Economics @ Trinity, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

Economics Admissions Assessment; 1x interview.

Interview content

Interview: Article discussion (given shortly before interview), maths questions.

Best preparation

Mock interviews, reading the news for current economic events.

Final thoughts

Get comfortable working through questions out loud.

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: Economics Admissions Assessment (ECAA)
Number of interviews: 1
Time between interviews: N/A
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I was provided with the article I would be discussing roughly 30 minutes before my interview which I made notes on. In the interview I had a discussion about my thoughts on the article.

I was then provided a maths worksheet, the questions from which I worked out in writing as well as verbally, explaining myself as I went. These questions were mildly economics-related, so I tried to bring in economics-related ideas when thinking about the questions.

It really was like a discussion, when I became stuck the interviewers would help me in the right direction and I felt able to argue an opposing viewpoint to my interviewers at one point. I think they want to see how you think and whether you can talk about your subject in this way, more than how much you know.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I had been told by the college that the interview would comprise two parts: first going through an economics-focused article I would read directly before the interview, and second, answering maths-based questions.

I asked my economics teachers to have a mock interview with me based on the first part of my actual interview, then had a previous student of my school who had gone to study economics at Cambridge also give me a mock interview mostly on maths-related areas.

In addition to this I keep reading the news and publications like The Economist so I would be able to demonstrate and apply my knowledge of current economic events and performance.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Free online resources like past papers and mock questions

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Looking back I would say the best thing to do to prepare would be to try to get comfortable talking about your subject and your thought process when you’re working through questions. Ultimately the interviewers want to decide whether you would do well learning from the supervision syste. It’s absolutely fine if it doesn’t fit you, whether you get in does not define your intelligence.