Natural Sciences (Biological) @ Sidney Sussex, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

NSAA; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: chemistry-related questions; Interview 2: biology-related questions

Best preparation

Past papers, practice talking about your subject

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Don't be stressed; the interviewers are on your side

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: Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA)

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: no

Time between interviews: 5 minutes

Length of first interview: 25 minutes; Length of second interview: 25 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

My first interview was on chemistry. I got asked a few ‘simpler’ questions then worked through some problems, mostly calculations. The interview was mostly based on physical chemistry but there was a question on organic chemistry too, and a graph I had to interpret. It was scary at first but the interviewers helped me when I got stuck so I managed to finish all the problems.

My second interview was biology. I got given some questions and some scenarios to explain and suggest reasons for. I just basically had a chat with the interviewers about my ideas and why I had them, and if I was completely then they helped me out. The atmosphere was quite chilled in this one and I was a lot more relaxed. My personal statement didn’t get mentioned at all throughout all the interviews.

How did you prepare?

For the Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment, I did practice papers

I did way too much preparation for the interview. I revised my personal statement too much when they didn’t even ask me on it! I also panicked and did lots of last minute extra reading which wasn’t helpful. If you’ve read beyond your subject before and are genuinely interested then they can tell that- and no amount of cramming can hide it if you’re not! The best thing I did was just to chat about biology with a friend at lunchtime once a week, just to get used to talking about your subject out loud.

I don’t think all my interview prep helped that much - I’d definitely say to not look up all the sample questions on the internet and try and answer them all as my actual interview was completely different from what I expected.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

If you can chat to someone who’s done an interview for your subject before then that would be helpful. Otherwise just don’t stress or believe the rumours! My interview was a lot less scary than I was expecting and contrary to popular belief, the interviewers weren’t trying to ‘trip me up’ and did want me to get the answer!