Test taken: Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: Five minutes
Length of interviews: Half an hour
Online interview: Yes

Of course I was very nervous for my interview, but we got the opportunity to speak to student helpers before our online interview started and it really helped to just try and relax and have a conversation with them before the interview. After getting through a few technical difficulties, I just tried to enjoy the interview and put on a smile! I would say it’s always good to try and look like you’re enthusiastic. I had my interview for Management first which was with two tutors, the lead tutor for Management at my college and an assistant. It started off with some generic questions about what I knew of Management (many people struggle with this so try and look up Management beforehand, if you’re applying for Economics and Management) and why I wanted to apply for the course. I wasn’t asked much about my personal statement but the interview developed into a discussion about current business affairs and a company of my choice. Therefore, this meant I could talk about something I was passionate about - try to research a few companies that you’re interested in beforehand. Next, I had my Economics interview. This briefly touched on my personal statement so, as I said, make sure you’re quite confident in talking about it. It progressed onto a worded maths problem, so make sure your maths skills are up-to-date, particularly calculus, logarithms, functions and probability. The interviewer and his assistant were really nice and helpful when I got stuck and, after working through difficult periods, I ended up performing pretty well on the question! Overall, the interviews were much more of a discussion about your subject, pretty chill, and the tutors are genuinely there to help you out!

Firstly, it’s completely normal to be nervous and anxious for your interview - I certainly was. The best advice I’d give is to, first of all, get used to speaking about your subject casually. Speak to your friends, parents or teachers about something you're passionate about, maybe by debating or giving a presentation? This will help you to sound natural and hopefully ease the nerves a bit nearer the time because essentially all the interview is is a conversation about your subjects (I promise they’re not as scary as they sound). Watch some example interviews online, these can be found on YouTube, for example, to get more familiar with their format. Definitely try to do a couple of more formal practice interviews with a friend, parent or teacher and discuss feedback afterwards. Leading up to the actual interview, I would say just make sure you're pretty solid on the foundations of your subject. I had never studied economics before so in the weeks leading up I made sure I went over principles using a textbook or YouTube. Try and be aware of current affairs within your subject, particularly for humanities subjects, because these will often come up at interviews as a discussion point. Lastly, make sure you know your personal statement well, especially any particular things you’ve mentioned like books.

I found the test really accessible in that I think most people could give it a good go without too much preparation! However, to be on the safe side, I would definitely recommend testing yourself with the past and specimen papers. Do as many as you can, you won’t regret it and they are actually quite interesting to do. Start by doing a few without a time limit so that you get used to the kind of questions asked. Make sure to mark each straight after you’ve completed them, clarifying any question that you don’t understand with a simple Google or YouTube search. Once you’re confident with the structure, start doing some timed, and be strict. Timing is one of the trickiest aspects so good practice on this is important. There are plenty of past papers so, unless you’ve done them all and still want extra practice, there’s rarely much benefit to buying a practice question book as these sometimes aren’t relevant. Good luck!

My advice would be to definitely apply if you’re considering it. There’s no harm in using up 1/5 of your choices on this and the experience alone is beneficial. I think I got really hung up on ‘Oxbridge’ and I actually think that some of those that did better were those that went into it with an open mind - it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get an offer! As I said, try and build experience in talking about your subjects because, if you go in with the right attitude, interviews are really just a conversation. Try and relax and see it as an opportunity rather than a test. Take your time with questions - it’s much better to ask for clarification than to rush to speak about something unrelated. If you can relate a topic that you’re really interested in with the question, try to, without forcing it!