Philosophy, Politics And Economics @ Jesus, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

1x 20 min interview

Interview content

Economics and politics/philosophy problems, given beforehand

Best preparation

Timed practice papers

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Read over personal statement. You're not expected to know everything.

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: TSA

Number of interviews: 1

Skype interview: No

Length of interview: 20 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I had only one interview for PPE that lasted about twenty minutes and was carried out by four professors. About an hour an a half before the interview, I was given some materials to look at.

The interview was roughly split into two parts. In the first half we covered the economics-related problem and in the second half the politics/philosophy problem. The first task was a problem solving exercise related to economics - it required no particular economics knowledge and only very basic mathematical skills. I was given a list of questions, along with about a page of information, beforehand, which I worked through and jotted down answers for. I took these into the interview, where we discussed the questions on the sheet. The second half of the interview was more focused on politics and philosophy, and we discussed the short article (about two or three pages) that I had been given.

The whole process was intimidating, but that's natural. The interview was quite structured, in that I was answering a series of questions, but there is definitely an aspect of discussion.

How did you prepare?

I did the most recent practice papers under the same conditions as the test to get good experience of the timings.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

In all honesty, I didn't do much preparation for my interview. I was advised that you couldn't prepare, and the people who told me that were right! Of course it is a good idea to read over your personal statement in case you happen to be asked about it, and to have an idea of how you would answer some generic questions such as 'Why do you want to study this?', but the interview is not a test so you don't need to cram loads of information!

The interview totally went against what I was expecting. I imagined an intense debate where I would be challenged to robustly defend my arguments. In reality, the interview was based around a set of questions that aimed to show the interviewers my thought process. They're not expecting you to know everything - in fact they don't want you to know everything. They want to know how you think and reason.