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Cambridge Demystified - Applying as a Mature Student

Here is my experience of applying to Cambridge for English as a mature student, which hopefully will help any others who are considering it. Thanks to @Oxford Mum for creating this! If anyone has any questions about aspects of applying when you're a bit older which I haven't covered or would like to ask anything further about the things I do say, please go ahead.
It is possibly true that the only thing which is universal among mature students is that we differ hugely from one another. We have all had our own ‘story’ or ‘journey’ or whatever other cliché phrase takes your fancy, and this diversity may make our applications more interesting and unique, but is also likely to make applying to university more stressful and daunting, particularly when it’s Oxbridge.

Here is a brief run-down of my background, to give my application a bit of context. Some, or all, of this may be irrelevant, so feel free to skip down to the more useful stuff.

I left school 8 years ago, with A*A*B (English lit, Art, and Latin) in my A-levels, plus AB in Spanish and Classical Greek at AS level, and 11 A*s in my GCSEs to begin a degree in Classics at Bristol. I did apply to Cambridge that time around and although I was pooled, thankfully I was not fished. Bristol was my first choice, largely due to the nightlife (which says everything about how I would have fared at Cambridge back then). Fairly soon after arriving, my mental health became less than healthy, and I ended up dropping out, taking a foundation year in art, beginning a degree in Fine Art, and dropping out again. Being a once-high achiever, and then failing repeatedly, even when the failure is down to brain chemistry rather than avoidable mistakes, is very hard. Eventually, life began to get a bit easier, and I decided to take the pressure off myself and went to see the world. I spent the next five years backpacking, volunteering, and working abroad. I had incredible experiences and adventures, and I will never regret how things worked out in the end. Anyway, I found myself working in hostels a lot: Barcelona, Budapest, and Belgrade, to name a few cities, and as I found myself rising to management positions and a career was opening up ahead of me, I realised this was definitely not what I wanted to do with my life. University began to seem like the most sensible way of manoeuvring myself into a fulfilling career, but as I got back into studying I realised that I don’t just want to go to university for the piece of paper at the end, I really want to spend the next three years studying the subject I love. So, I started looking into English literature courses, the subject I should have chosen in the first place, which I was told at school was so competitive that I didn’t stand a chance of getting into Oxbridge...

Due to the heterogeneity of mature students’ lives, achievements, academic history, and motivations for going to university, there is no one-size-fits-all guide to applying as a mature student, but there are some pieces of advice which I think are applicable for everyone.

For me, the most important thing was doing an insane amount of research on my course, the college, and the uni, which included emailing the university and college to see how they would view my grades and what they would like to see to make my application a competitive one. This meant dropping the A-levels I was self-teaching and taking up an Access to HE course instead, as predicted grades are essential for them to consider making an offer.

I approached the Access course as though I were already on the English course at Cambridge, to prove to myself that I would actually be able to cope with the workload. For English, this meant reading 2-3 novels a week (unless it’s Dickens) and around 25 journal articles, and writing an essay every 5-10 days, depending on the word count. I’m quite an obsessive worker, and I loved this method of learning way more than the gentle, slow progress of A-levels (from what I can remember!). I chose to take the course online, largely because we were in the middle of a pandemic, but another benefit was that I could go at my own pace, and I managed to complete the course in just over 4 months as opposed to the standard 10 months. This meant that by the time of the interview, I had already achieved distinctions in every module of the course, meeting the entry requirements.

Personally, I really enjoyed the independence of taking the Access course online. Although the texts and most of the essay titles were provided, I was able to choose the angles which interested me and spend time finding the critics and scholars whose approaches I felt I could engage with, rather than having this given to me by a teacher. I think this helped me enormously in my application because I had already got into the process of thinking critically and creatively by the time of the admissions test and interview. The lack of support in terms of the university application isn't necessarily a bad thing. It requires more independent effort and research, but there is so much information available on the internet, as well as a whole community of other applicants here on TSR.

I think the other important message, which i definitely could have taken to heart earlier, is that Cambridge is looking for people with the best academic potential. It doesn’t matter all that much what you’ve been doing before you apply, as long as you can show them that you’re capable of what will come next. I was not asked about my life choices at all during the interview, only whether I would be able to handle the workload, to which I basically just said, ‘yep’, and we moved on.

Also, if you’re reading this, Cambridge has probably already got its hooks into your soul and you desperately want a place, but do properly consider if it’s going to be the right thing. The lack of physical autonomy is going to be very weird for me; I’m used to having a material world which can be crammed into a 40 litre backpack, so choosing to relinquish this freedom to essentially move into a catered boarding school was a big decision. There are definitely benefits of other unis over this way of life, and these become so much more obvious when you already have years of freedom under your belt. However, for me, the academic benefits outweigh whatever other concerns I have.

Why did you want to study your subject?

All the obvious reasons for people choosing to study English, really: I read voraciously as a little kid, all through my teenage years, and on every overnight bus journey or long flight. Almost as inherent is my need to write: I wrote my first novel at the age of seven, complete with illustrations, and have continued to write fiction and keep journals, to varying degrees of effort, throughout my life.

I have found that the interdisciplinary nature of English is the most exciting element for me. It is history, politics, philosophy, psychology, art, and many other subjects combined, but these are presented with a personal and subjective slant which makes it way more interesting to learn and also necessitates an ongoing engagement with the texts. We will never finish talking about Shakespeare; there will always be more things to say about the great writers.

Part of the choice was also career-motivated, which is probably common for mature students. I knew that I wanted to write in some capacity, and both journalism and writing fiction appealed to me, but now I’ve spent some more time properly immersing myself in my subject, staying in academia is beginning to really appeal to me. Whatever direction I go in, I know that getting myself a proper education in the subject I love will help me get there.

Why Cambridge?

When I first decided to return to HE, I didn’t even consider applying to Oxbridge - I assumed that my work history and the large gap between my previous failed attempts would preclude me from being a candidate they would even bother interviewing. But my mum persuaded me to go for it. Why is it that parents are always able to believe in their kids more than they do themselves?

I had also started to believe that I wasn’t actually clever at all, and all my past grades were simply due to luck. However, when I started getting into my Access course and doing all the extra reading to help my application, I realised that I’m at least 10 times more hard-working than I was while doing my A-levels, and that I wanted to go to Cambridge so badly that, short of selling my soul to the devil, I would do anything to get there.

The most appealing part of Cambridge for me is the supervision system. I know how much more valuable it is to spend time talking one-to-one about your work, as opposed to in a group. Also, I am not enormously confident when speaking about my ideas to more than a small group of people (I've always hated holding meetings), so being in a large seminar would be uncomfortable and a waste of my abilities. The supervision system also requires writing and researching at least one essay per week, which is way more than other universities, meaning that it isn’t possible to simply coast through the course. The high pressure environment and short term lengths plays to my strengths. I thrive on crisis and chaos, and I tend to come alive when I have an insane amount of work to get through. If I am underworked, I have a tendency to become lazy.

Which resources did you use (please name as many as possible) Which books/journals did you read? Which did you like best, and why? What did they teach you?

So much! Admittedly, too much. I began my Access course in August and completed it in November, just before the Cambridge interview, and I essentially treated my application as a full time job, spending 6 hours or so on my course, and then several more hours each day reading, with maybe a day off a week. I do not believe it was necessary to do this much preparation, and actually it made me more anxious for my interview, which did not require me to know any of the things I’d taught myself. However, all this knowledge I’ve assimilated will be useful in the long-run, and as I have said previously, it helped me to see that I can definitely cope with the workload. I didn’t really get any help from my Access course for my application at all, so reading through my subject department website, as well as its section on my college website, was very helpful. I also read all available personal statements online to see if I was along the right lines, not having a teacher to give me guidance on this. Here are some of resources I found helpful:

BBC Sounds - There are so many awesome podcasts and radio shows! I incorporated a walk along the coast into my daily routine, but didn’t want to waste this time doing something ‘unproductive’ so I listened to shows which were related to my Access course or authors I had mentioned in my personal statement. The ones I found most useful and entertaining were ‘In Our Time’, ‘Open Book’, ‘World Book Club’, and ‘Great Lives’. There are also many audiobooks and radio plays, with ‘The Shakespeare Sessions’ being one of the best series (the adaptation of The Merchant of Venice with Andrew Scott is particularly good). It is exhausting to consume all your information through reading alone, and extending the depth of your knowledge through listening is very helpful.

JStor - I don’t think that this is available to everyone, and it’s possible that I only have an account because I have been to uni before, but if you can get in, there are hundreds of thousands of articles on everything. After I read each novel and thought about it a bit, I would see what published articles there were available to see what I thought about the critical approaches to the text. Google, and google books in particular, is also immensely helpful for finding scholarly texts. Cambridge wants you to be able to think for yourself, but sometimes it is useful to see what experts have thought, even if this is simply to give more clarity to the ways in which you disagree.

Books - Most of the books I read were, of course, fiction. These are specific to my own interests, and will not really be relevant for others’ applications. But if you do mention an author, read a bunch of their work, not just the most famous one. Feel comfortable with the historical and literary contexts of all the texts you discuss in your personal statement. I read at least three works by all the authors I mentioned in my PS between submitting my UCAS application and the interview, which translated to about 30 texts. Most of the critical texts I read were papers or journal articles, as opposed to actual books, but some of the ones I did read were: The Intellectuals and the Masses, by John Carey (amazing look at social class in modernism), and also John Donne: Life, Mind, and Art by the same author and two books by John Mullan; What Matter in Jane Austen? and The Artful Dickens.

Lectures - Loads of universities (although annoying not Cambridge) have lectures available in a variety of subjects. Like the podcasts, it's largely about taking information in via a method other than reading. The best ones for English are Yale https://oyc.yale.edu/english and Oxford https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/english-oxford

What did you mention in your personal statement and why?

I mentioned loads of different authors and texts, about 9 or 10, from Chaucer to Atwood. I mostly wanted to convey the breadth of my literary interests and show that I had thought deeply about the works I liked. I read something somewhere that a successful English PS for Oxbridge speaks about 7 texts on average and I guess the reason for this is that it gives admissions tutors a strong idea of your engagement with a wide range of texts. Being too niche is unlikely to impress, as is speaking only about contemporary authors, as so much of the course is focused on the literary canon. However, it was a lot of work to maintain sufficient knowledge of all the authors I mentioned, and if I did it again I would probably cut out a couple.

The main thing, which is certainly harder for older applicants than school leavers, is to condense your life story into a couple of sentences. I did mention my false start with Classics, and linked this with my interest in English since the influence of Classical texts on all subsequent literature is immense, and although this briefly came up in the interview I got the idea that they only really cared about who I was now and my current interests. All the advice for ‘normal’ applicants is basically the same: don’t talk about your DofE or your grade 6 oboe, no one really cares. For people who have done lots more it is harder to be concise, while not feeling like you’re hiding things. But really it is still the same; if it has no bearing on you as an academic being, it shouldn't be in your PS. Anything you do mention, try to show its relevance or transferrable skills to your subject, but as you really only want to allot 10 - 20% to this, make it brief. It's not like writing a CV at all. There shouldn't be any waffle and don't be tempted to be generous with the truth; anyone who is reading your PS is intelligent enough to see through this.

I think there is a benefit to selling yourself as a mature student which is that all your studying (probably) will be independent or at least self-directed. You don’t need to spin the interesting angle you’ve taken on a set text for A-level, because you will have sought out everything yourself. This is the most substantial difference between school and university, and being able to show admissions tutors that you are confident in finding your way through challenging ideas by yourself is a really good idea. This is probably true for many subjects, but especially for something like English which does not have a syllabus at all, and so really requires students who do not need to be spoon-fed.

Which techniques did you use for the entrance test?

I applied to a mature college, so instead of taking the ELAT, it was an at-interview test instead. As far as I’m aware, the mature colleges prefer these tests rather than the outsourced tests as they recognise that it is harder for us to find a test centre to take them, unlike sixth-formers who can take them all in school. The mature college at Oxford does not do this (one of the many reasons why Cambridge is the best!).

However, the at-interview test is virtually identical to the ELAT. Perhaps the font was different, but that’s literally it. So, I took every single past paper on the Cambridge website. I started off just using the texts for practical criticism exercises, then moved on to essays comparing two texts, and finally timed myself writing these essays, as though in the exam. I didn’t actually get the info on how long we had for the exam until about a week before, but by then I felt so comfortable writing practical criticism essays that it didn’t really matter.

I cannot speak for the other subjects with any real authority, but I would imagine that resources and past papers are also available online for these. I’m assuming that many schools prepare their students for these tests, but it is easy to get yourself ready for it. I wouldn’t try to just wing it. When I applied for Classics, years ago, I had not prepared at all for the admissions test and not only was it disastrous, but one of the interviews was based solely on my answer, so I had to spend half an hour basically being told (politely) that I was an idiot.

How did you find the interview process?

During the interview itself, I really enjoyed it. All of the questions were more like philosophical or political approaches to literary ideas, and they appeared to be set questions which all candidates were asked. So, my months of reading around my PS turned out to be unnecessary, and I sort of wish I’d spent a bit of time reading those lists of classic ‘Oxbridge Interview Questions’ which you can find online, but I don’t regret it too much. My responses were organic, at least. From what other applicants have said, I don’t think my interview was all that common. Generally applicants always have a poem to analyse, as well as being asked about their reading habits and interests, so it is possible that the method is a bit different when applying to a mature college. Perhaps they chose to interview candidates with a set list of questions in order to see how we would move the conversation or make it personal to our own interests. I would imagine that the group of students and their academic backgrounds were far more varied than would be expected for a non-mature college, and as such it is necessary to level the playing field a bit more.

Although the interview questions were set, we chatted around them, and it was actually really fun. I think that if you actually think quite deeply about your subject, anyone can enjoy their interview. That’s not to say that everything I said was coherent or intelligent, by any stretch of the imagination. I contradicted myself a lot, and backed myself into corners, leading me to express absurd statements, like saying Shakespeare’s sonnets were pointless and Oscar Wilde has no depth. Yeah… Not fantastic. But I guess within all the silliness which came tumbling out of my mouth, I was also unafraid to make controversial statements and I can only assume they liked this.

As the mature colleges have smaller undergraduate populations, there are fewer professors, so having only one interview is common. It's hard not to see this an a disadvantage, as you are given only half an hour to prove yourself, as opposed to an hour. Given this, I would assume that the interview is a slightly less important part of the application, and perhaps written work and the admissions test are slightly more important, but this is pure conjecture.

Any interview tips?

I don’t know if this is a useful piece of advice, since I doubt it is possible to follow it, but try to relax before, during, and after the interview. I analysed my PS to a crazy level, and wrote essays around the ideas I expressed, and read so many texts to support all my assertions in case they came up. None of it did, nor did any reference to my written work or my exam. They wanted to see how I was able to think about entirely new things, not based on anything I might have been able to prepare. There isn’t really any way to change how your mind naturally works. I had turned the interview into an insurmountable obstacle of terrifying proportions when it was basically just a nice chat. Also, I feel like most of the foolish things I said can be attributable to fear.

Think deeply about your subject in the run up to the interview, but do so more with the intention of practising thinking, rather than to formulate perfectly crafted ideas to expound. You will not be given the opportunity to do so, and I doubt it would impress them at all even if you were.

I didn’t have anyone to do mock interviews with and I did get a bit concerned thinking about other people who may have practised, but I don’t actually think it would have helped all that much. That's one benefit of being a mature student - we've done many interviews before, so we know how to behave. I've also been the interviewer quite a few times, and that is much more unpleasant (surprisingly) that being the interviewee.

How did you feel after the interviews?

Initially, amazing! Then, about an hour later, all the stupid things I said started to creep into my mind. For the following three weeks I was incapable of even reading a book because I felt so ashamed of myself. Each time the interview popped into my mind for the six weeks until decision day, I felt a wave of prickly shame crash over me.

I’m very self-critical, and it is certain that I expect more from myself than is normal or acceptable. It’s quite possible that if I were a more well-adjusted adult, I might have been able to see the interesting angles I approached their questions from, or recognise that my combative and inquisitive attitude was probably refreshing, rather than aggressive and rude, but hey, I am who I am.

Since receiving my offer, I’ve been able to look back on my interview performance with kinder eyes. One thing I can say for sure is that I was fully myself in the interview. I expressed some silly views that I don’t necessarily hold, because I quite like to play devil’s advocate in a debate, but I was able to laugh when I tied myself in intellectual knots, and I think I gave a fairly good idea of what it would actually be like to teach me. I don’t quite know why they thought they’d enjoy that experience for three years, but it does give me the confidence to know that I don’t need to pretend to live up to a best version of myself which doesn’t really exist.

After the interview, I did some proper research into the other unis I had offers from, and went to an offer holders’ day for York. I had actually come to terms with my rejection from Cambridge and I was beginning to feel sort of excited about heading to York. I had big plans to join the roller skating society, which sadly will no longer come to pass.

Where were you when you got your offer? How did you react?

Back at my parent’s house, home alone, cooking a convoluted meal for my family to make me feel better when the rejection came in. I saw the attachments on the email before I opened it, which I knew only meant one thing, but it was still inconceivable that I had a place. I basically cried hysterically for a solid 20 minutes and I had to take a screenshot of the offer letter to send to my mum because it made more sense that I was hallucinating than that I had got in. I also emailed the college to see if they had made a mistake, and thankfully, they had not. I still made sure to firm the option as soon as it came into UCAS, to trap them into taking me in case they changed their minds.

It does feel like Christmas waking up each morning and remembering all over again.

Are you looking forward to coming up to Cambridge?

YES!! I am so excited! But I’m also really excited about preparing over the next 8 months by reading every single important text written in English, ever. Which is surely a healthy response to have…

I know that as time goes on, I’m going to start becoming anxious and the idea of being surrounded by far more accomplished and intelligent people is going to intimidate me, but I have done scarier things in my life. The extra years have given me the perspective to realise that if I am not the best, that’s fine! I am much stronger than I was when I was a teenager, and I also have much more academic stamina than I did then. I’m looking forward to learning alongside other students who are also passionate about their subjects. There are a lot of apathetic people in this world and I think I can be fairly sure that none of them will be at Cambridge.

I deliberately chose Wolfson because its ethos is all about being inclusive and egalitarian, and so I feel like this environment will be great to study in. For example, it was the first college to take both men and women, and more recently has been the first to participate in a trial to help more disadvantaged students into Cambridge. The students at Wolfson come from all over the world, and most of them will have done other things with their life before getting there, and this variety really appeals to me.

I’m also very excited to be starting a new adventure. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that I had essentially given up on achieving anything substantial in my life. That’s not to say I haven’t had some incredible experiences, but I thought my time in education was over, and the door had closed on many other opportunities which are dependent on having a degree. It is surprising and sort of amazing that Cambridge still sees potential in me, and that such a prestigious university can happily overlook someone’s history if they believe in their future (cheesy, I know). I think this is at direct odds with the image it has, of somewhere which requires applicants to devote their teenage years to turning themselves into the perfect applicant. If my experience is anything to go by, this is not really necessary.

What is essential above all else is loving your subject, such that you genuinely want to spend your time reading about it and thinking about it, and making sure that you convey this passion to the admissions tutors and DoS. If you are considering applying but think that it’s too late now, or that you aren’t the right sort of applicant, then you might be wrong. After all, it only takes up one slot on your UCAS application, so you may as well go for it.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

Oxford Mum

@Betsy Trotwood

I haven't even got to the main questions, and already I'm hooked!

People have ideas about Cambridge students being exactly the same - young, braying, self entitled "poshies" who have everything handed to them on a silver platter. You have proved to us that is definitely not the case and that you can have bucketloads of adversity and still get in. In fact you are happy not to have got in first time. The fact is that you were not ready for Cambridge yet, and all the serious study this entails. A bit of life experience finally made you a competitive, thoughtful candidate.

When you were 18 you were primarily interested in the night life - just like me at 18. You seemed to have struggled to find an academic home, starting and dropping out of Classics, Fine Art and working all over Europe. This stop-starting of courses seems to have worried you, once you started to dream about Cambridge again. Would they think worse of you, because you have not been able to commit to anything in an academic sense?

When you had made the right choice, you had your teacher's (false) words still ringing in your head, telling you that Cambridge is so competitive that you do not stand a chance. I remember hearing that from teachers too. With the elder son, the school told him he should not apply to Oxford for languages because they almost always take native speakers. Wrong! And an Oxford professor told me, when I asked what my son needed to get in for medicine, just turned round and said "lots of luck". That was it. Wrong again!

The only time you should heed these harbingers of doom, is if you can't be bothered to do all the research you, and both my sons did to narrow the odds and stay in control of their application. It still might not work, but you can help yourself as much as possible.

I love how you approached the tutors themselves and asked them how you could make your application more successful. This resulted in your taking an English FE course and treating it as though you were an actual Cambridge applicant (what a brilliant plan). You did an 8 month course in 4, You worked independently, at a furious pace, reading like there's no tomorrow, thinking critically and creatively, until you got 10 distinctions in every module. Thus you emerged from the course, having cleverly manoveured yourself into the kind of student Cambridge admires.

It does not surprise me that you were impressed by Cambridge "thinking outside the box" with your application. Indeed the important word here is "potential". Alan Rusbridger, emeritus principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, started the Foundation programme, where each year he took 10 students from non traditional background, with a history of adversity and without stellar A level grades but potential. He trained them up and one year later they took the interviews along with other students. People said he would not have 10 students left at the end of the year. Stay they did, and the majority did end up getting places at Oxford. A couple went to top unis elsewhere. His motto was "it's not where you've been, but where you're going that matters".

If only everyone in life could think this way.

More comments after I have finished work.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 2

Oxford Mum

It almost goes with the territory that, as an English applicant, you read voraciously, and you feel an almost compulsive need to write, as well. I love reading too (I even read whilst I am cooking the tea) and my need to write is satisfied every day, via my contributions to TSR! You like the idea of going into journalism (you could, like my elder son, write for the university magazine, in his case, the Cherwell)... As for writing, an awful lot of Oxbridge graduates end up being published. Drop me a line when your first book appears in print, I am almost expecting it, now!

Of course, many, many Oxbridge dons have a sparkling academic career in addition to having an excellent published body of work.

I agree with ongoing engagement with literary texts. I love so many books, they are like old friends, and I often go back to them again and again. Vanity Fair is an example in point to me. Things haven't changed much in society since the book was written and this saddens me a little.

Now here's a question: Why is it that parents are always able to believe in their kids more than they do themselves? As a mother, I am keen to comment here.

For a start, I am nowhere near as smart as my two kids (though I do what I can on TSR, and students seem to like it). As soon as they open their mouths, I am so proud of the way they express themselves, and the fact that they are not afraid of criticising the world, or speaking their opinions.

We parents have known you all your lives and we are so proud of you. If there is any talent, we are aware of it at a young age.

I can recall going to pick younger son up from primary school (he was about 8 years old). He was explaining something about science to his friend. The more I listened, the more amazed I was at what he was saying, how he was saying it and the words he was using. To hear it all, I hid behind a pillar :s-smilie:

so I could hear him speak without interruption. I knew, right there and then that his mind was not the ordinary run of the mill. When he said he was applying for Oxford medicine, yes I knew it would be virtually impossible, and at times I thought it was, but I could not flag in front of him.

I know there are tales of parents who force their kids to apply to Oxbridge because of the "prestige". This is completely the wrong attitude, knock it on the head! However most of the Oxbridge parents listen to their children and just quietly encourage them through thick and thin, picking them up when they are ready to give up, or when they don't quite believe in themselves. Witness how you yourself say you put your GCSE grades down to "good luck". No, it's not.

During the HE course, you are showing brilliant progression, working at least 10 times harder than during A levels.

You love the thought of supervisions, speaking to an expert who will listen, challenge and help you to grow. You will need this, and under their encouragement, you will thrive, I promise!

Another great point you have made is that you can't coast and be lazy. When there are only two people plus the tutor, you have nowhere to hide. You have to make a contribution and work hard at those essays. The high pressure and short terms are ideally suited for the way you prefer to work.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 3

Oxford Mum

I am very grateful that you have posted so many great resources which you can easily access, even in the middle of the pandemic!

What a great idea to take a scenic walk along a beach, whilst learning from podcasts and audio sources! Plus it gives your eyes a bit of a rest, and offers a heady mix of fresh air, exercise and learning on the go.

JSTOR sounds very useful, too!

https://about.jstor.org/whats-in-jstor/

Again it gives us access to library resources when we can't physically enter libraries ourselves.

Reply 4

Oxford Mum

It is interesting that you mention so many texts on your personal statement, but then this is English. Also you can't just list the texts, but show how you have engaged with them. It's not just about reading, it's about reading between the lines (as an Oxford student said on a prospectus once).

I always tell people to have a niche area of interest for their course, but your advice is different - look at several different periods, not just one, etc. Also read a bit of background about the era in which the text in question is written.

Another positive for mature students is that Cambridge only cares about who you are now. Obviously you would have been a different person at 18, and scholastically you have moved on since then. Of course, being older can be a plus, because you have reached this stage on your own: without a teacher, summer school or free scheme. Young applicants take note, it can be done!

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 5

Oxford Mum

It's interesting that you have the tests actually as part of your interview and that you have one interview. Your Classics interview shows the importance of the admissions test!

I also think those sample Oxbridge questions are very useful. Without being the actual interview questions, they are the kind of curved ball things that will get you thinking in the same way the actual questions will. Here are samples:

https://www.cambridgeinterviewquestions.com/questions/arts/english/

https://sites.google.com/site/oxbridgeinterviewquestions/english

I can remember I gave these questions to a couple of proteges of mine (economics and law). They loved them and practised at least two a day. They both got in.

So useful do I find them, that I post them on the end of every Oxford and Cambridge Demystified chapter.

Yes, make sure you know everything that is on your PS, just in case they ask you about it, but mostly an interview will be about unfamiliar questions, not the kind of material you would have been taught at A level.

I always tell every student who has an Oxbridge interview to relax and leave their worries at the interview door. If you spend all your time thinking about the grandeur of your situation, or what is at stake, you won't be able to give your best to the interview. You need to concentrate, be in the here and now, and think deeply about each question, as you say.

Yes, you will make daft comments - everyone does. However at the end of the day it is a "nice chat", so why shouldn't you enjoy it? Sounds like a great attitude. With your experience, as well, you are used to interviews and it didn't phase you.

Reply 6

Oxford Mum

Your reaction after the interview is fairly typical. That pause between interviews and results is long enough to make you remember the howlers (and everyone does) and forget, as you say the combative and inquisitive nature you showed. Of course, reading this chapter now, it is completely obvious you are perfect for Cambridge. I'll bet your mum geared herself up to being supportive, whatever the outcome.

Over on the Oxford thread between December and January, there was some Olympic level overthinking and analysing of every single statistic going on! This will not change next year, nor the next.

It was really sweet, when you emailed the college, just to see if they had made a mistake, and that you firmed Cambridge before they changed their minds!

Sounds like the beginnings of imposter syndrome, which is common amongst Oxbridge students, and will also carry on when you first come up to the university. Yes, others will be as clever, or even cleverer than you, but what does that matter? Just be guided by your tutors and see yourself blossom academically. At any rate, you deserve to occupy a space at Cambridge because the tutors have said so. Never forget that.

The next few paragraphs are of particular interest to me. Your college is working hard on trials to attract more disadvantaged students to Cambridge. As someone who has devoted the last three years doing precisely the same thing, I would be pleased to hear more. Is it outreach for school age students or adults? That really would be fascinating!

I notice your remark about Cambridge, with its forward thinking and open mind being at direct odds to its image. I agree wholeheartedly. It was, in large part due to our surprise at how great Oxford really was, that led me to write Oxford Demystified.

Original post by Oxford Mum

The next few paragraphs are of particular interest to me. Your college is working hard on trials to attract more disadvantaged students to Cambridge. As someone who has devoted the last three years doing precisely the same thing, I would be pleased to hear more. Is it outreach for school age students or adults? That really would be fascinating!

So it's a new Foundation Year, specifically for people whose education has been significantly disrupted for a number of reasons (time spent in care, coming from an estranged family, health issues...), and as such would be unable to make a competitive application as their grades will have been too heavily impacted. The grade requirements are only BBB, it's entirely free, and successful completion leads straight onto a degree course! It sounds pretty awesome to me!

Also, such an insane coincidence that you mention Vanity Fair as I'm reading that right now, and loving it so far.

Thank you for all your comments!

Reply 9

Oxford Mum

Original post by Betsy Trotwood

It sounds exactly the same as the Oxford foundation year, devised by Alan Rusbridger, which has now been rolled out all over Oxford.

As for Vanity Fair, we all love Josh, who reminds me quite scarily, of my elder son. Page 50 (in the Penguin version) of Josh in the Vauxhall Gardens with the punch, is so like him it's as if it were written about him.