Test taken: MAT

Number of interviews: 3

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: same day - 9:30, 11:30, 17:30 (although this is rare)

Length of interviews: 30 minutes each

The tutors gave me a problem that I would easily recognise as A level esque, and then they'd take the problem and make it harder to see how I coped. In one interview they asked me about where I was from to help me settle in and get relaxed. In another interview they also asked me what I had been studying recently and they used that to decide which problem I would be facing first.

I did the past papers and talked about the problems with my friend who was also sitting the MAT.

My further maths teacher got everyone applying for anything that was maths/science to go to one classroom in our free periods to solve difficult maths problems and then explain our reasoning to the rest of the group. I think that this helped my application, but it was the only preparation I did so I don't know if something else would have been more effective.

I was expecting everyone else to be so much posher than me but that didn't turn out to be true, everyone was very friendly. I expected the interview questions to be challenging and they were, I thought I had no chance of getting an offer. If I was going to do something differently, I would have given myself more time to arrive on the first day, I had a connecting train get cancelled and another delayed, which caused me a lot of undue stress. I would say that you should aim to arrive in Oxford at least 60 minutes before they recommend you arrive. You probably won't have an interview on the first day but it helps if you're not concerned about missing anything. The only thing I could have missed was a briefing from the tutors on what to expect, but I was concerned they'd view arriving late as a sign of disrespect.

Now I understand that the tutors were only interested in viewing my mathematical ability and how I responded to challenging problems.