I’ve had a few people message me, either here or on Facebook, asking for advice about Cambridge interviews. While looking for advice to give them, I realised I’m really inconsistent with my tagging, and therefore don’t have a single place to direct people to. Thus, I made this. If you have questions about Cambridge interviews, start here!

(I also have a more general Cambridge Resources masterpost, here. Both are tagged as “cambridge resources”, which you should find in the dropdown ‘tags’ menu for quick access!)

Here you’ll find a quick post with some general pieces of advice applicable to most/all subjects.

In this post, I talked about the kinds of questions I was asked and the difference between my two interviews (subject/general). This is more ASNaC/Newnham-specific, but it might be useful to others.

This post is a little more detailed on the ASNaC-specific side of things, and this one’s ASNaC specific but more general.

Here’s a post on after-interview feelings and reflections and what they mean.

It’s a bit late for this year’s cohort, but I’ve answered a question about sending in essays earlier in the admissions process, too, and what sort of thing they’re asking for.

I think that’s everything, although of course there may be more general things in my Cambridge tags (see the other masterpost, mentioned above). Also feel free to ask me more questions, though I can’t guarantee a timely/helpful answer due to my general incompetence at life.

Hey guys! So it’s Interviews week at most colleges right now: I’m helping out with some of the Newnham ones. I thought I’d give you a few general pieces of advice.

Be honest. Don’t claim to have read things you haven’t read, because they’ll know.

Don’t be pretentious. Answer the questions as yourself, not in a way you think academics will like, because they’re interested in how you think.

Be ready to admit that you don’t know something (it’s better than pretending you do, and making a fool of yourself).

Don’t panic: they don’t want you to fail. They want to accept the best and brightest students, and they’re hoping you’re one of them.

Interviewers are human too.

If you do get in, interviews are good practice for the supervision system that we have at Cambridge, so see it as a chance to try that out rather than as the be-all and end-all of your application.

Also, a Newnham specific* piece of advice

The current students hanging around in gowns aren’t scary and they’re just there to help out. The gowns are so that you can find us, not to intimidate you (trust me, we feel like idiots wandering around in these, and some of us probably have pyjamas on underneath).

if you're interested in reading my boring serious blog, I've just done a post on how my first Cambridge interview went (my economics teacher asked me to write them up), which you can see here.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a very argumentative person. I love rows.

So he asked me quite a wishy washy question, the premise of which was a camping trip. Everyone going camping brought a tent, a stove, pans, etc - they all contributed. They did not ask each other for payment to use each other's things. Question was, shouldn't the whole of society be based on this? (generosity basically)