The Oxford Interview importance?

Dear all,
The interview process, as well as the application to be honest, has now come to an end, and for us who had an interview, it will be a long wait until the 7th of January when all the decisions will be released.

So I have a few questions in mind which I would like to know in order to make this wait a bit easier.

When the university decides on who will receive an offer, how much do they take into account the admissions test, because I thought it was mainly used to cut off a large portion of people at the start to determine who will be invited to interview. So when they decide on who gets an offer, how much do they look at the admissions test result?

Also how important is the interview? Especially relative to the admissions test in deciding who will be offered a place?


Thanks a lot guys and I hope you interviews went well, I'm sure they did.
Most important of all, I wish you all a relaxing break which you truly deserve, a merry Christmas and all the best with the offer!

It varies massively from subject to subject, for something like Maths the MAT is incredibly important and arguably more so than the interview. For other subjects it doesn't really factor that much at all.

More generally speaking, the admissions test will be used to determine who gets an interview, then the interview becomes the main factor in decisions although the other factors remain in the background.

How did your interview go? And which college did you apply for?

Ahh ok I see, thanks a lot.
What about for engineering? Do you know how important the PAT is in deciding who gets a place?
Also does it matter if you made one or two extremely stupid and basic errors (perhaps due to nerves) and then corrected yourself after a bit? I mean those mistakes are so amateur it's laughable :/

I'm not an expert on Engineering - but this is the info from the department's website:

How are the PAT results used in admissions?
The PAT results are used as a supplement to our existing procedures. The first occasion will be when the candidates are shortlisted for interview, and the second occasion will be after all the other phases of the process, just before places are allocated.

At shortlisting
Candidates are chosen for interview on the basis of our assessment of their UCAS forms. After this initial selection we will use the test information to confirm or otherwise the initial shortlist. The marks for all the candidates not on the proposed shortlist will then be released to colleges and can be used in the final decisions on those to be shortlisted. The marks for those on the shortlist will not be released – this is so as not to influence the later selection stages.

After the interview
Each college produces an overall assessment, based on the interview and the UCAS form, for every candidate it has interviewed - this is supplied without any knowledge of the test marks of the individual candidates (except for those candidates whose marks had been released at the shortlisting stage). After providing this assessment the test marks will be released and colleges asked to provide an additional assessment based on the test marks, the interview and the UCAS form. Places will be offered on the basis of an academic judgement of all the assessments.

In regards to making errors, I presume you mean at interview? If so, the tutors understand that people are nervous and silly errors can occur. If you got to the answer in the end that's all that matters - they don't expect you to be a super genius robot that answers every question instantly. Most tutors want people who they can actually talk to anyway

I honestly don't know :/ hopefully they went alright.
For my first interview I was guided to answering the first question and the second question with a tiny bit of help I arrived to an answer without much trouble.
For my second interview I knew exactly how to do all the questions, which I find quite weird because they are just AS level stuff and didn't really require much thinking unlike questions other candidates received, so I don't know what that means...
But then again just because I got to the answer doesn't mean it went well, it's all about being able to show that you think logically and stuff right? So you have to speak out loud step by step what you're thinking, and hopefully I did alright on this side of things..
What about you? Also which course did you apply for?