Interview preparation days?

Um, no they haven't.

I went to an Interview Preparation Day organised by Oxbridge Applications and I am now in my second year studying Law at Cambridge. I know of many other people who received interview coaching and got here successfully (besides, the success rate of people who attend the Interview Preparation Day/Weekend is about 45% - so obviously the interviewers cannot differentiate). Anyway, the IPD does not make you into a clone. It's just about developing your confidence and arguments. You're still an individual and you don't go into the interview giving off any signals that you've been coached.

The BEST information you can get is from the university website. This is extensive and accurate (because it comes from the university). You can watch mock interviews and read all about the process.

Personally I'm not impressed by the Oxbridge Applications scare tactics - the way they emphasise bizarre questions which are taken out of context and generally dramatise the whole process in order to make people think that coaching is essential. Coaching is not essential and just complicates the process for the academics who have to make sure that the best applicants get in whether or not they've been coached.

Basically, if you're good enough, you'll get in. The interviewers know what they're doing. Don't worry.

No. But it's your decision.

So you wouldnt reccomend going, even if its free?

You do realise just because you claim the EMA it doesn't mean your going to be on an interview prep day right?

I did this last year (through the EMA application) and they only have 3 spots on their programme for EMA receivers, with applications opening in September I was told to submit my app as soon, as possible as come October the places are allocated and given away

Read there mission statement, they flaunt themselves as 'helping students regardless of background etc etc etc' and so for them to at least say they do this and that it is in someway true, they need to let some students onto there programme who can't 'afford' it - such as with myself

Common sense would tell one that they are not going to let their whole class be over run with people who have got the service for free - their a business after all

When I was on it last year there where 3 of us - but don't worry, your not going to miss much

I applied for economics last year and they had a theologian interviewing me ha and I got 'competency' questions - i.e. you don't get subject knowledge interviews (this was the case across the board) - so I just got asked questions like 'why oxbridge' 'why course x' 'why did you pick this a-level' 'why drop this a-level' etc etc

As you can probably tell, NONE of these questions came up at interview - and if anything the interview day made things worse as they just confuse you about what the interview will consist (when in fact it is totally different I can tell you)

Although the day was uber-crap I don't blame my interviewer, he was a 2nd year theologian so you can't blame him not knowing about economics ha - all the interviews are conducted by current students (although as I said, most of them are from theology, classics, archeology subjects etc) - if i had paid for this service I wouldn't be happy at all (to the point were I think I would actually complain to trading standards or whomever would deal with such a matter) as it was clearly a 'money-making' scheme

All of the information given you can get on TSR and the respective oxbridge websites


Hope that helps someone

Thanks, thats really helpful. I got that impression from other posts, but I didnt realise that the service was actually that poor (and likely to confuse applicants!), or that it would be unlikely that I would get a place on it anyway. Certainly confirms the idea that its just a money making scheme! Seems likely that the statistsics claiming that more applicants get in are simply due to those students having parents that can pay for private schools / private tutoring etc. Just out of curiosity, did you get into Oxbridge?