Medicine @ Worcester, Oxford in 2016

Interview format

2x 20-25 min interviews & 3x 15-20 min interviews, over 2 days

Interview content

Science questions, logic puzzles, some discussion of personal statement

Best preparation

Past papers

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Apply for summer schools; go to open days, if you can; the interviewers just want to see how you think.

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: BMAT

Number of interviews: 5

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: 2 at Worcester one afternoon; 3 at Merton one morning

Length of interviews: 20-25 minutes at Worcester; 15-20 minutes at Merton

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

All interviews contained mainly science questions and logic puzzles, with a small bit talking about my personal statement at the beginning of one for each college.

I was super nervous for the first one but then relaxed into it once I started chatting my to the interviewers.

The atmosphere was far less intimidating than I’d expected and genuinely was just a discussion with experts rather than an interrogation.

How did you prepare?

I did practice papers from BMAT website.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

Apply for summer schools (e.g. UNIQ)! Being at summer school gave me so much information that my school couldn’t have given me and also gave me something extra to talk about on my personal statement.

If you can get to open days then do, and chat to students doing your subject. They’ll always be full of great advice and will want to help out.

My expectation of Oxford has been completely changed since being there, there are way more ‘normal’ people than I expected and tutors are so supportive - so it’s a great environment for learning well - rather than just being terrifying all the time. Interviewers just want to see how you think so don’t worry about knowing everything going into an interview, they just want to see how you approach problems and how your mind works.