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Survey for applicants who got an Interview.

Im really interested in knowing, ruffly, how many times you mentally "simulated" the interview before you went, and whether or not you got an offer.

e.g. for me,

Simulated: 20~25 times, got offer.

(By simulation I basically mean imagining the questions they might ask and what you would say etc.)

Edit: Informally.

Reply 1

Tyrotoxism

There's no possible way I could even come close to a quasi-accurate guess.

Reply 2

TheUnbeliever

If I did this, it was idle speculation when I was bored - I couldn't possibly give a count. Do you mean actually sitting down, semi-formally, with an attempt to go through it completely in your head?

Reply 3

LUFCsuperstar

Impossible to quantify.. [EDIT:] NEVER did it alone, formally.

But informally would have posed myself random Qs at all sorts of random times :P

Reply 4

Willis123

Sorry about my scientific language, lol I meant basically day dreaming.

Reply 5

Craghyrax

Zero. I knew it was impossible to guess what the questions would be, so didn't bother.

Incidentally if you go to 'Thread tools' you can attach a poll to this thread.

Reply 6

serrellen

I had a mock interview at school which was pointless as they asked no similar questions. I thought about it on the way up, I suppose, but not really in the sense of what they'd ask - more in regards to what I would say!

Reply 7

SouthernFreerider

maybe 5-10? all the day before.

saying that, I did 2-3 months of general maths prep for the interview.

Reply 8

Zygroth

This is pretty much impossible to answer without being REALLY vague, especially after over a month. I doubt anyone remembers how many times they thought about what they might be asked at an interview. There are, after all, much more important things to remember, such as the answers to what they might ask you at interview :p:

Reply 9

jw366

I thought about it a fair bit and I got an offer. This is a really strange question to be honest and I'm not sure what you hope to glean from answers. :s-smilie:

Reply 10

immediate_escape

Well I was forever dreaming up strange questions but that's only because I would have done that anyway, having read a book.

In terms of actually sitting down and thinking 'Hmm, what will I be asked in interview?', don't think I did that at all....

Reply 11

SaoPaolo

I spoke aloud many times answers that I thought would be useful in the interview - the obvious ones. I'm a language applicant so I often did this in my target languages and improved my answers linguistically as I went. It also helps to use a mirror because then you can practise a conversational manner and a sincere appearance as you regurgitate your answers that you've been planning and gradually improving in the run up.

Reply 12

timelordess

I didn't actually do it all that much, and then I had a mock interview with my teacher and he asked me why I wanted to study my subject and I just gushed and sounded a bit drunk! After the interview I kept going over what went wrong in my head... must've done that about 100 times... does that count?

Reply 13

jw366

After the interview I kept going over what went wrong in my head... must've done that about 100 times... does that count?

Lol, me too! There was an integration question that I didn't do too brilliantly that in the few weeks between having the interviews and hearing from the University was burned into my memory so that I would think about it every 30 minutes. :-(

Reply 14

shadowsintherain

I didn't really do anything like imagining questions they might ask, except for the obvious ones of course (why do you want to study X etc.). I did however do quite a bit of reading in textbooks so that I know that type of questions they might ask...

Reply 15

Miam!

Tyrotoxism

There's no possible way I could even come close to a quasi-accurate guess.

Ditto, I did al lot of preparation but not the same way the OP did. Anticipating the questions I'd be asked was actually one of the best things I did, but never formally "simulated" an interview in my head. There was a thread about interview preparation a couple of months ago (on the Oxbridge forum I think? I replied anyway so you can find it through my previous posts) that was quite interesting.

Reply 16

Ehmo

Again and again.
But in the end it just made me stutter because I had practised so many times (practiced?) , and turned out I didn't even get asked any of the questions which I thought I would (not even 'why did you choose your subject?' or 'why cambridge?').

Reply 17

Geritak

If you mean in terms of sort of interviewing yourself in your head, then it must be hundreds of times :smile:

.

I did sit down a couple of weeks beforehand and try to write down some likely questions, by going through internet forums and suchlike, but other than that I kind of got into a habit of trying to develop every quasi-intellectual thought into an intervew response :o:

. I whiled away many an hour like that... and I still sounded thick in the interview :rolleyes:

Reply 18

charlottesometimes

I occasionally thought about things that I was interested in, and how I might talk about those things in an interesting manner if I were asked about them in interview, but I certainly didn't run through my every word months in advance in my head or anything. I had a practice interview at school which was dreadful, because they told me that I didn't know anything, was arrogant and that no college in its right mind would take me (got an offer to read English at Robinson) which actually helped because I knew that I didn't come across like that and worked harder in my actual interview to prove it. This is an odd question!