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Learning at Imperial College London
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Chemistry Interviews 2013/14

I had my interview last wednesday, not as scary as I though it was going to be! Although I was interviewed last out of my group so had to wait the longest and the waiting to go in was the worst bit! How did other people find their interviews (if you have had your interview already)?? And roughly how long do you think it will be before we hear back from them, plus what are the statistics of getting an offer for Chemistry after interview, do you think the admissions tutors put more emphasis on our UCAS form or performance at interview, or is it about 50:50? Because my interview was ok, but not that great, whereas my UCAS form is good (grades etc are all fine), however I am worried that my interview will let me down and may not get a place?

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Reply 1
Hey! I was there last week for my interview too. Guess I saw you there (just didnt recognise you hehe) :biggrin: The undergrad who took us around said that around 90% of us (on that day?) will get an offer. So fingers crossed for you.
UCAS just emailed me half an hr ago and I received good news (phew and wooh)
My interview: I struggled to answer some questions but the interviewers seemed engaged and interested in my bizarre ideas (idiotic ones lmao). It was hard but fun?
Learning at Imperial College London
Imperial College London
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Hi, OMG , I just checked my UCAS track and I have an offer too!!!!!! Literally the happiest moment of my life so far, as I really want to go to Imperial! Aaaassaarrrgghh! I woke up and looked at my phone and it said I had too emails, one from UCAS track, and one saying that someone had commented on my thread on The Student Room. I was slightly worried about my UCAS track as I wasn't expecting Imperial to reply so quickly, after only a week, so I though about the possibility that such a fast reply could only means rejection, but I checked TSR first and read your thread saying that you had got an offer after an interview on the same day as mine, so then I was a bit more hopeful, an THEN I LOOKED ON TRACK AND I HAVE AN OFFER :smile: congratulations to you too on your offer, perhaps I will see you there... :smile:
Sorry, I meant "two" emails, not "too" emails, just a typo! And I am still so surprised about my offer, it hasn't really sunk in yet, I thought that my interview performance was so bad but perhaps that was because they were challenging me to see how I would cope working through some unfamiliar chemistry!
And it will start a new thread of Imperial Offer Holders 2014, to talk to our fellow buddies who will be joining us there next year if there decide to firm!
And also, to those of you that haven't yet had your interview, there is nothing to worry about, it will be fine there will be lots of current Imperial students there to talk to and put you at ease, plus the interviewers themselves are really friendly (well mine were anyway) and understand that you may be nervous, so good luck :smile:
Reply 4
I am having an interview for ic next wednesday.
just want to ask what questions came up in yur interview and hows the interview overall?
are they hard?
I don't think that the interview was very hard, the questions were quite easy, starting off with some basic A level chemistry and then moving on to unfamiliar chemistry, but using A level knowledge, and sometimes I got stuck but the interviewers were really nice and gave me hints as I was working through the questions on the whiteboard. They interview people in order of distance travelled, so the first people to be interviewed are the people who travelled the furthest, and the rest just have to wait in a room until they come and call you but they give you your time before. The worst bit is waiting to go in, but once you are in there it is fine and my interviewers were smiling and understand that people.may be nervous, so although the questions were mainly academic, they start off by asking a few simple general questions to calm people down a bit first, for example the first questions they asked me was "tell me about yourself" and I said on my personal statement that I did mentoring for GCSE students so they asked me about that, and then started on the academic chemistry questions. Sonny main advice would be don't worry, make sure you know all of your A level stuff and be confident in applying it to new situations by thinking things through logically and explaining each step on the whiteboard, and also make sure you know everything you put on your personal statement! And also, even if you come out of it thinking it was awful then don't lose hope, because I thought I did badly, but then I still got an offer so it can't have gone as badly as I thought. The majority of people who get interviewed get offers, so it will be fine! Sorry for the long essay, and good luck :smile: is imperial your first choice?
Reply 6
This makes me feel so much more comfortable for my interview next week! Do they ask questions based on what board you are? I am OCR Salters B if you need to know :biggrin:
Original post by Roarmaster
This makes me feel so much more comfortable for my interview next week! Do they ask questions based on what board you are? I am OCR Salters B if you need to know :biggrin:


hehe i dont reckon they wud bother to read thru the many syllabi from A-level. im guessing they wud ask questions by picking common topics that a student shud generally know b4 they enter 1st year :biggrin:
Reply 8
Original post by Coral Reafs
hehe i dont reckon they wud bother to read thru the many syllabi from A-level. im guessing they wud ask questions by picking common topics that a student shud generally know b4 they enter 1st year :biggrin:


I see so stuff like oxidation of alcohols, redox reactions...
Anyone else got an interview on the 22nd January?
Original post by gingerberry
...


How long was your interview? Was it 2 interviewers?

Well done on your place.
Original post by CJG21
Anyone else got an interview on the 22nd January?


got mine week after urs... given the response by gingerberry, it seems alot of the questions she has been asked on Unit 5 Chemistry which is the last unit of the A2 syllabus...

I am slightly worried as the questions asked are from approx 4 different chapters of my book :s-smilie:

looks like it's gna b harrrd :eek:
Original post by Coral Reafs
How long was your interview? Was it 2 interviewers?

Well done on your place.


My interview was about 30 minutes long and there were two interviewers in the room with me. For the first 15 minutes, one interviewer asked me questions whilst the second interviewer said nothing and just wrote things down on a piece of paper, and then for the second half of the interview they swapped around, and the second interviewer asked me questions whilst the first one wrote things down.
Original post by gingerberry
My interview was about 30 minutes long and there were two interviewers in the room with me. For the first 15 minutes, one interviewer asked me questions whilst the second interviewer said nothing and just wrote things down on a piece of paper, and then for the second half of the interview they swapped around, and the second interviewer asked me questions whilst the first one wrote things down.


That sounds INTENSE,

like ****BRIXXX Intense
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Coral Reafs
got mine week after urs... given the response by gingerberry, it seems alot of the questions she has been asked on Unit 5 Chemistry which is the last unit of the A2 syllabus...

I am slightly worried as the questions asked are from approx 4 different chapters of my book :s-smilie:

looks like it's gna b harrrd :eek:


Haha I have the exact same date as you. 29th January.

I'm flying all the way from Brazil :tongue:

What kind of questions are they going to ask?
Bumping this again.

Anyone else want to comment on their chemistry interview? I have an interview on the 29th of January. Flying from Brazil for it :P

Was it informal and chatty with your personal statement thrown in here and there or was it hardcore oxbridge type questions?

The American chemistry syllabus has almost no Organic chem in it and I am going to cover it only in march, so I am really hoping that it will not be asked. The most I can probably do is identify benzene and the alkanes and maybe some basic halogen substitution. Will we have any choice in the matter or do they just start firing away questions? Will they be aware of the differences in educational systems?

How long are these interviews generally?
Original post by Fango_Jett
Bumping this again.

Anyone else want to comment on their chemistry interview? I have an interview on the 29th of January. Flying from Brazil for it :P

Was it informal and chatty with your personal statement thrown in here and there or was it hardcore oxbridge type questions?

The American chemistry syllabus has almost no Organic chem in it and I am going to cover it only in march, so I am really hoping that it will not be asked. The most I can probably do is identify benzene and the alkanes and maybe some basic halogen substitution. Will we have any choice in the matter or do they just start firing away questions? Will they be aware of the differences in educational systems?

How long are these interviews generally?


Sorry if I am just repeating what I have already said.

I am sure that they will understand if your educational system is different to UK, because it will be highlighted on your UCAS form, but if they ask you questions that are not on your syllabus then you can just say that you haven't learnt it at school/college but they will still get you to try an answer it anyway, as the whole point of the interview is to 'test how you think' and how you apply chemistry to new situations, rather than just recalling facts you have learnt at school, as there are your end of year exams to test you on that, but obviously there will be some simple recall of things.

But obviously I am not sure what other people's interviews were like, or what sort of things they were asked. You may be able to influence/predict the topic of questions you get by your personal statement and what you say in interview, but within that topic they could ask you anything. So it's not completely random, they don't have a set list of the same questions that they ask everyone, so you can't predict how your interview will be like based on anyone elses, and there are also a range of different people interviewing, some may be more strict than others and ask more academic questions, whereas others may be more relaxed and ask you about your personal statement more.

I have already said this, mine was 30 minutes long, and so were everyone else's that were being interviewed on that day. I said, on the day they do interviews in order of who traveled the furthest, so as you have had to travel from another country then you will almost definitely be interviewed first whereas others after you will just have to sit and wait in a room for up to two hours before they are interviewed, although you are split into groups, with each group having different interviewers.

Anyway, good luck with your interview on 29th, fingers crossed that you will be able to post on my 'imperial college offer holders' thread soon! :smile:
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by gingerberry
Sorry if I am just repeating what I have already said.

I am sure that they will understand if your educational system is different to UK, because it will be highlighted on your UCAS form, but if they ask you questions that are not on your syllabus then you can just say that you haven't learnt it at school/college but they will still get you to try an answer it anyway, as the whole point of the interview is to 'test how you think' and how you apply chemistry to new situations, rather than just recalling facts you have learnt at school, as there are your end of year exams to test you on that, but obviously there will be some simple recall of things.

But obviously I am not sure what other people's interviews were like, or what sort of things they were asked. You may be able to influence/predict the topic of questions you get by your personal statement and what you say in interview, but within that topic they could ask you anything. So it's not completely random, they don't have a set list of the same questions that they ask everyone, so you can't predict how your interview will be like based on anyone elses, and there are also a range of different people interviewing, some may be more strict than others and ask more academic questions, whereas others may be more relaxed and ask you about your personal statement more.

I have already said this, mine was 30 minutes long, and so were everyone else's that were being interviewed on that day. I said, on the day they do interviews in order of who traveled the furthest, so as you have had to travel from another country then you will almost definitely be interviewed first whereas others after you will just have to sit and wait in a room for up to two hours before they are interviewed, although you are split into groups, with each group having different interviewers.

Anyway, good luck with your interview on 29th, fingers crossed that you will be able to post on my 'imperial college offer holders' thread soon!


I understand that I will not be able to just say "I have not done this before" and not even try the question. I will obviously try my best to apply other concepts I have learned and apply them to the question at hand.
(edited 10 years ago)
Anyone here went to the interview yesterday?

I thought it went pretty well, although I thought the questions were a bit easy. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

They said I did well (even though I did a really, really (really!) stupid muck up at the beginning)
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 19
My interview is on the 5th and I was just wondering, do the interviewers expect us to have learnt the whole of the A2 syllabus because the worst thing I can think of is them asking about something I've never even learnt and me like giving no answer like aaaaah :s-smilie:

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