Continuation of Oxbridge 2025

[BananasAllofIt]

I for one still have a kid waiting to hear about interviews. Thought I'd carry it over...

Sorry to hear this. These interviews are so stressful for young people. I am sure he’ll have come across really well and can’t remember all the great bits.

My DS1 also has two interviews on Monday at one college for Maths, first thing in the morning and early afternoon, a few hours apart - his application was an open one. I have no idea what this means but I'm already worried that I keep asking him too many nosy questions when I get the chance!

Exactly the same for my son for Maths. Only the one college, the one he chose! Another poster said her daughter had the same and is now studying at Oxford so maybe there is nothing in it. My DS is concerned that everyone else he knows has interviews at two colleges. However, he read somewhere that Maths do initial interviews at one college and then get some get offered an interview at another college-so maybe the dept just do it differently to other subjects. Good luck to your DS.

Out of curiosity, any former Oxbridge parents here who remember their interviews or if we prepared for them? I literally remember nothing, not the interview, the subject, the room, nothing. And I don't remember being prepared for it or preparing for it? Can anyone else remember what it was like (humanities subject). Obviously far more competitive now and far more students. Am I obtuse or was it much, much more laid back in the day?

I think maybe it was more relaxed. I don’t remember much about my university interviews, but it was over 40 years ago! My DS is just making sure he knows his PS well just in case he does get a question in it. He says he has no idea what Maths he will be asked to do but assumes it will be based on FM A level or questions similar to the Maths Olympiad.

Good luck to your son too @Gina555

I didn't apply to Oxford and I rather doubt I would have got in - but I think I got offers for all 5 universities I did apply to, no interviews needed (which for me was a good thing - whereas my DS1 is a much more confident creature and I think/hope he's got an opportunity to shine.

On results day I didn't get my predicted grades and panicked a little before the other girl from school who did exactly the same A level combination pointed out that I had just above what I needed.

At school some of us including me did get called into the Sixth Form Head's office for a "have you thought about applying for Oxbridge?" chat.

From what I've read, questions are difficult but they're interested in how interviewees respond to the challenge, discuss it, reason - the way DS1 put it is they want to know he's teachable, and that he'll benefit from the tutorial system - I think that the tutorial system is what has made him so enthusiastic about applying to Oxford.

I just read the message again and read it correctly this time 🤣-I didn’t apply to O or C either…but did have interviews at universities.

I remember an alternate system called "7th term"....at school full-time after results so grades in hand - then I think an entrance exam and/or interview in the Dec. This was 1985 at a private school....dont know if private schools still do this?

I was a Cambridge NatSci from 1996 and remember 3 interviews at the college I applied to and answering a question about projectiles in one and a general interview including the question ‘are you ambitious’

I was then pooled and went back to Cambridge to the college I eventually went to for an interview in January. Just technical questions that time I think and only one interview. No preparation really and no pre assessment. But I did then have to do STEP as part of my offer. Didn’t get the 1 they wanted but they let me in anyway with my 3 As and 2 in STEP. No such thing as an A* then.

I applied to Oxford in the mid-90s and remember it all pretty well. Back then you could choose to do an entrance exam and if you did well, you could get an offer of EE - and basically relax about your A Levels. I was at a state comp and they told us not to do that as the private school kids would be much better prepared for the exam than us, so we all went down the interview route, which was more similar to how it is today.
We stayed in college for 2 nights. There was a brief translation/grammar test (I did MFL) and then you were given a poem/prose extract to discuss in the interviews. I remember the discussion about the poem quite well. I felt at the time like I got fixated on a small detail and kept bringing it all back to that and should maybe have been a bit broader in my focus. Then you had to hang around and keep checking the porter's lodge in case you were on a list for a 2nd interview at another college (which happened to my friend from school at the very last minute so we missed our train home).
The other thing I remember vividly was that if you hadn't had your letter of acceptance/rejection by a certain date you could ring college to find out. That happened to me and I had to phone from the Head of Sixth Form's office. And then I was allowed to stay in his office and call both my parents at work to tell them I'd got in!

I interviewed for law at Oxford in the very early 90s. I remember walking in to see the tutor sitting on the floor hugging a mug, saying "hope you don't mind, it's my tea break". Being a polite, privately educated convent school girl, I said, no, it's fine. Now I would say that I'd rather she waited until after my interview to have her break....I sometimes wonder to this day whether that was part of the test?!

I was woefully underprepared and tried my best, and thought it was ok, not brilliant, but thought I'd acquitted myself well enough. We stayed in college for two nights, which was fun. However, no offer was forthcoming and my English teacher was livid with me for applying for law - he said that I 'would have walked in for English'. In hindsight, it was right - I was in no way clever enough for Oxford law - so went off to do Russian in the West Country instead!

Back then you could choose to do an entrance exam and if you did well, you could get an offer of EE - and basically relax about your A Levels.

The Head Girl at my school achieved an EE offer from Oxford (basically an unconditional) - but maybe she relaxed too much because she only got one E - or maybe something dreadful happened to her in life in between offer and exams. Unsurpisingly they didnt take her.

@pandapoop Oh god, poor girl. I never heard of anyone doing that before. The people I know who did get the EE offer all still did really well in their A Levels - I think I would definitely have relaxed and underperformed if it had been me.

@maybemedmum @pandapoop I also got one of the exam based EE offers for English at Cambridge, which did make life much less stressful. I learned after the event that my father was terrified that I would take them at their word; he massively underestimated how competitive I was. But back then we also had an interview as well as the exam.

My interview was in college, with an overnight as I came from the north-west. I don't remember that much about it, although I mostly felt that it was an interesting chat rather than an interrogation. I came from a mid-range comp, so the only prep I had was a copy of Bleak House thrown at me and told to get on with it. I've never really reconciled to Dickens envy now. The most fun was meeting lots of other applicants on the overnight, and almost getting a preview of what college might be like. But I was the only one from my group who got in.

In other news, DD had her second, MFL interview yesterday and really enjoyed it - she had to talk about an unseen poem, then discuss some of the reading from her PS and then discuss whether dialects should be studied. For her college, she's 'met' at the start of each interview by current students who just check the tech is working and then tell her that the tutors must already like her because she's got an interview, which is a really nice touch.

7th term was still the exam, but in private schools you could stay on for an extra term and do it then, whereas us state plebs had to do it '4th term' i.e. in the first term of what was then upper sixth. Which did give them quite the advantage. But no, this doesn't happen now.

Well, ds has finished his two O interviews for chemistry now. He finds out on Monday if he'll have any more.
The first interview wasn't perfect, but ds felt confident about what he was asked and managed to solve everything. He came out in good spirits.
The second interview was a completely different kettle of fish. Had "no idea what the guy was on about ". And didn't receive any encouragement or guidance. He came out feeling very dejected. Now he thinks both interviews didn't go well.

I think this must be par for the course. We told ds all along that he's likely to not know it all, otherwise what would the point be? Ds goes to a state college that sends virtually nobody to Oxbridge, so he's just done the prep on his own. I've just told him it's not over until he actually gets the rejection.

I got an EE offer back in the day, fell off to ABB in my A levels and received what I remember as a total bollocking (in reality probably some disappointed headshaking) on arrival at Oxford in October.

Suspicion always was that the EEs were a way of bringing in the "right" candidates with the "right" schools or backgrounds or sporting abilities (none of which includes me, btw) so thank goodness they've gone.

7th team ended the year before I applied, most at my school (private) did the 4th term exams but I went for the interview and conditional entry route which had been introduced to give a more equal playing field for state school candidates.

In my first choice of college I had an awful interview and came out in tears - a scary tutor with some of his fingers missing who held up skulls that I couldn't identify and I felt very hopeless. I still feel ill thinking about that 30 mins of my life.

Then called up the next day by my third choice college and a college I hadn't listed for a joint interview (in those days you listed three colleges) In that interview Oxford asked why I didn't take the 4th term exam and I said I was too busy doing my DoE, Lifesaving Awards and Queen's Guide over the summer to prepare for 4th term exams. A bit cheeky but I was given an AAB offer (standard then before A stars). That was a much better interview - challenging but a really good vibe.

Also I was interviewed by several of my other uni choices as well so spent much of the autumn term on trains tootling around different unis. Happy memories.

Oh my god. I did the exam! I must have got an unconditional offer without doing an interview. No wonder I can't remember it.
most of the other universities interviewed then, all gave unconditional offers. One gave me an offer in the interview.
i was absolutely not a stellar student (one of my a levels was a D). It was so much easier back then!

I applied post A-level so didn’t have to do the entrance exam. Remember going up to stay for a few days and have vague memories of being sat across from three people on a big wooden table. Also running to try to find the other college I’d been sent to interview at. Don’t remember doing much prep tbh - though I did read a New Scientist on the train on the way up. I enjoyed staying and meeting other applicants. Different times!

@rainypane That's hilarious! At least you don't have some sort of horrible repressed memory of a nightmare interview.

I remember mine (PPE 1989!!) extremely clearly. I remember exactly who was there, what they asked, what I wore (skirt that was a bit too short), how I sat (very awkwardly, because of low soft chair and said skirt), how I felt (wrongly as if they'd stopped extra quickly because they had clearly decided I was no!) ...I remember being given a short passage in advance and going to the bookshop to check the meaning of some hard words in a dictionary.

Maybe I remember it more clearly as I was then taught in the same place by the same tutors. Though I have also spoked to other people who remember it very clearly too.

Now I'm doing admissions interviews myself, I am afraid I don't remember the interviews at all a week after the event. I'm also surprised by the students who show up! Even more so now it is online.

I did the exam too. But still needed to do the interview to get the unconditional offer. I thought everyone did at that point. But it may have been different at different times/courses/colleges.

In my day (interview in 1989) everyone who took the exam got an unconditional (EE) offer. Nothing to do with being the "right" anything. I wasn't aware of anyone at that time getting EE offers without doing the exam.