Oxford PPE Interview Discussion

What kind of maths could they ask? I've only done up to first year A level.

In my experience, differentiation (finding maxima sometimes) is sometimes in the interview or sketching simple graphs of functions. But then keep in mind that I did do Maths so they might adapt the questions if that’s something they don’t expect you to have covered. Or at least, they will take into account that you won’t have covered it. They are kind of more after your intuitions anyway - and from what I have heard also from my current tutors now (who also interviewed me back then) is that especially for economics tutors, your TSA score might even be slightly more important than your interview.

Thanks overall though, even if you didn’t stand out in the TSA or did particularly brilliant, a good interview would be enough to get an offer you think?

Sure - I didnt mean to say it will all be TSA, in that case, they could just scrap the interviews and take the people with the highest scores. This is also because the emphasis on the TSA by economics tutors might be counterbalanced by the other subject tutors who care about interviews a lot more (as is often the case). They will eventually consider your application as a whole and you surely don’t need to be particularly brilliant on the TSA to get in if the rest of your application and particularly the interviews are amazing!

( I guess my main intention of mentioning this is that it will not be *all* interviews which some people believe and can be quite scary to think.)

Hey! I am not sure why I am reading this but I am a current PPE student at Oxford and I would highly recommend going over basic maths rather than economics. In my interview, it was quite literally nearly all maths they asked me about. But don’t worry if you haven’t done maths or economics, they won’t assume knowledge.

Do you think there will be any interviews on the Sunday we get there? It’s probably a stupid question but oh well haha

Not a stupid question, depending what time you get there, could well be a few candidates who are interviewed before dinner. They try to squeeze in as many as they can.

Do you think there will be any interviews on the Sunday we get there? It’s probably a stupid question but oh well haha

May appear stupid, but does anyone one whether towels are provided?😅 I’m coming by plane and only have a little suitcase as hand luggage so I’m trying to save space and weight😬

Okay folks, things are getting serious: D I just arrived at Oxford, and feel quite excited about the upcoming interviews.
I wish you guys all the best, hopefully each and everyone of you will perform brilliantly🙏

This didn’t happen when I interviewed and I also haven’t heard of this happening. I have heard of some colleges doing like a test thing which may have been on Sunday but those colleges told their applicants that in the invitation email then.
(Just because I haven’t heard of it obviously doesn’t mean it’s impossible but it is definitely unlikely. My college has a really large PPE cohort, so lots of people to interview, but all regular interviews happened on Monday and Tuesday.)

Hi there - just wondering, in your experience, is it a bad sign that I was only interviewed for PPE by one college (not the one I applied to, but I'd love to go there)?

No I don't think it's a bad sign. I don't think many people get pooled.