How should I prepare for my interview at Oxford?

I was wondering if anyone knew what I should be doing to prepare for my interview in a weeks time. I was planning on reading over my personal statement (and rewatching and reading anything in it) and I have a practice interview with my school head teacher. Is there anything else I should be doing? Also is there anyone out there who has a biology interview and how are you preparing for it?

Reply 1

caffeinefuelled

Original post by Parrotperson

My friend does Biochemistry at Oxford. As far as I know, she did some revision of the A-level syllabus as well as the things you're talking about.

Reply 2

niujinforever

There are many ways to prepare for it. The most basic is first to brush up on your A-level knowledge because they might test that. Read in depth and try to anticipate questions they might ask as well as prepare answers for them. I found the following steps quite helpful from a biochemistry applicant:

"1. Practice speaking out loud in English biology and chemistry topic explanations. What I used to do is I drew up a long list of chemistry topics like 'Electrophilic addition', 'nucleophiles', 'VSEPR', randomly pick out one topic and practice explaining out loud for 1-2 minutes.

The goal is not to say 'uhm' or stop in the middle of the explanation to think of what to say next. This was to deliver more logical and coherent oral answers in the interviews. I've done this for a month, not necessarily everyday but good 8 topics a week.

2.Mock interviews. Find yourself your biology and chemistry teachers to give you a few 30 minute mock interviews to model the real condition. Putting yourself in a mock interview that models the real one is definitely an effective way to improve your performance.

3.Have an idea of the kind of questions that come up.

I would say the most challenging part was trying to explain my thought process in logical and concise words and looking back it was definitely worth practicing describing and explaining biological processes like transcription and translation in spoken words. I do hope that this review of my interview experience will be useful to prospective applicants and do feel free to post comments and ask questions."

From the list I would say practising voicing the concepts out loud and mock interviews are pretty important. If you'd like more resources/tips PM me, I can give you some more pointers.