Philosophy And Theology @ Keble, Oxford in 2017

Interview format

5x 20 min interviews

Interview content

Personal statement, logic questions, Bible extracts

Best preparation

Practice papers online, short introductions to philosophy and logic

Final thoughts

Spoke to teachers; looked online for advice and resources. Know your personal statement; go in with an open mind; be ready to discuss ideas and show your thought process.

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: Philosophy Test

Number of interviews: 5

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: sometimes a day; sometimes a few hours

Length of interviews: about 20 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

We talked about things I brought up in my personal statement. I was also given logic questions in philosophy to try to work through. In some interviews I was given texts from the Bible and asked questions about it.

How did you prepare?

I did the practice papers from the website, as well as reading short introductions about philosophy and logic.

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

I spoke to my Religious Studies teacher at school, who was very helpful, although he didn’t actually know a lot about Philosophy at Oxford. I also talked to other sixth form staff. I looked online for advice and resources.

The best thing is to be absolutely sure you know you can talk about the things you’ve said on your personal statement. Apart from that all you can do is go in with an open mind and be prepared to talk through your answers logically and have a discussion. They are looking more for how you got to an answer, rather than what your answer is. In the end you will enjoy it because you are just having a discussion, and, if you like the subject and have an aptitude for it, that will show.