Law @ Jesus, Oxford in 2015

Interview format

2x 20-30 min interviews, 1 day apart

Interview content

Interview 1: personal statement, case given beforehand; Interview 2: made-up problem

Best preparation

Practise timed essays (typed)

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Don't give up if you think your first interview didn't go well.

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: LNAT

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 1 day

Length of interviews: 20-30 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In the first interview, they asked me a question about something niche I'd mentioned on my personal statement. Then we got into discussing some of a case I'd been given about 20 minutes before the interview.

In the second one we talked about a made up problem - it was quite abstract. It started off with a discussion of whom something that you found would belong to, and then there were various variations on this.

How did you prepare?

I did lots of multiple choice practice, read "pros and cons" (debating handbook - would recommend), and practised lots of essays timed (typing). My school did some practice interviews, and I had a friend of a friend give me a 20 min practice interview on Skype. Other than that, I did not do very much preparation - except panic reading some books I claimed to have read on my personal statement.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

I really enjoyed the interviews (at least one of them). The other one I came out of practically crying; its very usual for your second one to go much better, so don't give up if the first one doesn't feel like its going to plan - it's always hard to tell.