Tom

Before doing my AS levels I was completely opposed to the idea of going to Oxford. I wanted to get away from Belfast, but I thought Oxford would be a bastion of snobbery, and upper-crust Englishness. However, just before 6th form started, my school organised a subsidised trip to Oxford and Cambridge. There were 9 of us in the group and we spent two nights in Oxford and one in Cambridge. In those two nights I found myself completely beguiled by the city. We had the opportunity to tour the cloisters at Magdalen during the day, and then were left to wander round the bookshops and the bars of Oxford by night. The place was so alive in comparison to Cambridge.

The next step was choosing a college. This was far from simple. Each college in the Prospectus threw so many positive adjectives at you that it was hard to differentiate one college from another. I had been impressed by St Johns. Or rather I’d been impressed by the lovely student guide who had shown us round and talked to us for an hour. But my school thought it would be too competitive and recommended I applied to Hertford. The reasoning behind this was that my school had only sent one student to Oxford to study the subject I was applying for, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE), and that student had gone to Hertford. As ad hoc as this method of choosing appears, it worked out very well for me.

I remember doing very little preparation for the application, which was completed during classes set aside for university application forms. For the interviews, I spoke to my French teacher who had been a student at St Annes, Oxford, and organised a couple of mock interviews with him. These normally consisted of us merely arguing about philosophical problems or current affairs, but forced me to think about the issues and to really consider how important consistency is for an argument. I also read Marx’s Communist Manifesto on the off-chance that it would come up in the interview. Fortunately it didn’t come up, which was probably a good thing, as I’m not sure I’d have been able to talk about it in any depth whatsoever!

For PPE I had two separate interviews, one for politics and philosophy and one for economics. The politics/philosophy interview was conducted with two tutors in the early afternoon. I was quite nervous beforehand, but kept telling myself that this was an experience to enjoy, and something to remember for the rest of my life, regardless of whether I got in. The tutors were both very friendly, though I had a problem understanding the philosophy tutor who had a strong Spanish accent. This led to me asking him to repeat every question, which had the added bonus of giving me extra time to think about what to say!

Most of the philosophy discussed was a glorified form of problem-solving, with my responses being questioned and probed to look for inconsistencies and contradictions. I wasn’t sure whether I should back down from my original statements or cave in entirely to the counter-arguments being put forward. So in the end I tended to fudge each discussion, reasserting my original view but modifying it slightly to show that I’d taken on board what the tutors had said.

The politics side of the interview was more plain-sailing as I was studying politics for A Level. There were no set questions, with the discussion ranging broadly from the nature of the constitutional set-up in the UK to the style of politics conducted in Northern Ireland.

The second interview I had was an economics one. This was scheduled for 7.30pm at night, which meant a long wait after the first interview! On coming into the room, I was immediately hit by the immense heat coming from the electric fire, and asked for the fire to be turned down. I hadn’t studied economics before, something I expected the tutors to haul me over the coals for, but in reality was left unmentioned. Instead, the economics fellow asked me a series of mathematical questions which I had studied before during AS mathematics. Most of the work I’d done the previous year had completely slipped my memory and I really struggled through the interview. At one point I seem to remember having to pause to consider what the differential of 1 was (that’ll make sense if you’ve done AS maths!). On leaving this second interview I was quite convinced that I had failed to get in.

As well as the interview process, those applying for PPE had to sit a college exam, which was divided into three parts. The exam took up to 90 minutes. There were some number problems, then an ‘odd-one-out’ series of questions regarding words, and then finally a couple of mini-essays on political issues.

My girlfriend at the time was applying to Worcester, Oxford, though our interviews only overlapped by a day. So one of my evenings was spent with her. As I was only in Oxford for a couple of days, I spent quite a lot of time exploring the streets and shops of the city, stocking up on Christmas presents in the process! The time I did spend in the JCR was very enjoyable. There were a number of JCR members helping out with the admissions process, and they spent a lot of time talking to us, quite often while watching the football or playing pool. After talking to one of these students about my interview, he told me that he thought I would get in, and that if I didn’t I’d been unlucky. This made me feel a whole lot better about the interviews, and made me realise that I’d tried my best and nothing more could be asked of me!

The best advice I would give any prospective student coming to Oxford for an interview is to enjoy the experience. If you think Oxford is suitable for you then the chances are that you’re interested in the subject you’re applying for and should relish, rather than fear, the idea of speaking to some of the most pre-eminent people in your subject field. The other recommendation, immensely boring probably, would be to get a good night’s sleep before the interview, and/or make sure that you relax in whatever way is appropriate for you.

[One other thing I’d like to mention are the people who interviewed with me that December. Most of the people there with me were very normal, very down-to-earth, and very easy to get along with. There were some individuals there who felt that it was their god-given right to be at Oxford, and I distinctly remember one such individual walking round the college with a self-satisfied look of superiority on his face, and a Financial Times under his arm. That individual did not get in. Oxford’s sole criteria for entrance are academic ability and the possession of an enquiring mind. Class, race, or gender has no impact on the decision to admit, or the way the interview is conducted, so if you’re worried about that, you really don’t need to be.]