The Official &quot;I have an interview&quot; Thread!

is there any way to stop yourself from replaying the interview agn and agn in your mind and realising the millions of better answers you could have given?!
oh if only you could go back in time

Reply 62

Eau

15

duckyrubber

is there any way to stop yourself from replaying the interview agn and agn in your mind and realising the millions of better answers you could have given?!
oh if only you could go back in time

Omg, I wish I could go foward in time.

I have my interview in a few days. 3 to be exact.

Ah....! Wish me luck!

I wish myself luck.

Oh the prediction, the prediction that I might be stuck on a question, the prediction that I will stutter in every question, the prediciton that I will have a bad sleep the night before, the prediction that I won't get in...

:confused:

Reply 63

OP

yorkshirelass

there's no making candidates wait for the sake of it/to prove their commitment (what does that mean anyway? being able to wait a few weeks for an interview doesn't assess your ability to cope with an Oxbridge degree) about it.

I meant commitment in terms of how much you're willing to pay for plane tickets, as the price generally goes up the longer you leave it, but that's just something I've always felt was unfair on international students, not a tactic.

Reply 64

tRG

Good luck celeritas!!
Make sure you go to the washroom then drink something before your interview! Don't want a dry throat..

Reply 65

Eau

15

tRG

Good luck celeritas!!
Make sure you go to the washroom then drink something before your interview! Don't want a dry throat..

Thanks for tip! I am also very excited!

Reply 66

OP

yorkshirelass

Oh, yeah, sorry, I thought you meant something entirely different. I hadn't really thought about that before. I mean, I grumbled enough at having to pay about thirty quid in total for cabs to station/Oyster both ways/Oxford tube.

Don't the Oxford Access scheme reimburse people for thsoe kind of expenses if there's real need? That probably didn't apply for you, but i'm sure I read about something like that...

Reply 67

WokSz

17

yorkshirelass

Oh, yeah, sorry, I thought you meant something entirely different. I hadn't really thought about that before. I mean, I grumbled enough at having to pay about thirty quid in total for cabs to station/Oyster both ways/Oxford tube.

30 quid? Lucky you! :wink:

I'll have to pay about 250 pounds for a plane ticket.

Reply 68

WoksZ check your spam mail or
call the admissions office....I didn't get any email and it was a week before and I check my spam mail like a freak...and they said they already emailed me an interview time but theyd email it agn.
Good thing was I live nearby so plane tickets wasn't a prob

Reply 69

WokSz

17

I sent them an e-mail asking if they could let me know if my payment has gone through. But I'm assuming they're totally flooded with e-mails and work at the moment, so I'll just be patient.

Reply 70

lol thats what I assumed too which is why i didn't call until a week before...just call them theyre really nice but if your interview isnt till a while then yea i think theyll appreciate your patience

Reply 71

WokSz

17

Are you an international student?

Reply 72

WokSz

Are you an international student?

yup, well done :smile:

Reply 73

Eau

15

Panic panic panic! Interview tmr!

So lazy - will read over PS tonight, read over A-level chemistry books, books I stated in the PS, think of what to say, think of what to ask...

Reply 74

tRG

Curious-
Are all oxford interviews held with the interviewer sitting opposite the interviewee with a table between them?

Reply 75

username68316

3

I didn't know/think there was a table involved :eek:

Reply 76

OP

No, not in all cases, although if there isn't a table, there tends to be paper strewn all over the floor.

Reply 77

arod

5

duckyrubber

hey cool
i have prof ellory on the 19th too! (3 days :eek:

)
good luck :smile:

im so flipping nervous
arod...did u get a place at oxford?
im so scared because if the interviews easy it might mean they aren't pushing you further and if its easy and i find it hard well....thats just bad

Yes, I did receive an offer for biochem. It arrived surprisingly fast on about Dec 10th or something like that. I think as soon as they finished interviewing all of the UK/EU students. The envelope came so quickly that I automatically assumed that this was a rejection letter so it was a BIG surprise. Another student at my school got an offer for Cambridge. This was the first yr that anyone from my school had ever even applied to either Oxford or Cambridge so everyone was pretty excited for us.
I later learned that after your interview if you receive a BIG envelope = good news, on to next step. Small wee envelope= bad news, that's the end of the process, you're done.

My offer was a fairly high offer (well for me anyway) but from what I've seen in the threads posted here from other IB students it's pretty standard for biochem. I had to get total points 40, + bonus points, 7's in both Chem and Bio and a 6 in physics. I also took some non-IB maths gr 12 Calculus and Geometry and Descrete maths and they wanted 85% in both of those. Maths, bio and physics was easy to achieve but I didn't manage to hit a 7 in Chem.
In our final IB chem exam we were supposed to have been given a periodic table as a reference, but for whatever reason our school didn't get one. So I ended up trying to answer everything by memory, which took too long and I didn't manage to finish the full exam. The other students at my school could care less about the final exams since they alreaday had their firm USA and Canadian uni offers and scholarships by March/April so the final exams didn't really count for them at all - for me it was everything. I knew that there was no way on earth I'd get a 7 since I didn't manage to answer all of the quesions, but hoped that maybe, with all of my other grades, it would be OK, but alas no. Your offer is more or less a contract. If you don't meet the conditions in the letter then they have grounds to reject you. I don't know how many offers that they make over places that they actually have.

At first I was pretty heartbroken. I had enjoyed the interview - more like a tutorial really- I really like the Open Days met the tutors, went to the lecutres, went to the pub with the older biochem students in the college (they call them parents and grandparents), I felt certain that this is where I wanted to study biochem and so at home there.
It was like getting up to the front door, but not being allowed in....
In the end I decided to take up one of my insurance offers and so far I'm really enjoying it... not as strenuous a workload as Oxford, fewer essays and tutorials but lots of opportunities to take advantage of cheapo flights to go exlore Europe. Just spent a long weekend in Paris with my housemates. lol and Good luck.

Reply 78

OP