Law @ St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 2016

Interview format

2x 30 min interviews, half a day apart

Interview content

Interview 1: A-levels, application of fictional laws to fictional situations, meaning of fictional statute; Interview 2: personal statement, case given night before

Best preparation

Know why you want to study your subject

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Be ready to defend or change your position, with reasons.

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: half a day

Length of interviews: about 30 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

1st interview:
I was given 1 question about my A levels. There was an exercise about applying fictional rules to fictional scenarios, and questions pushing this forwards. There was also a line of questions about determining the meaning of terms in a fictional statute.

2nd interview:
There was 1 question about something I mentioned in my personal statement. I had been given a short case to read the night before. I was invited to say whether I sided with the majority or minority, and questioned on my position. I now know that the theme was on positivism and natural law.

How did you prepare?

I did 3 online practice papers, and a practice book I bought.

There was no need to focus on 'Why Oxford?', 'Why this college?', etc., as I had thought.

There was no preparation needed really: some reading around law generally may help you approach some of the questions but is unlikely to give you any immediate answers or particularly applicable knowledge.

Know why you want to study your subject.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

It’s about how you think, so think out loud and have a go at everything. Be ready to defend your position and not afraid to admit you’re wrong or want to change your perspective, but explain why.