Psychology (Experimental) @ St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 2020

Interview format

2 x 1 hour interviews, 2-3 days apart

Interview content

Discussed research methods for different areas of psychology together with personal statement

Best preparation

Had mock interviews; researched different areas of psychology; revised research methods

Test preparation

Practice papers

Final thoughts

Relax, be yourself, and don't worry if you make mistakes or need prompts

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: Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: They were on separate days I think about 2-3 days apart
Length of interviews: 1hr ish
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Most of my interviews were on research methods but related to a specific area of psychology, all of the questions also involved a specific experiment I had to answer questions about - I didn’t need to know background info on these experiments, I just needed to use the knowledge I had of research methods and experimentation to answer the questions and also suggest potential problems with/reasons for certain results. I was only asked about my personal statement in one interview but it is definitely worth going over it and making sure you can provide more detail on the things you have written about. I felt very nervous in my first interview and I didn’t think I did very well but my second interview went amazingly as I was more used to the experience and I ended up getting into that college so the tutors must have thought I did well as well! Mine was online so it was probably less stressful then an in-person interview. I’d say a myth about interviews are that they ask weird questions like describe the colour yellow etc. - I didn’t have any weird questions like this but I’m not sure if they could come up in other subjects or at other colleges!

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I researched different areas in psychology and, specifically, the areas the researchers studied as I thought they were most likely to ask questions about those areas. I also revised lots of research method related questions as I heard the ep interviews were largely surrounding this and specific experiments. I also had mock interviews done at my school to help me prep. I think the best thing I did was the mock interview and preparing research method related questions and there were lots of these.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

I did all the practice papers available online.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Relax and be yourself, the tutors also don’t care if you make mistakes just if you change your mind tell them what your new thoughts are. They also don’t expect you to know the answer to every question they want to see if you will fit the teaching style at Oxford (in a small group with a tutor), and will give you prompts to help you get to the answer. This is a good thing if it happens it means you are responding well to what the teaching style will be!