Odd interview questions...

lol, thanks boss lady *high five* and bono, I got there in the end !

And what's with the avatar? Noooo, bring the old one back!

Oo, was this at Hertford? My friend too had an inflatable sheep (physically thrown at her ) and was asked to sing twinkle twinkle little star. Infront of 5 grown men

Did she have to get the attention of the guys at the beginning also?

Luckily not but her interview experience was absolutely hilarious! One of the men kept setting up his computer to play weird sounds in the background (like techno beats and animal sounds)

Sounds funny but was probably pretty traumatising!

Hertford got in big trouble for their interviews though, loads of school complained! Not surprisingly in my view - not a brilliant way to select medical students.

I suspect that in other parts of the interview they went into medical stuff, and they wouldn't have done it if they couldn't have judged people upon it....

As for it sounding like good fun, if you was a prospective medical student and realised how difficult it is to gain a place at a medical school anywhere, I think you would feel differently

I didn't mean fun as in a fun day out at the theme park, but it would make a change from what you expected. The interviewers know that some people are "trained" through the interviews so have to find a different way to challenge people. I think if you approched it with a good, but serious sense of humour it would be easier. Slipping in a joke always lightens the mood and I think most would find this easier with the presense of an inflatable sheep. I think people need to look at interviews in a more relaxed manner. Of the people I know who are studying at Cambridge most are very clever but also have a sence of humour, are relaxed and can charm people; therefore they interview very well.

I quoted the Bill in my law interview, and got in!

I cracked a few little jokes in my Nat Sci interview and got some laughs. Then I got out and remembered reading in the interview guide not to try to be funny in case the interviewer(s) had a different sense of humour to you.

There's the maths tutor at Oxford: "Can you write a formula that proves mathematics is interesting?"

I'd cry if they asked that. I suppose you can start thinking out loud, what is a formula, if I was on the spot I'd probably come out with something like a formula describes one or more quantity in terms of others, give an example. How can a formula prove osmething? Well it can show the behaviour of these quantities, so if you could write a formula which showed that a quantity acted in a certain way, say was always above 3, and that this implied that maths was interesting. Then yes I could write a formula which proved maths interesting.

Oh, definitely - when I first heard how it had gone I was utterly shocked (and grateful that I had reasonably sane interviewers!). I think it's alright (and can be useful in seeing a person's personality) to have a bit of a tease but maybe not so harshly lol, I wonder whether Hertford do this every year - anyway they are probably used to people complaining, the Ox medical school had already received loads of complaints before the interviewing had even started! In the end did your friend receive an offer?