Test taken: HAT

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 3 days

Length of interviews: 45 minutes each

My first interview was with two Historians, one that specialised in modern and the other in early modern History. The interview solely examined my submitted written work, which discussed events in the 16th century. The early-modern specialist proposed the questions for the entire duration, which I attempted to answer. Many of the questions led me to critique my own essay - I also got a few dates wrong as I had focused instead on justifying every syllable in my personal statement as preparation (which didn't come up in either interview) and so I believed straight away my chances of getting in were written off. I wouldn't say I was relaxed, and there was an element of stress but it was more along the lines of being engaged. You had to be focused on the question and think on your feet when answering - the experience was genuinely interesting. It felt not too dissimilar to my HAT feedback, while I sat there listening to my teachers' responses and then explaining why I had written what I did and proposing ideas about how I might improve it.

For the second interview I had fifteen minutes to read and analyse a source and then I was asked several questions about it. They tried to examine the inferences by going through the source a sentence at a time and seeing what I had picked up on. The context of the source and understanding the purpose of its author came into the conversation often.

I began blind, attempting a past paper right off the bat and showing it to every History teacher that would read it - three to be exact - and they each gave me feedback - which was considerable as I had performed poorly. This made improving both achievable and encouraging. The more teachers, and the more brutal their marking, the better. I then repeated this process until I sat the actual exam. The aim of my preparation was to go into the exam hall with a clear idea of how to analyse a source and extract as many inferences as efficiently as possible. The HAT provides a source from a period you are unlikely to have studied formally, and so it became apparent quickly that it was much more important to pick out details the source suggests or indicates, as opposed to jumping to conclusions. I think the test is more about raw skills than wider knowledge.

For preparation the Headmaster/Principal of my school gave me a mock interview, which felt much more of an interrogation than the actual interview - helpfully, however, it gave me the sense of being unprepared and urged me to really think about the statements I had made in my personal statement and go over the books I had mentioned.

I spoke to five people for advice, all who had studied History at University and taught at my college, mostly in preparation for the HAT, but also about interview techniques, such as thinking aloud.

Advice: don't lie on your personal statement; have things to say about the books you've read and evidence to back it up; know what you wrote in your written work and identify both the weak and strong points - my essay was not a 20/20 and so there were plenty of things to say about it i.e. I was early in my course and hadn't explored these aspects of the period; had I done so I would have come to the following conclusion instead due to X, Y and Z; etc.

Honestly, I believed I was not going to get in, and so the fact I did is still a shock. What I will say is that both the applicants and students I met were brilliant - in fact many of us went for drinks during the interviews - we were all so chuffed just to be there.

If any quality made my application successful it was that I believed I wouldn't make the cut, which made me try even harder and quelled the nerves. I wouldn't do anything differently other than tell my former self not to panic about not being pooled during interviews.

Please do apply, it's worth it just for the experience.