Mathematics And Statistics @ St Catherine's, Oxford in 2017

Interview format

3x 30 min interviews, over 2 days

Interview content

Personal statement, maths problems (logical reasoning, probability, geometry, proof)

Best preparation

Have a good general grasp of maths; do practice papers.

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Practise verbalising thoughts and thinking about new problems.

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: MAT

Number of interviews: 3

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: 1 in morning, 1 in afternoon, 1 the next day

Length of interviews: about 30 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

At the beginning of the interviews, the tutors asked me about something that was in my personal statement. I think this was to put me at ease, and I didn't feel like I was really being judged on my answer. We moved onto the mathematics pretty quickly. I was asked about three questions per interview; sometimes, the tutors handed me a piece of paper with some quick, "instant" questions to answer to begin with. The questions varied; I got questions on logical reasoning, probability, and geometry, and I got asked about a proof.

Before my first interview, I was understandably a bit tense. The tutors were very friendly, though, and definitely helped me relax. I emerged from my first interview with renewed confidence! My other two interviews felt more "formal", although I never felt too pressured.

One final note: as an international student, I was worried that I'd get a question on material I hadn't covered yet. I didn't; the vast majority of questions I was asked required very little theoretical knowledge. If I were to do it all over again, though, I'd tell myself not to be afraid of getting in touch with the college to ask about what I'm supposed to know.

How did you prepare?

Have a good general grasp of maths; do practice papers.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

I hope this doesn't sound too cliche, but I feel like the best preparation I did was just my years-long study of Maths. That really is the starting point, and most of my interview preparation was finding ways to allow it to shine through.

I practiced explaining my thought process out loud, and speculating about new problems. To give myself an idea of what the interview would be like, I found the university's website to be helpful. The sample questions there are good and representative, although there weren't very many, so I then searched the internet for more questions.