Economics And Management @ St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

2 x 25 min interviews TSA

Interview content

A brief question on my personal statement, and then two problems, one on a straight line graph about wages and years in education and the other was a game theory problem about second-hand bikes. Some pre-reading about irrationality and had a discussion with the tutors about it.

Best preparation

news articles on recent economic events, and also did some research on the financial crash, and problem-solving questions

Test preparation

TSA past papers, A-Level philosophy questions

Final thoughts

Say your working out loud so the tutors can help if you're going wrong

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: Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 1 day
Length of interviews: about 25 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I had one economics and one management interview. The economics one started with a brief question on my personal statement, and then I did two problems, one on a straight line graph about wages and years in education and the other was a game theory problem about second-hand bikes (a bit like George Akerlof's Lemons problem). I was very nervous and made a few stupid mistakes (like getting the scale on the graph wrong) but the tutors were very nice about letting me have another go. In the second one, I had some pre-reading about irrationality and had a discussion with the tutors about it. I really enjoyed the discussion, with some questions on content from the reading and some applying the reading to another situation, i.e. how social norms impact what house you might buy

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I read some news articles on recent economic events, and also did some research on the financial crash. I asked some people in older years for any advice they had from applying and they advised me just to stay calm and not panic. I think the best preparation was some problem-solving questions I found online that involved working backwards from a final situation (pirates and the gold coins, selling ice cream on the beach problem).

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

I did the past papers on the TSA website and marked them to get a feel for timing and question style. I also looked at some A-Level philosophy questions to better understand the questions about argument structure

What advice would you give to future applicants?

I think the most important thing is to try and stay calm, and just work through the problem but say your working out loud so the tutors can help if you're going wrong. Also having a good understanding of basic differentiation and Year 12 maths would definitely help with confidence, even if it's unlikely to come up