Mature student interview tips.

For those mature students who have had university interviews can you share your experiences please? I have three over the next three weeks and would really appreciate ideas, tips etc to help get me through them with the best chance possible of getting an offer.

Reply 1

cliffg

Original post by jami74

I was 49 when I applied to study law and had a 20 minute telephone interview which was sprung on me with about 1 hour notice. Overall feeling was that it felt more like an informal chat than an interview. First half was all chat about law and looking back on it I now know that the admissions tutor was trying to discover how deep my interest in the subject really went. I've since gotten to know her and she's told me that one thing she's always wary of with mature students is that some apply to uni as a strange sort of last resort - as a means of escape from a dreary job or simply that it beats being unemployed. So she always tries to discover whether or not there's a genuine, deep interest in the subject and the correct motives for going to uni.

Second part of that interview was basically around how I thought I would cope studying and working with 18 year olds, how I would cope with the academic nature of the work ( I hadn't been in an academic classroom for over 30 years ) and how I would cope with the amount of independent study required. I related all these areas back to experience in 2 previous careers - I'd worked in teams with people of all ages, young and old - I'd attended numerous training courses during employment and succeeded at them all - I'd studied for and passed professional exams indepenently. Draw upon previous experience to provide solid evidence of your ability to succeed.

A friend applied some years ago to a different uni and his experience was that he felt the interview was more about simply seeing and hearing you and finding out if you were the type of mature student who would fit into the faculty there. He didn't feel that it was part of a competetive process to pick the best 10 mature students out of the 50 who had applied. My experience was similar - I think it was about discovering my true interest and motives and making sure that I was the right type of person - not a potential problem.

Other's may have had a different experience, hopefully they'll tell you. The above is just what happened to us, not what necessarily happens everywhere.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 2

evening sunrise

I had two face to face interviews and my wife had one telephone interview. I would concur with what cliffg stated above, generally the tone was more of a friendly, but stimulating, chat. The first was specifically interested in readiness to study as we also have not undertaken any academic study since 1991 (87 in my wifes case), I did A levels in 1981. I was also asked the question about being surrounded by 18/19 yo, I gave a similar answer to that stated by cliffg, and added "slightly more motivated than if they were all the same age as me". The other Uni was more interested in my interest in the subject, and specifically asked why I chose the BSc over the BA. This second Uni did not raise the question of age or readiness to study. My other 3 choices made offers without interview.

My wife's interview, with the head of department, focused on ensuring she understood the content in the course and specifically that there was not as much conservation as other similar courses, apparently the head of dept raised this as she was getting a lot of complaints from her second years. My wife also received two other offers without interview and a rejection without interview.

Again as cliffg states,

even if you have done it already in your PS, relate your career and / or hobbies to the activity of studying,
Know something about the subject that demonstrates some real interest, curiosity, (personally I dont like the term passion)
Express an opinion, but qualify it by acknowledging.....based upon what I have read thus, based upon an incomplete view......my optinion on xxx is.

I found the interviews a great experience, infact I felt a little cheated in not being interviewed at three of them. My wife is quite shy and was glad to only have the one :smile:

However we both accepted offers from Unis that had not requested interview, although I liked both the professors who interviewed me and it made that decision harder.

We are both 48yo.

Reply 3

jami74

Original post by cliffg

Overall feeling was that it felt more like an informal chat than an interview.

Original post by evening sunrise

generally the tone was more of a friendly, but stimulating, chat.

Thank-you both. I had an interview and agree it was relaxed and chatty rather than an interrogation. It was a group interview and I found it quite hard being so much older than the others. We were all made to feel very welcome though and it was probably equally hard for the others too.

Reply 4

LewisH

I had to do an interview for UCL but Archaeology isn't exactly the corporate route to success by any means. Archaeologists can be forced into suits but it's generally only for funerals as a rule so I was expecting (and got) a pretty informal interview. I had a particularly avuncular interviewer which helped to unsettle me greatly having come from a somewhat corporate background :confused:

The sense of relaxed familiarity and a cutting edge research was what I was hoping for and I was rewarded with an experience to match my expectations. I was far too tense on the day and felt too uptight to be accepeted in many ways :smile:

Reply 5

evening sunrise

My offers and hence interviews were for archaeology too. After 30 years in the IT/Management Consultancy sector my primary objective is never to wear any of my suits again. I screwed this up by accepting Durham where the periodic formals require a suit, but at least I have 4 to choose from.

I dressed very informally for the interviews, but had I been applying for Economics, Business, finance etc I would have used a suit.

Reply 6

LewisH

I had a lower offer from Durham (sans interview or indeed any form of contact bar UCAS application) than I had from UCL. The periodic formals put me off completely and luckily based on my preference for an eventual MA in Maya iconography and art UCL seemed to me streets ahead in supporting world archaeology.

Not sure that Durham is really suited to mature students from ordinary backgrounds like me if I'm honest and I would have welcomed the interview that I wasn't offered to find this out. So saying, it was still my reserve choice, reservations and all...

Reply 7

evening sunrise

Good luck with the Maya, certainly all the sites I have visited were very interesting.

Unfortunately I will have to decline responding on the other points in order to stay on topic.

But I agree that sometimes an interview is desirable, one can of course always request a visit and session with the admissions tutor prior to making the decision in track. Certainly the interview at Nottingham was very useful because it was highlighted that they, based upon their current staff profile, did not really specialise in the majority periods I was interested in. But it was confirmed in both my interviews that I would receive an offer via Track. The tips the professor gave me about checking the staff research profiles, rather than just looking at module titles and content etc, did enable me to further review my offers and get down to two for the final decision. However we were geographically constrained, so a nation wide review of all the available courses was not an option. Obviously universities experience staff churn , one can only hope the the churn is of no material consequence for the three years.

Good luck