interview 2: unseen Classics-based passage, personal statement, written work; Interview 3: linguistics; Interview 4: Classics passage, personal statement, motivations

Best preparation

Practice papers

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Tried to read over texts; had practice interviews at school and through charity; found mentor. Don't mention things you haven't read in personal statement; socialise at 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: CAT

Number of interviews: 4

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: 3 on one day, 1 on next day

Length of interviews: 30 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

One interview was on an unseen English passage and a discussion of my personal statement.

The second interview was an unseen Classics-based passage and a discussion of my written work and personal statement.

The third interview was based on my language aptitude test and probing for my understanding of language and the way in which it works.

My fourth interview was another Classics passage and a discussion of my personal statement and reasons for applying for joint honours as opposed to single honours.

How did you prepare?

I used the practice papers from the Oxford website

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

To prepare I tried to go through my texts again. I had a practice interview in school and with a mentor from a charity. I think the best thing I did was to get a mentor because he really helped with normalising asking deep questions and challenging me, which I wasn’t used to. I wouldn’t put so many things in my personal statement that I hadn’t read because it just stressed me out closer to the time.

If I could do anything differently, I wouldn’t get so paranoid about reading everything up until the last moment. I spent a lot of time in my interview room reading by myself and it would have been better if I had more time out of my room and being a bit more social.