Test taken: ECAA (Economics Admissions Assessment)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: A few days
Length of interviews: c.20 minutes
Online interview: Yes

In one of my interviews I was asked about my personal statement briefly. I was asked to go into more detail on one of the topics I mentioned, and so I did. I then was asked to look at the reading and give my opinion on a specific part of it. I actually really enjoyed the pre-reading and had a lot of opinions on it, but found that the question I was asked was quite leading, so my preparation of writing down my thoughts hadn't really helped. Instead of trying to blend the question into something I had already thought of, I just embraced the new idea and answered the direct question, and I think that was important.

In my other interview, I was given a question where there was a choice of different goods at different prices and I was asked to choose which I would buy as a consumer, and why. I found that this felt quite easy and natural, and I think now that is largely because they were looking for intuition on game theory-style topics (obviously I did not realise that back then). It was the sort of question where there was no wrong answer but there were wrong explanations, but if you don't overthink those questions they tend to be quite enjoyable. If a question like this appears, the best thing you can do is make sure not to second guess yourself, regardless of the reaction of the interviewer. They may say something like 'that's an interesting choice, but have you considered xyz' to make sure you are confident in your answer, but also to challenge you in case they feel like you missed a point. As these questions have no 'right' answer, they will not be challenging your choice as much as they will be challenging your explanation for it, to make sure it is watertight.

Overall, the best thing for an enjoyable experience is to make sure that you are prepared on everything you 'should' be prepared on - aka if they ask about your personal statement you should be able to remember what you wrote (at the very least, re-read it the night before). However, if they ask you about a crazy maths function you haven't ever seen before, they aren't looking for a correct or perfect answer, they just want to know how you think, so don't work yourself up trying to get to a solution. For questions where there is no 'right' answer (such as my consumer question), try and consider all the possibilities from different points of view, because then you can be sure that the answer you choose is the optimal one.

To prepare for my interviews I went back through my personal statement and looked at each key subject I had mentioned an interest in and made sure I had something further to say on those. For example, I mentioned UBI in my personal statement, so I made sure I had memorised a good few facts about UBI and drafted up some ideas I had related to the subject that I could talk about when asked.

I also had a practice interview with my teacher, but unfortunately, as every college does their interviews differently, my practice interview wasn't that similar to how my actual interview turned out. I had prepared by making sure I was thoroughly up to date on everything I had learnt in maths and memorised a few functions that I could draw if asked. For the maths-based questions, I also practiced drawing functions I had never seen before in a limited amount of time by going through x = -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc as fast as I could to get a roughly plotted shape of the curve.

I was given some pre-reading material for one of the interviews and I made sure to read this in sufficient detail, but also printed out a copy and wrote all my opinions and notes in the margins so that when asked about a particular extract, I would be able to quickly remember what my initial thoughts were when I read it. As the interview was online I was able to keep a few materials (such as this printout) on my desk, but had it not been online I probably would have simply memorised my opinions on the various sections of the pre-reading.

I think my preparation had less of an impact than I imagined it would, because as I said every college operates differently. I prepared a lot for maths questions but didn't actually get any particularly tricky function questions. From talking to other people at uni, it appears that the economics interviews at more popular colleges include quite a lot of maths, but my interview for Girton was definitely more based on instinct and interest in economics than my ability to integrate a horrible-looking function on the spot.

I brought a book on Amazon with ECAA practice questions in it, and did the maths questions, and then marked them myself. I started maths prep in around August. For the essay side, I wrote a few essays a week and then gave a couple to my teacher for feedback so that I had something to work on each week.

I would advise applicants to be relatively confident in what they say, but if challenged by the interviewer, do not dismiss what the interviewer suggests without reason. Sometimes the interviewer may challenge you and expect you to dismiss them, so they are challenging you to see what reason you would give. Sometimes they will challenge you because they think you are wrong, but in this case, the same answer applies, given that if you work through your reasons for dismissing their answer you will probably realise halfway that they are actually right. So basically, they will guide you towards backing up the correct answers, which means you don't really have to worry about getting things wrong. They are really just looking for your methods!

Trying not to overthink, but still considering every possibility, is a hard thing to do, but it is important here. If they suggest something different to what you say, don't immediately say 'oh yes sorry you are right', but also don't say 'no you are wrong'; try and find a balance by working through their opinion (out loud) and explaining why you agree/disagree with it. They want you to have logic behind your answers and not just guesswork.