Geography @ Jesus, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: physical geography, analysing graphs; Interview 2: human geography, using maps

Best preparation

Reviewed personal statement

Final thoughts

Try to use your existing knowledge when working with unfamiliar material

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: None
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: A day
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The interviews are not designed to work out how much or what you know, but how you work through problems and approach things that are challenging or unfamiliar.

My first interview was more Physical Geography based. There was one person asking questions and another taking notes. I was shown graphs and spatial data, which was extremely random, I assume to throw me off. I got frustrated because I knew what the answer was after unravelling it but thought it took me to long. I also got some data the wrong way around, but I laughed it off and tried again. During the interviews, the tutors gave little indication on how I was doing or whether I got answers correct or said what they wanted, which was a little unnerving but I tried not the think about it. At the end, they asked if I had any questions and I think I asked what would a typical week be like.

The next day I had the Human Geography interview. I was given a visual source to talk about. I was then given a map but I had to admit that I didn't know the definition of a particular word. This I think was in my favor, as I think they like it if you admit you don't know something - they can offer an answer to something small like that to allow you to answer the actual question, and this is what matters. The tutors were not scary at all, and I enjoyed the process. I was fairly ill during interviews, so did not socialise very much and was frankly a bit scared of the other candidates, as the Oxford stereotype (which is not true) was something I was told about was very different to myself. After my interviews, I convinced myself I was not getting in, but I guess they actually went okay!

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I had a mock interview at my college but it was more like a job interview, asking about why I wanted to go to Oxford. To prepare, I reviewed my personal statement, although they did not ask anything about this apart from saying they enjoyed reading it. I think the trick is to just be yourself, and this cannot be prepared in advance, but maybe try speaking to parents or friends about any problem or thing and practice walking through your thought process out loud in a way that can be followed, even by someone that may not know anything about the subject.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Be yourself! It is not about how intelligent you are, but how you work with what you know.