Natural Sciences (Biological) @ Downing, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

2x interviews (30-40 mins each)

Interview content

Biology / chemistry disucussion (eg. amino acids); applying stats and maths to biology; drew diagrams applied to situations; graph sketching

Best preparation

Knowing my school work and reading aroud the subject; knowing my personal statement

Final thoughts

You can ask interviewers questions too! Just ask if you're not sure about something

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

A student greeted me at the Downing porters lodge then led me to registration. We were then able to sit in a common area set up for the students to talk and prepare. Two 30-40 minute interviews in one day. Two interviewers in each interview. An informal discussion about different areas of the subject I and they were interested in with natural progression in questions.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

One interview was biology and chemistry based, and the other focused on biology and the applications of statistics and maths in biology.

The biology and chemistry interview felt very long to me: the interviewers continued to ask questions with increasing difficulty and I felt like I wasn’t understanding the point they were trying to make. It was a discussion rather than a Q&A format so I was able to ask questions too when I wanted to clarify something. We spoke about amino acids and animal adaptations.

The maths based interview was very much application. I was first asked about my EPQ which I had talked about on my personal statement, though this was brief and perhaps just to make me relax. We used paper to draw diagrams related to genetic engineering, then discussed a graph. We sketched some graphs containing sin(x) and discussed the real implications of the graph's trend

How did you prepare?

I would say the best preparation to do is to focus on school work and just read around your subject on things that you enjoy! If you enjoy something you can easily talk about it at length and discuss it: (I talked about my EPQ and the importance of bees for 10 minutes in one of my interviews and the interviewer seemed genuinely interested and asked me about it despite her being a statistician.) This shows your genuine passion for the subject!

Know your personal statement !!!! One interviewer asked me a simple question about evolution (which I referenced as an area of interest in my personal statement) then that led to a question on adaptions that formed the basis of my entire interview.

Read scientific journals or articles in NewScientist or similar to keep up to date with the latest research in fields you are interested in.

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Don’t be afraid to ask the interviewers questions too! If you don’t understand what they’ve said or just want a push in the right direction of discussion, just ask. And don’t be afraid to say you’re not sure!!

Believe in yourself! You got this.