huge mistake for Cambridge to hold entrance interviews online

I think I'll wait until you've provided evidence that there isn't one.

Much more likely to be related to the grades of the applicants than anything else - gee, it's almost as if the interviews might identify the candidates who are most likely to get really high grades! Who'd have thought that! I mean, it's not like Oxford has a lower predicted grades requirement than some other universities or anything...

(I do need to stop being sarcastic, and I'm sorry for derailing the thread somewhat, but seriously, InArduis, try engaging your brain and looking at the bigger picture instead of only considering things which support a conclusion you've already reached. I'm done with this discussion now.)

as expected, there are different perspectives on online v in-person interviews as can be seen in this article

"The Cambridge applicant in 2022 looks very different to their 2019 equivalent: they have not sat GCSEs, were unable to do work experience and have lost significant proportions of their A-level syllabus. For two years in a row, Cambridge University decided to hold its interviews online, dividing public opinion over the benefits of holding them in person.

Varsity asked three students about their experience of online interviews this year, and the impact of Zoom-based communication on the outcome of their application.

“Jack Smith” (who requested to be referred to using a false name) felt that despite being more confident discussing his subject online, he would have felt more connected with the University and invested in his application had he been able to visit. Although he did admit that “wearing a white school shirt with off-camera tracksuit bottoms in my living room was an advantage more than anything.”

Another interviewee who applied for Maths felt that “the conversation didn’t flow as easily as it might have” and that “people are easier to read in person and it would’ve been nice to be in the college itself.”

Hanane Zidani, aged 17, who applied to read Law, found the opposite, arguing that online interviews got rid of distractions. She said: “I would have overthought other aspects of the interview that are less important like how to dress and my body language and their body language…I was able to focus more on what I was saying and how I said it because that was the only thing that they could judge.”


Jack believed that online interviews acted as a leveler for state school students, stating: “Online interviews may have helped reduce the private-state school gap. I imagine private school applicants are more familiar with the architecture of the colleges than state school applicants and the comfort and familiarity of being interviewed in your own home may, to some extent, redress this balance.”

In a statement released before the interviews took place, the University claimed that “no student will be disadvantaged” by the decision to hold interviews virtually, and that applicants seemed “more relaxed” online compared to in-person interviews.

mma Gladwin, who applied to read Law at Oxford, felt that online interviews posed a number of disadvantages- not only technical. “I believe it was more difficult to portray myself naturally online and, therefore, it was difficult to create a connection and an honest impression.”

Fears over the reliability of technology also added to the stressfulness of her experience; “The stress of setting up the interview, being allocated a room, and the constant fear of loss of connection, put me on edge throughout the entire experience.”

It is certainly true, therefore, that the Oxbridge applicant in 2022 not only has different credentials, but a different experience too. All of our respondents regretted not being able to visit the college itself, with Emma saying that ultimately: “To be able to stay there, eat food in the Hall, and, in a way, pretend to be a student for a few days would have been incredible. Whilst I am thankful for the interview experience, I cannot hide that I am jealous of the previous applicants.” "

the main operative there is 'given the profile of their students'. The benchmark for them is so high (in fact Oxford is at the highest end of the curve on benchmark) - that means the selection process is effective.

Good evening. I am so sorry to hear that your injury is causing you such pain. I don’t want to draw you back into the debate but as you have put yourself out to make such a wonderful final contribution I felt it only polite to reply. I am not going to make any new points or attempt to gainsay any points that you have made. So please don’t feel the need put any pressure on that poorly thumb!

Looking over your excellent post, the key concepts I can identify are objectivity, academic achievement and academic potential.

You are right, of course, that neither Oxford nor Cambridge claim that their interviews are objective. Interviews are inherently subjective. What they do claim is that they are attempting to assess academic potential on top of academic achievement, and nothing else - other than, perhaps, suitability for the tutorial teaching method. They make this clear in the undergraduate admissions section of their websites. My argument is that interviews cannot reliably do that, even as part of an holistic process. Obviously you disagree, as do many others. But it is important to stress that this is not my argument alone, despite the efforts of my opponents in this debate to assert that it is!

I hesitate to cite this source yet again but as I have been accused of lying, twisting facts, and quoting from anonymous or anecdotal sources I feel it is only fair to do so:

Delegating to the wrong people: the strange case of interviewing undergraduate candidates at Oxford
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2012/12/delegating-to-wrong-people-strange-case.html

Professor Wren-Lewis could not be clearer in stating his opinion:

“...all the evidence I have ever seen on interviews is that they are pretty unreliable as a selection procedure... We (and I think I’m justified in using that collective pronoun) do our very best to get round those biases, but it is hard. We can fail to compensate, or over compensate. We all think we can judge someone by talking to them for 30 minutes, but in reality our ability to assess academic potential that way is pretty small. Indeed, even if information gleaned from interviews contains some useful information, I strongly suspect those making decisions give this information far more weight than it deserves.”

I agree. You disagree. That is what a debate is all about.

So how can we make the selection of candidates more objective? You may be surprised to know that some academics actually do think that using a computer to select candidates at random is the right way! I am certainly not advocating that. At the end of Professor Wren-Lewis’s blog there is a comment from a Cambridge graduate (Cantab83) who suggests bringing back the system where candidates were selected by entrance exam rather than interview. As he puts it, objectivity is the key. I am advocating something similar but within the context of a post-qualifications admissions system based on one of the options put forward in a UCU consultation paper. I outlined this in an earlier post but here it is again:

"Imagine a scenario where sixth form students applied to university after they received their A level results. (Leave aside for the moment the question of how this would work and within what timescale.) Departments and colleges could then set minimum entrance requirements with confidence; these could still be adjusted for contextual factors and extenuating circumstances. This would, in practice, limit applications to those who had achieved the very highest standards while taking into account the disadvantages that some applicants had faced. Realistically, given grade inflation, no one with less than say A*A* A would be eligible to apply, although I suspect the problem of grade inflation would be mitigated in a PQA system. Prospective Oxbridge applicants would also take entrance exams, similar to the old S level or the current Oxford subject specific tests. These would be open to all university applicants. Crucially, these papers are designed to test academic potential and do not involve extra teaching; moreover, it is extremely difficult to coach for such tests.

Successful applications would thus rest on gaining the highest marks in both academic attainment and academic potential... I don't have a great deal of faith in personal statements or references. What matters is that candidates can objectively demonstrate both achievement and potential, not what they do in their spare time or what others think about them."

Now I realise you will probably disagree with that idea and you have very eloquently and politely explained why you believe in interviews. I wholeheartedly respect your opinion, but beg to differ!

That’s all!

Now rest that injured thumb, and get well soon

All the best.

two sides

Ending in-person interviews is a grave mistake

and the response

Ending in-person interviews is a victory for the many, not the few

Interesting that of the three posts so far, one says online interviews are more intimidating and two say they're less intimidating. I'll be answer four and even up the numbers - I would much, much rather do an in person interview than an online one. The additional worry that technology won't work properly is a big deal for me.

Virtually every successful Oxbridge applicant has been interviewed, whereas virtually no successful applicant to any other univeristy has. The 'Interview' is almost exclusively referred to in the context of Oxbridge admissions, since they're the only unis that embrace them en masse

You're absolutely right that its important to check your facts, but its a bit disingenuous to interpret his argument so literally when the point was sound.

Obviously, there are three positions here, favouring no interviews, online interviews and in person interviews.

I think one needs to bear in mind that if one eliminates interviews one is left with very few tools to discriminate between candidates bearing in mind that there are grave doubts about the reliability of all of estimated grades, personal statements and teachers' reports. Futhermore, 16+ and 18+ examinations are not designed to discriminate at the very top of the ability curve and like all examinations tend to randomness at the extremes of the cohort.


So far in this discussion two alternatives to interview have been suggested; a return to the old entrance examination and essentially random selection of applicants meeting a baseline standard. Both are not without merit. I would prefer a return to the entrance examination perhaps leavened by a few random choices. However, I am sure it is not to be. During the examination's heyday, Oxbridge had a far larger percentage of at least male university admissions. The exam placed a considerable burden on a minority of schools; academic independent schools and state grammars. A return would impose a burden on the majority of secondary schools for a small minority of the 16-18 cohort.

If then interviews are here to stay, then I think the question of on-line v remote needs to be framed differently. Do the benefits (if any) of in person interviews justify their considerably higher cost? The advocates for in person interviews give reasons why they are better but that is an argument without financial context. There is a considerable loss of conference revenue together with the hotel costs of feeding, watering and housing the applicants, payments to student helpers and overtime payments to hourly paid staff. There are also travel grants to those who otherwise couldn't afford to attend.

I suspect there are net benefits to in person interviews; the advantages outweigh the disadvantages but those net advantages do not justify the cost of this Rolls Royce interviewing process.

So far in this discussion two alternatives to interview have been suggested; a return to the old entrance examination and essentially random selection of applicants meeting a baseline standard. Both are not without merit. I would prefer a return to the entrance examination perhaps leavened by a few random choices

what do you mean by this?

This was an interesting article - thanks for linking it. Another downside I can see of online interviews is the perennial parent problem. Too many applicants have over-involved, pushy parents living their lives vicariously through their children: in my college, the senior tutor effectively banned parents from the college over the interview period as so many were asking thousands of questions, bustling around to make sure that every whim of their child was catered for and, in too many cases, requesting to come into the interview room with their child. No ****.

Can you imagine, then, these same parents' behaviour in the run up to, and during, an online interview - sat off camera, or within earshot of the candidate frantically mouthing stuff and waving their arms around? I can't think of anything more off-putting for the poor applicant. At least with in-person applicants it's just him or her and the interviewers, and they can get down to business without any distractions.

I suspect there are net benefits to in person interviews; the advantages outweigh the disadvantages but those net advantages do not justify the cost of this Rolls Royce interviewing process.

But the switch from Rolls Royce to e-scooter has not been without its mishaps.

Just a little light relief:

"In 2020, Cambridge University told virtual interviewees who could not afford a tablet to balance a phone on two tin cans. The university said that if a student is required to show their working out and does not have access to a laptop or tablet with a 'shared screen' option, they could simply balance a phone on one or two tin cans in order to film their work. The phone could alternatively be placed on a stack of books, pointed downwards to film a student as they work out maths or science questions by pen and paper."

Oxbridge dons say student interviews may now be permanently conducted online
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/22/oxbridge-dons-say-student-interviews-may-now-permanently-conducted/

Regarding the analogies used by the previous poster, who is to decide what's Rolls Royce what's e-scooter?

Some posters here are trying to solve imaginary problems and siting half baked research papers from 2010 in support.

Just to jump in here and add some information (yes I am reading this thread, for my sins). While I can't speak for every college, we at Peterhouse do a room sweep for every candidate immediately before every interview. We check to see they have no other technology available, no notes out on the desk and no one in the room with them. We ask them to confirm that there's no one there to us verbally as well as looking around, so if anything suspicious is noted, we can be certain that they were asked and confirmed it to us. In the technology check (compulsory for all interviewees, done about an hour before their first appointment), we ask them to set up their room so that the door to their room is visible and we can see anyone entering.

One thing that this conversation seems to have forgotten is the practicalities of interviewing. We interview students from dozens of countries across the world, some of which still have strict Covid restrictions in place. This is especially the case in China, the country with the largest group of applicants outside the UK. Many Chinese cities are still in lockdown or have measures which restrict movement that can come into effect with very little notice. Had we decided to interview all applicants in person, there is no guarantee that Chinese applicants would have been able to travel to the UK, meaning we would have had the prospect of having to rearrange interviews and move them online at very little notice. We could have chosen to interview our Chinese/all our overseas applicants online, but to treat a group of applicants differently based on where they live, without giving them any choice, could very reasonably lead to calls of discrimination. Doing some interviews online and some in person would also have been very difficult form most colleges to implement with only a few months' notice. We thought carefully about this at Peterhouse, but to run two types of interview process (one online and one in person) simultaneously would have required more office staff members than we have. (For context, we have one full time Admissions person and two Outreach officers, one of whom does some Admissions. It normally takes all three of us to run interviews, either online or in person. We estimate that we would need four or five people to run both simultaneously.) That's not to say that a hybrid process is completely off the cards for the future, but it would require careful thought about whether it could be reasonably be delivered by college admissions offices. The format of Cambridge interviews from December 2023 onwards is being considered and this was only ever going to be a decision for December 2022.

To summarise, this largely wasn't an ideological decision but a practical one. It's much more fun to dress it up as ideological though - and much easier to get incensed about the decision if you assume that the discussion was all ideologically driven.

Surely you realise that the story about Cambridge University telling virtual interviewees to balance a phone on two tin cans was intended as a moment of light relief and to demonstrate that even those clever people at Cambridge can sometimes come up with the silliest of ideas?

As for the analogy, it was another contributor who first used the expression " Rolls Royce" to describe the traditional in-person interview. I merely added e-scooter to highlight the contrast - but only in relation to the tin can episode.