Test taken: Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Admissions Assessment (PBSAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 1-2 hours
Length of interviews: Probably 20-40 minutes
Online interview: No

My first interview was more of a general chat with one psychologist and one historian. I was really nervous but they made me feel relaxed and like I could take my time if I wasn’t sure what to say. Which I did; in both my interviews my interviewers seemed very happy for me to take a minute to think through what I wanted to say and how to answer a question. They asked me a question relating to a book I’d read and my interviewer told me that was the hard question and that she was sorry for asking it first, which again made me feel more relaxed. We discussed psychology generally and talked about my interest in forensic psychology which I had written about in my personal statement.

For my second interview, I had to collect a passage to read before I went in which I didn’t actually have time to finish reading, as we were only allowed to collect it 20 minutes before our interview. I had to skim over it as I was walking to the interview room! In this interview they focused more on the maths and science side of psychology and I was shown lots of graphs to discuss and also had to discuss the article I’d been given. I asked a question about one of the graphs and my interviewers were happy to explain what part of the graph meant to me so don’t worry about asking questions! The interview ended with some more discussion about things in my personal statement, including my interest in forensic psychology again.

I looked over the book I’d written about in my personal statement the summer before, as it was from the Cambridge suggested reading list for PBS. I also read over the 2 essays I’d been asked to send in and had a chat with my psychology teacher about the kind of things she thought they might ask and just to get used to discussing psychology out loud. I had this instead of a formal mock interview as my school didn’t know that much about PBS at Cambridge so couldn’t really do one for me and I’ve still ended up here, so don’t worry if your school doesn’t offer you a proper mock interview.

Practice multiple choice questions online timed, looked at past essay questions and planned them. Tried to find videos online of people talking about the test

Before my interview, I’d decided that my main aim was to not sound stupid. I hadn’t decided if I actually wanted to come to Cambridge - I’m very glad I’m here now though - so I just wanted the interviewers to believe that it was right for me to get an interview, even if I didn’t get a place. This helped me be much less nervous and probably helped me do better in my interviews.

I know this won’t work for everyone but not pressuring myself to do amazingly in every question really helped because they don’t expect you to know everything about your subject yet or there would be no point studying it at university! They want to see that you can articulate your thoughts and talk through your answers, similar to how a supervision works, rather than testing your knowledge on every aspect of your subject. So if you need a minute to think the question through or you want them to rephrase it, just ask! I asked for both of those things in my interview and my interviewers were more than happy to ask the question differently and give me a minute to process the question and my thoughts.

Also, you can never tell how your interview went, so as hard as it sounds don’t spend the next month agonising over it because you won’t know how it went. And remember the interview is just one part of the admissions process, and that they are looking at you holistically.