University of Bristol Foundation in arts and social sciences

[Brickingmyself]

Have applied for this course and been given an interview. Felt quite confident. Just been given interview slot and the email says they are doing interviews all day long for a fortnight! Don't know how many places there are on the course but starting to feel I may as well withdraw as there must be tons and tons of applicants. Won't know if I've got a place till May. AIBU to just think "fuck it" and withdraw as the competition is clearly really stiff?? Does anyone know how many people interview vs how many places there are??

Why would you withdraw? You've applied foe a place, interviewed and need to wait for outcome
Don't torpedo your chances as you might get offered a place

There must be some stats online about % interviews whi get a place but really it is moot now - you either get offered a place or you don't. Pack in the impatience and self sabotage , wait for you place offer or decline .

If it makes you feel better then maybe work out your contingency plan if you don't get offered a place, but surely you want to wait to see after all your effort

Nothing ventured (or risked) nothing gained

Wait for your pace offer or rejection I meant to type

Do not decline the place because you're too impatient, as you'll never know

Give it a go, why not! You'd regret not trying more than trying but failing

From looking at the course, it seems like there’s several different streams which makes me think there’s likely a fairly large number of places. In my own university, arts and social sciences take on the largest number of students compared to other faculties so I would think that there are more places than you think!

Also, why would you take yourself out of the running completely, you’re definitely not getting in if you don’t interview! What’s the downside of doing the interview?

My mum always says, if you’re not in you can’t win!

I have very severe anxiety and I'm really crap in interviews it is a weird kind of coping mechanism I have where I pre-empt failure by withdrawing. It is very unhealthy!

I can't see any stats online and there isn't even anything on The Student Room either. Gahhh!

I feel you op I also suffer from really bad anxiety and hate interviews. Unfortunetly it is a part of life. I find being super prepared helps me.
I never interviewed for an undergrad so I dont know the procedure but I'm sure you can Google the format and common questions asked.
Do you know anyone who has had these sorts of interviews? Can you ask them to grill you? Is there a career councillor or something in your school who could give you some tips?
Over the years my anxiety about interviews has gone down but it still affects me. My point of view is every interview ( even for the posts I didnt get) gave me the experience and practice to do well in the interviews where I did get the post.
Hope that helps and good luck

YABVU

I've got some experience of university interviews from a professional point of view.

A lot of the time, these interviews are used to
A) market the university and try to increase the chances of the student choosing them as firm. You've probably not had a chance to go to an open day etc due to COVID, so this is doubly true at the moment

B) make sure the student understands what they're applying for - especially in the situation of a non-standard course like the one you've applied for.

C) try and give off the impression that the course is more competitive than it really is, thus improving its desirability.

I can also promise you that

• the interviewers aren't there to try and catch you out - they really do want to see the best of each candidate!
• they've seen some absolute car crashes of interviews before, so if you can get through it while stringing some vaguely sensible sentences together, you've probably outperformed most of the other applicants.

If you do come across any statistics about the number of applicants per place, remember that everyone applies for 5 courses, so the benchmark should be 5 applications per place. If they're getting 10-15 applications then it will be genuinely competitive. If they're only getting 3 applications per place then they'll be taking anyone who has the grades or is likely to come close.

GO TO THE INTERVIEW!

Thank you. Don't know anyone else on the course, it is for mature students so not at school and can't ask careers counsellor. It is just too much... I am so tempted to just bow out now!!

Why would you do this? The course I did at uni is very competitive and only three Universities in my area did the course. There were approximately 7,000 applicants and they could only give 100 places. I was one of them. Believe in yourself and do damn hard in your interview.

Omg Secular what course was that?! I find it very hard to believe in myself unfortunately I do want this place badly though 😕

It's likely those interviewing will also be interviewing for other courses as well if it's a broad course. Just go for it.

Sorry, worded badly, I mean the lecturers may be doing 2 weeks solid but for other courses too

Everyone is telling you to go for it. I know it’s easy to say but have faith in yourself. You’ve got time to practice. I’m sure we can find some example questions and people who have done similar courses who can give you questions to prep. Do you know anyone who can do a couple of practice interviews. If the call is on zoom then you can have some prompts behind the camera to help. As a starter I’d suggest prepping:
Tell me about yourself (they mean tell me why you want to do this course and what you will use the foundation to do/ where do you see this qualification taking you?
What are you passionate about?
What do you think about the curriculum. What areas are you interested in. (hint, look at the curriculum).
Why do you want to come to Bristol?
If you had to write a personal statement they will probably ask you to expand on a few areas so make sure you have reminded yourself what you wrote.
Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

Thank you I am feeling slightly more positive now.

Well if you pull out of the interview you 100% won't get the place.
Give yourself a chance - you deserve it. The worst outcome from an interview is that you don't get it, and that's no worse than if you didn't give it a go.

Remember that a lot of the people who have applied will have applied to multiple universities - most younger students do, as they just move to whichever one they pick, it's standard practice. So even if there are a lot of applicants it's entirely possible that half of those attending would take a different offer anyway.
I panicked at the numbers when I went for a group interview for my degree course, as I know how many spaces there were - but I'm pretty sure (going from SM comments online) that everyone who wanted a space got in - they even ended up taking some students through clearing as there were 'spare' spaces in the end.

I think because it's mature / returning students applying and we already have families etc., most people are only applying to this one course 😕 It's not through ucas or anything.

I know the University of Bristol quite well. I don't know this programme but would definitely go to the interview - no need to make assumptions about how many places they can offer. Indeed, if you have this kind of question you could use the interview as a chance to ask it. i would expect the interviewers to be positive, friendly, polite and professional.

It helped me to think of these situations as a practice run... I would use it for the next - 'real' - interview/driving test/ whatever. Because there will always be another opportunity. Breathe. Prepare. And know this is not a once only opportunity

I've worked in university admissions, I agree with a PP, the interviewer won't be trying to catch out. It won't be like a job interview. Usually, the interview is more like an informal chat, they want to get to know you, find out why you want to study that subject, what you are passionate about. They want to offer you a place, not to put hurdles in your way to weed you out.

I was going to say similar to @Allington. If I was convincing myself that I was never going to get a place and finding it hard to believe otherwise I think I would try to go to the interview with the mindset of "I'm not going to get this course but this is a good pressure free practice interview".

That would allow me to relax a little, see it as an opportunity to improve my interview technique and see what types of questions they ask.

Two weeks of interviews might only mean 20 interviews spaced out in chunks over the days, not hundreds of interviews one after another. Uni staff are so busy, especially right now.

You could ask how many people they're interviewing or what the application/offer rate is.

Thank you for all the lovely suggestions - am feeling a bit more positive now I think I will just use the interview as a "dry run" xx

@Brickingmyself

Omg Secular what course was that?! I find it very hard to believe in myself unfortunately I do want this place badly though 😕

It was Speech and Language Therapy. Very difficult as there's only three or two I think... Universities that do it in our area. I didn't get it the first time but I reapplied the following year and got it the second time. Even if you don't get pass this interview (and remember this quote) try, try, try again. What helped was that I went to a Joh advisor, who taught me interview techniques, the right things to say, the right things to research in preparation. Now that Lockdown is easing and many things companies are turning to online platforms. This is something that you could do?