I arrived the evening before (as my interviews were early the next day), got shown to my room, which was travel-lodgey, and quite comfortable. I went to sleep listening to Lorde because she calms me down and thought a lot about how much I liked my second choice (Sheffield). I resisted the urge to look through my notes.

In the morning I got ready and put on my lucky outfit and listened to more Lorde (it was 2014, so she was still pretty new). I went to the college Library Common Room where there were friendly current students and lots of nervous people. I ate some biscuits and put my headphones in, and didn't socialise with the other students - because the ones I talked to were quite boasty.

My first interview was in Old Court so I walked over the bridge which was incredibly beautiful. The buildings were intimidating and it felt like Hogwarts but I kept telling myself affirmations like 'You deserve to be here!', even if I definitely didn't believe it.

I had 2 lots of 20 minute interviews, on the same day. Each interview had 2 interviewers. In my second interview the second guy (who would end up being my first supervisor) didn't speak.

I was suuuper nervous. First interview was about looking at a source which I had 15 minutes to look at beforehand. Whilst preparing I circled aspects of the source which stood out to me, things I could comment on, make references to other things I had read. It went okay because luckily it was a source from Nazi Germany- I had studied that period before, and from reading about the 'practice' of history - had some things I could say about diary sources. Then she moved on to ask me questions about my personal statement - picking out the odd line, etc.

My second interview focussed on my submitted essay (which was lucky, because the guy interviewing me was a specialist in one of the things I'd mentioned on my personal statement) which was on the crusades.

1) Definitely the best preparation (by far) was harassing my English, Politics, and RE teachers, my head of year, a person my grandad was friends with who worked at a university, all to practice having a 20 minute interview experience, based on a source, or questions they could come up with. Some of them were way off and asked questions which would never have been asked - but the experience of being under pressure, answering questions on the fly, saying through what you're thinking, making references to clever things, massively massively helped me on the day.

2) Because part of the course involves Historical Argument and Practice (HAP), where you study the more theoretical side of history, I read the introduction and some chapters of 'In Defence of History' which is a really good read. If you can gain some awareness of the things historians tend to argue about with each other this goes down REALLY well.

3) I had an A4 exercise book in which I wrote notes about a variety of historical topics I was interested in, and I tried to gain familiarity in areas of history which seemed 'important' / 'foundational' which I previously wasn't aware of. Lots of these were based on the Crash Course World History YouTube channel - not sure how much this helped but this definitely made me 'feel' a bit more prepared.

4) Submitted essay - don't forget this bit. Although they say it needs to be a 'normal essay' from school - doesn't mean you can't set aside extra time on the weekend to make it look extra good.

Some people are super good at not appearing nervous but this does *not* mean that they are any cleverer than you.

Would also say it always helps to be nice to your interviewers, to smile and shake your hand [Editor's Note: you're not being judged on 'interview technique' so do whatever you're comfortable with] when you introduce yourself if you can remember to. Lots of them will end up being your Director of Studies / supervisors so always helps to be nice.

I was the most nervous I'd ever been in my life and for the whole of the first interview my voice wobbled so that it sounded like I was going to cry and I still got in so don't worry about that!