Economics And Management @ Brasenose, Oxford in 2015

Interview format

2x 20 min interviews (+ 20 min reading time); all in one day

Interview content

Both interviews: management article given beforehand; maths problem

Best preparation

Revise A-level content

Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Don't worry so much about knowing stuff outside school syllabus.

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: TSA

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: all in one day

Length of interview: 20 minutes; with 20 minutes beforehand to read an extract

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Both my interviews had the same format: We spent ten minutes on management, discussing a news article they asked me to read for twenty minutes beforehand. This didn't require any knowledge beforehand, it was far more important to see how you took on new information and how that inspired you to have different ideas. Then there was ten minutes on a maths problem for economics.

The atmosphere was always incredibly relaxing. The tutors weren't looking to slip me up.They wanted to simulate a tutorial and so wanted to foster as much discussion as possible and get me to present my ideas. With that in mind, don't be afraid to speak your thought process out loud and don't be afraid of saying something wrong. It's often far more important to see how you got to an answer, rather than the answer in itself.

How did you prepare?

Practice papers are the most useful source. A lot of TSA ability is intrinsic, so your best bet is to get your time management right by doing past papers.

For the essay question, I also read the news because the essays are often topical. You can do any question: don't feel you have to do the Economics one, for example, if you're applying for Economics.

For management, I would also recommend just reading about current affairs. The BBC (in particular the Companies section), the FT and the Economist are all good examples.

For maths, my questions covered areas like statistics, so swot up on what you have learnt in school (although only syllabus knowledge for the required subjects they ask for should be enough).

That's what my preparation mainly covered, and I think revising what I ought to know was really useful. I did extra things like read obscure management papers and that was a bit useless. People come from different backgrounds so, in my opinion, the only thing you can test on is common knowledge like A-levels.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

Don't get too stressed about already knowing everything about economics or management (people have hardly heard of management before uni!). With that in mind, I would probably not have spent so much time on beyond-syllabus stuff if I could do my interview process again.

Overall, I found my interview experience enjoyable and I think that's the aim - to show you how tutorials can be. So if you go in with an open mind just to try and get the most out of discussing a subject that you enjoy, with world leaders in that subject, I think you'll have a good time.