How To Prepare for Oxbridge Interviews: Tips From Our Leading UK-Oxbridge Strategist

Getting an offer from Oxford or Cambridge can be life-changing, but the admissions interview is a critical hurdle — just anticipating it, let alone preparing for it, can really rattle your nerves! In this guide, Crimson Education’s lead UK-Oxbridge admissions strategist, Lucy Baehren — a graduate herself of both Oxford and Cambridge — walks you through what you need to know, with tips on specific preparation strategies, useful resources to take advantage of, and a list of sample questions with tips for using them effectively for practice.

Whatever your major and prospective Oxbridge programme, and whether you have a few months to prepare, or only a few weeks, or even just a few days, you can put the tips below to work and dramatically improve your odds for success, potentially by up to 3x or more — the statistical advantage we see for the students who go through our Oxbridge interview preparation program each year.

I’ve guided many amazing young students — from many different countries and education systems —  apply to Oxford or Cambridge and prepare for their interviews. But even for UK students, the Oxbridge interview tends to present an exceptional hurdle because its format is so unique.

While one component of an Oxbridge interview is helping the interviewers get to know you better, the interviewers really want to assess how you think, take in new information, and engage in academic observation, analysis, and discussion. This means an Oxbridge interview is pretty different from a job interview and not anything like an oral exam either.

All of this brings us to the big question: how do you prepare for an Oxbridge interview when the questioning format is so open-ended and fluid but the stakes are so high?

I'm going to start with some quick points about the style, format, and purpose of these interviews — because it's far easier to prepare for something when you know what it is you’re preparing for.

Then we'll get into the best strategies and I'll share easy-to-access resources, sample questions, and more.

Carefully adhering to the strategies below is not a complete substitute for the kind of personalized approach and one-on-one support you can get from our Oxbridge interview coaches, but it's going to give you a solid preparation strategy and help ensure you ace your interview and increase your chances of getting into Oxford or Cambridge.

1. Understanding the Oxbridge Interview Style, Format, and Purpose

Oxbridge interviews are predictably structured overall, but because the question contexts vary significantly, and because the inquiry process is rather open ended and fluid, candidates often find it hard to know how to prepare.

In addition, question types and formats do tend to vary based on the programme or major you're interviewing for. But, don’t worry, most of the strategies we're emphasizing will apply across programmes. In other instances I'll call attention to how formats or the best preparation resources may vary based on subject matter.

Finally, several of the recommended resources include materials aligned with specific subject areas.

The strategies outlined below will also work on a longer or shorter time frame — though you’ll obviously need to compress your preparation activities and prioritize more diligently if you’re preparing on a very short timeline.

What To Expect at the Interview

Before we get to the top preparation strategies, here’s a thumbnail sketch of the interview format so you know what you're preparing for!

Written Assessments Are Common: You’ll likely be asked to do a written assessment at the time of the interview, on a broad topical question related to your major and prospective programme.

Open-Ended Question Format: You’ll be asked a handful of open-ended questions designed to get you to share more about yourself, or about something you submitted in writing, such as your personal statement. Unlike typical "exam questions," Oxbridge interview questions are more like reflection questions or puzzling problem-solving questions.

What Interviewers Are Assessing: Interviewers are likely to take notes during your interview, and for good reason — they're tasked with assessing a wide range of aptitudes and characteristics. These include:

• your level of subject matter interest
• your capacity for objective, accurate analysis
• how you negotiate competing viewpoints or process new information and ideas
• how well you articulate your own perspectives and your reasoning process

A Preview of the Tutorial Learning Style: The interview format will have many similarities with the Oxbridge tutorial format, helping interviewers assess how well suited you are for thriving in an Oxbridge learning environment.

2. How To Prepare for Your Interview

One of the first questions I get from students is how should I (or how can I) prepare for an interview when I don’t even know what the questions will be?

What's not going to be very effective is approaching the interview as if it were some kind of exam, thinking that you need to do a massive revision of all of your relevant course work!

What really matters is priming yourself to engage confidently in a lively, insightful, and well structured conversation about your subject matter interests that demonstrates your familiarity with foundational ideas, principles, and concepts. This includes being ready to make connections to pivotal authorities in your field, to seminal books, to pertinent or contemporary topics, and to useful conceptual frameworks...

This does not mean you need to be a walking encyclopedia. It's about you being able to demonstrate exceptional aptitudes, preparation, and enthusiasm for the rigorous, high level learning that will be the focus of your prospective programme.

With this in mind, here are some top preparation strategies I recommend to students, and which I like to group into four essential categories: revising, academic enrichment, mental conditioning, and rehearsal.

1. Revising: Master Your Personal Statement and Academic Interests

It makes sense to revise your most relevant academic learning — especially the most foundational concepts and those aligned with your own critical interests or perspectives.

• Revise your personal statement and be prepared to discuss any points in depth, or anything in any written work you submitted in your application.
• Be ready to articulate not only foundational knowledge but also provide insights into your own critical perspectives and ways of thinking that excite and interest you — this may also include ways that your academic interests or perspectives are shaped by personal background or life experiences.
• Think about key theoretical or scientific concepts, formulas, or frameworks from your college or high school coursework likely to be relevant, based on the programme you're interviewing for.

2. Academic Enrichment

Schedule time to expose yourself to some contemporary and stimulating thinkers or ideas — reading "around your field" as the folks at Cambridge like to say.

• Sink your teeth into some engaging scholars or thinkers writing about broad concepts in your major. This can be book reading, or researching relevant articles, watching recorded lectures or webinars, and so forth.
• See who’s on the faculty roster for your prospective programme and look into their interests and perspectives. Imagine what it might be like to be in an academic or intellectual discussion with them.

3. Mental Conditioning

With the help of sample questions or other inquiry resources (more on resources in the next section), take some time to sharpen your critical thinking skills and boost your problem-solving agility, concentration, and stamina.

• Practice responding to sample questions (resources below) and use them to sharpen your problem-solving, reasoning, and analysis skills.
• Watch and engage interactively with some demonstration interview videos (resources below). Ask yourself how you would respond to questions in the video. Compare the ways you might approach each question to the approach taken by the candidate in the video. What were the strengths and weaknesses of your responses? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the demonstration candidate’s responses?

4. Rehearsing

It's crucial to get as comfortable as possible verbalising your thought process, ideas, and perspectives. You'll also want to take the "rehearsal" process one step further by seeing how you perform in a realistic mock interview.

• Work with a friend, teacher, academic coach, or — if all else fails — a trusty mirror, so you can rehearse responding to sample questions, and get comfortable talking about your personal statement, seminal books or articles you've read, and key concepts and understandings from your prior years' courses. This will prepare you to be more at ease and confident during the interview.
• Participate in a mock interview with the help of some sample questions (resources below). At Crimson Education my colleagues and I use assessment rubrics when we put students through mock interviews, and we recommend you do too. Another approach is to video tape the mock interview and revise the video along with a trusted mentor or coach to see what skills to practice further — be pragmatic about this — quickly identify key strengths and weaknesses and start a new cycle of preparation that addresses the challenges you're having.

3. Action Steps & Helpful Resources

Knowing how to prepare for your interview is obviously very helpful, but the process will be much easier and more effective if you know where to start and if you can quickly tap into the most relevant resources for different parts of the preparation process.

Preparation & Demonstration Videos

As for where to start, I highly recommend you watch the most relevant Cambridge interview preparation webinar (there are two to choose from) and a couple of the most relevant (subject-wise) Oxbridge demonstration interviews.

The Cambridge interview webinars go over the interview format, but they also delve into some thoughtful discussion of critical thinking skills you’ll want to have command of during the interview.

Applicant Webinars: Preparing for Arts and Humanities Interviews

Applicant Webinars: Preparing for Sciences and Maths Interviews

Just fyi, in addition to using the links about, you can also access these webinars from the online Cambridge interview preparation resources and the Cambridge Open Days YouTube channel  both of which link you to the webinars and to other resources and information you may find useful.

Even better than the Cambridge webinars on some accounts, are Oxford’s demonstration interview resources. What could be a better way to know what you’re preparing for than to watch a video of an authentic Oxbridge interview with real interviewers, candidates, and question formats? If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video of the real thing must be worth a thousand pictures!

The good news is that Oxford has created and posted online a good number of demonstration interview video recordings featuring candidates interviewing for different academic programmes.

A great place to find demonstration videos online is the Undergraduate Study at Oxford YouTube channel.

As a timesaver, here are some direct links to demonstration interviews by programme:

History Demonstration Interview (46 minutes)

English Demonstration Interview (34 minutes)

Chemistry Demonstration Interview (39 minutes)

Law Demonstration Interview (26 minutes)

Theology and Religion Demonstration Interview (38 minutes)

Geography Demonstration Interview (44 minutes)

Psychology Demonstration Interview (41 minutes)

Resources for Academic Enrichment

Your chosen programme may provide you with a suggested reading list before your interview. If not, there's resources in this section you can use. To be strategic, you’ll typically want to target articles, books, or lectures that help you think in the ways scholars, researchers, or organizational leaders do in the field you’re interested in. These enrichment resources can also give you some helpful conceptual frameworks and perspectives to latch on to and make use of in your written assessment or the interview itself.

Suggested Subject Resources

A good place to start your hunt for resources are the Suggested Subject Resources pages and links on Oxford’s website. You’ll find different kinds of resources depending on the subject area you’re interviewing for, but these can include:

• subject area reading lists
• links to recommended subject-area video lectures or webinars
• research reports, case studies, and so forth...

Other Curated Resources for Prospective Oxbridge Undergraduates

Oxplore: Students can become members and access a variety of resources that help develop critical thinking in response to broad, open-ended questions.

University of Oxford Digital Resources Hub: Filled with links to a wide range of resource banks, such as online lectures, TED Talks, topical articles, curated reading lists and more. You should check out all the enrichment resources offered, but we think these two resources are of special interest:

• Library Quad - Chalk full of a wide variety of enrichment resources recommended by students at Trinity College, noteworthy for its breadth and variety.
• University College Reading Bank - This online reading bank lists books across academic subject areas and selected (and reviewed) by Oxford University students and tutors. (A great playground for the intellectually curious, whether or not you’re preparing for an Oxbridge interview!)

Coaching and Mock Interviews

Another way to prepare for interviews is to use our UK-Oxbridge interview coaching services for personalized support.

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed or unsure about how ready you are to “perform” in an interview format, having a coach on your side can be invaluable. Our coaches have Oxbridge insights, work with a wide range of international Oxbridge candidates, and can tailor support and resources to your specific challenges. These resources can include:

• Case studies based on real Oxbridge applicants’ experiences
• Programme-specific course and study outlines
• Help with curating the best preparation resources, based on your personal statement, areas of interest, and the programme you’re applying to
• Nuanced coaching insights based on experiences and feedback from a network of Crimson coaches, strategists, and past Oxbridge applicants

4. Question Types and Sample Questions

Another pillar of our test prep method involves taking advantage of sample questions and question types.

Sample questions really help you see the scope and variety of questions you might encounter. They can also help you better appreciate the challenges open-ended questions can pose.

Question Types

Across different programmes, here are some common question types we tell students to anticipate:

• Personal Statement Questions: Discussion of a reading or idea you discussed or referenced in your personal statement
• Open-Ended Academic Questions: Questions that don’t have a right or wrong answer, or are at any rate are very open-ended and for which candidates are not expected to know the answer or regurgitate “an answer”
• Observation and Analysis Questions: Often anchored in a text, image, graph, historical document, or other artifact and designed to elicit a wide range of possible observations, commentaries, and perspectives
• Scenario-Based Questions: These tend to be most common in PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and Law programme interviews and include more elaborate contextual details
• Quantitative or Spatial Reasoning Questions; Natural Science Questions: Most common in maths and STEM fields and often involve multi-step problem solving and the application of foundational formulas, scientific notations, or laws, including working through a problem on paper (equations, modeling, graphing…), often with some guidance or prompting from the tutor or professor conducting the interview.

Sample Questions — By Programme

Below are some popular Oxbridge undergraduate courses or programmes, each paired with a sample question for that field, sourced, for their brevity, from Oxford’s online list. At Crimson we also use more elaborate sample questions, paired with source documents, images, graphs, or other kinds of artifacts.

For a more comprehensive list of sample questions, check out our companion blog post:

5. Tips on Using Sample Questions for Your Interview Preparation

Once you’ve had a chance to pick out the most relevant sample questions for your subject area and Oxbridge program requirements, you’ll want to know how to make the best use of them to prepare for your interview.

1. Consider the Possible Purpose Behind Each Question: Ask yourself what the question reveals about the types of skills and knowledge interviewers might be looking for, list as many possibilities as you can: practice articulating them; reflect on engaging ways to articulate concepts, observations, or problems/solutions…
2. Practice Responding to the Sample Question Out Loud: Getting yourself comfortable and at ease verbalizing your thought process and also articulating observations, analytic reasoning, and concepts clearly is a really important part of the preparation process. Consider recording your answers so you can review them, or practice with a friend or mentor in order to get feedback and gradually build skill and confidence with the conversational format of Oxbridge interviews.
3. Break Down Complex Questions: Since the questions are typically designed to make you think, it can be helpful to practice how to think both through and around open-ended questions.
   • What’s interesting about the question itself or the challenges it might present?
   • What does the text, problem, object, or artifact that’s the focus of the question have that stands out or needs to be scrutinized or clarified?
   • Before jumping to “answer” the question, ask yourself if there are alternative approaches or competing perspectives you might use to guide or frame your observations and responses.
   • Is it a multi-step problem or question? If so, practice breaking it into mental chunks, naming the steps, chunks, or stages, and approaching them in a cogent and logical fashion, clearly articulating your thoughts as you build your response.
4. Practice Intellectual Agility: As you explore a sample question, practice how to pivot if you find yourself in a logical contradiction, you realize there’s a better answer, or you want to backtrack on something you’ve said. Remember, this may, in the moment, feel like “stumbling,” but more important for the interviewers may be how you’re thinking, how thoughtfully you’re attending to logic and analysis, and how well you’re articulating your thought process.

6. Tips for Your Interview Day

• Stay Calm and Confident: Emphasis on techniques to manage nerves, such as deep breathing and visualization. Don’t be overly sensitive to “awkward silences” — your interviewers understand that some “think time” makes sense in this interview format, but also remember to verbalize the important parts of your thought process.
• Present Your Best Self: Make sure your cell phone is silenced and that you’re free from any distractions. Listen carefully to your interviewers and stay calm but fully engaged.
• Be Prepared: Have a copy of your personal statement and any other written work you’ve submitted in case you’re called on to refer to it. Have a pen, pencil, and paper ready. If you’re interviewing via video conference, plan ahead and make sure you’ve got a comfortable spot to be in and a power source for your device (or a fully charged device).
• Be Open to New Ideas: Your interviewers won’t be out to trick you or trip you up, but the questions are designed to take you into unfamiliar territory as opposed to regurgitation of simple facts. Think independently, consider questions from different angles, be clear about your reasoning, acknowledge what you're more tentative or unsure about, or when you indulging in speculation...
• Keep the Day in Perspective: Not every candidate is going to get an offer — it's just a statistical impossibility. Don't lose sight of what an exceptional accomplishment it is to be invited for an interview — whatever the outcome — and don't lose sight of the ways your accomplishments have prepared you to continue to excel on your college journey.

7. Next Steps for Your Preparation…

If your interview is still ahead of you, I think it fair to say I’ve given you a very practical roadmap with lots of tips and insights for how to prepare, and loaded you up with useful resources too.

I hope you’re going to put this information to work. Armed with just this blog post and your own initiative, you can give yourself a big leg up and raise the odds for a more successful interview — whether you’ve got a few weeks to prepare or even just a few short days!

At Crimson Education we’ve found that students who do this kind of prep with our guidance and coaching get Oxbridge offers at 3x the rate of other students. I hope you find that fast fact encouraging!

Be sure to reach out to a specialized UK-Oxbridge Advisor today if you have any questions about our interview preparation, mock interviews, and personalized approach.