Oxbridge maths interview (my experience!)

Gone is 15th October and this means the UCAS Oxbridge application deadline has passed. Now it is time to start preparing a very likely interview…if this is your case, read this!

How did I prepare for my Cambridge interview? How was it?

This post is intended to help Oxbridge maths applicants who are preparing for an admissions interview. It may also be interesting for anyone, as I’ll explain my own experience facing the interview challenge. Please, note that I can’t speak about my interview questions due to college privacy requirements. Hence, I’ll focus on which papers and contents I worked through in order to perform well and obtain my Cambridge offer.

As an international student, I guessed that I was expected to know A-level stuff so I made a plan to learn the new things and tackle all the material I had available. Problem solving skills are also necessary so I thought it was a good idea to work through past papers of the Olympiads.

During August I did the following tasks:

-Read lots of maths books (where I got ideas for my Personal Statement).

-Past papers of Olympiads: most were from Maths, but I also used Physics ones to go through Mechanics stuff.

-Mathematics part of PAT (Physics Admissions Test for Oxford) past papers. (Which is easier than MAT).

-MAT past papers. Do them even if you aren’t applying to Oxford.

Then, when school started I reduced the workload. I found very useful the STEP Support Program weekly assignments (click here for the website)  and the Mechanics problems of PAT. I also taught myself a lot of contents which were on the STEP specification, but I didn’t practice on them -it was not useful for the interview, but it was a great start towards STEP once I got the offer: STEP Preparation: my experience

I didn’t apply to Trinity College, yet I worked on 3 specimen tests they have on their website (some problems were really hard, but was a good preparation). Some colleges dosay on their website that you need to take a test just before the interview, while others (like mine) don’t say that; but I think that at the end they all actually make you to sit one.

The following lines are all I can tell about my interviews. I had 75 minutes before my first interview to work through a paper. Some questions were straightforward, but the big ones were tough. The contents were common things but the questions required a systematic approach and problem solving skills. At the beginning of the interview, I was asked about a book I quoted on my PS. Then, we went together through one of the difficult problems (and I realised my previuos reasoning was completely wrong). My second interview was awful. It was analysis stuff: differentiation, integration, graph sketching… I messed it up on easy things and we run out of time to do Mechanics. I left the room, went to bathroom and cried. And then, I went back to Spain and I was very sad for a week. I thought I could have done much better. I thought I wasn’t getting into. But in January, I got my offer.

I have thought a lot about my interviews and I believe that even though I slipped on some basic stuff, I had done very difficult things with much ease, to the point that I didn’t even realise they were hard.

My advice is to focus on developing your problem-solving skills as much as you can (rather than learning new stuff senselessly).

Also, do try to keep calm before and during the interviews. I know it’s hard but, stressing out gets you nowhere.

I hope this helps someone. Feel free to ask anything!