MEEEE! *is decidedly still not over this fact* Unconditional, because I sat my exams last year like you.
Did you meet any other ASNACs at the interview? There was only one other person at Pembroke that I could find. I thought my interviewers were all lovely and the general one very nearly verged on fun. Have to say, I was *not* expecting to be presented with primary sources and asked what I thought of them, so I was kind of... off-balance for the subject interview, but apparently I wasn't as hopeless as I thought. Was kind of amused and dismayed that they asked me to look at the sources with my 'medieval historian's hat on', because they say good subjects to have for ASNAC are English, a language, and History. Guess which one I didn't take to A level?
What are you doing for your gap year? I'm au pairing in Iceland and attempting to learn Icelandic as I go, because of its similarity to Old Norse. And visiting all the museums and generally being a gigantic ASNAC dork.
I like your idea of info for future applicants, so, uh, here's my Things I Now Know But Didn't At The Start.
- You can almost entirely avoid taking languages or history or literature if you don't like that one aspect, just pick your papers carefully.
- On the word of a friend taking ASNAC, there are no speaking exams for the languages, and most translation work is done into English.
- When the department website calls their booklist one of easy-to-find, relatively inexpensive books, they are lying. My local university library only had a couple, and one I had to borrow from a library in Wales. But it's definitely worth it.
- Addendum to the point above: ebooks are brilliant. The original literature and translations are, on the whole, out of copyright, so you can get them free from Project Gutenberg. Even if you don't have an e-reader, you can read them on your computer.
- ASNAC has marvellous admissions stats for Cambridge, if this sort of thing interests you. (It did me, I'll admit.) The ratio of applicants to offers is about 2:1.
- Be prepared to be possibly the only person in your college applying for ASNAC. (Positive: no one to fight for the good books. Negative: no one to argue with about the merits of Geoffrey of Monmouth.)
- Go to the Open Day. No really, even if, like me, you hate talking to people and will just lurk awkwardly by the sandwiches until engaged in conversation, DO IT. I think the entire department were there, and meeting them that one time made the prospect of the interview that little bit less terrifying.
- Corpus Christi have the most fantastic collection of original manuscripts which you can see at said Open Day, if this is an incentive.
- Retakes are not necessarily the mark of doom. A professor at the Open Day told me it was rare for them to see a candidate with no retakes at all, which was very reassuring.
- If you have that one awful module mark that you couldn't face retaking (oh hi there, E in C4), that's also not necessarily going to doom you.
And that's all I can think of right now.