Amy

Exeter College

I applied to Oxford because the Earth Sciences department is one of the top in the country, and the course, as it was so diverse, really appealed to me. I also liked the idea of studying in an intellectually challenging environment, and in somewhere as pretty as Oxford.

Although no one from my school had applied to Oxford (or Cambridge) for about 10 years, four people in my year did and the school was reasonably supportive. They arranged for us to attend the Oxbridge regional conference at Old Trafford, and open days, which were a good opportunity to get a feel for Oxford and what the course might entail. Preparing for the interview they arranged for us to attend an interview day run by Oxbridge Applications. Personally, I don’t think this helped very much, as the mock interviews I had there weren’t anything like the interview I actually had, and the atmosphere seemed much more competitive and tense than it turned out to be, meaning I got more nervous than I needed to be. I tried to read some general Earth Science books (which turned out to be more useful for when I started the course than for the interviews) and New Scientist to keep up with current scientific developments.

Arriving in Oxford I went straight to college. There I was met by friendly interview helpers who gave me information about where and when the interviews were going to be, and took me to my room. I was staying in a double set, where there are two bedrooms and a shared sitting room/study. I spent most of the evening in the JCR talking to the other interviewees, largely, it seemed, explaining what Earth Sciences was.

The next morning I got up quite early and went and bought a newspaper to see if there was anything particularly geological that had happened, then spent the most of the rest of the time before my interview looking through my notes from AS levels, which proved very useful, and at some of the more general Earth Sciences books I had read. The interview took place at the Earth Sciences department on Parks Road, about 10 minutes from college and I was taken there by one of the interview helpers, so there wasn’t any chance of getting lost on the way. In the department I waited in the lower coffee lounge for a little while, talking to the students who were helping there, and then was taken upstairs, and waited a little more.

My interview lasted about half an hour, although it seemed much shorter. The questions were all academic ones, based for the most part on things I had studied at A-level. There were some maths questions to do at the whiteboard, and some more general science questions with an Earth Sciences slant to them that didn’t really require anything outside what I’d done at A-Level. I was also given a rock to describe and had to design an experiment based on it. There wasn’t anything about why I’d chosen Oxford or the course; the interviewers were really looking for me to know what I was supposed to know from my A-Levels and to be able to give logical, plausible answers where I might not have thought about the exact question before. It was very much like my tutorials are now. They were very friendly and wanted to be able to get the best from me. I was quite nervous before going in to the interview (as nearly everyone is!), but once I got into the room I began to relax as realised I could answer their questions.

After the interview I went back to college and had lunch. I spent most of the afternoon doing my Christmas shopping with one of the other Earth Science applicants and revising for exams in January. I also kept checking the board to see if I’d been called for another interview, but nothing was put up during the afternoon. In the evening there was a quiz in the JCR, in which the team I was on came second! The next morning I went to check the board again and found I didn’t have another interview, so I managed to get an earlier train home.

Overall I found the interview experience to be quite enjoyable. The interview itself was a lot less daunting than I thought it was going be, and everyone was really keen for you to well.

A-Levels: Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Spanish, General Studies