Interviews at Cambridge for Veterinary Medicine
I applied for Veterinary Medicine this year, and had an interview at Magdalene. I got rejected in January, but I’m going to reapply this October. I was very poorly prepared for the interview and generally answered the questions badly.
What is the best way to prepare for a Cambridge vet med interview? And how should you respond to a question you are unsure about/don’t know the answer to? I have had a lot of conflicting advice with regards to this.
What is the best way to prepare for a Cambridge vet med interview? And how should you respond to a question you are unsure about/don’t know the answer to? I have had a lot of conflicting advice with regards to this.
Do you already have other offers for vet med? If you have another offer do not reapply just for the chance of getting into Cambridge.
For the interview:
Do as much science further reading as possible between now and October. Stock up on work experience- while you’re there be super inquisitive, take notes, ask how stuff works (try and familiarise yourself with what each bit of equipment they use does, common drugs and what they do- they won’t directly ask you about a specific drug but it’s useful to mention in questions, and treatments for common conditions you see). See if your school can set you up a mock interview.
The questions themselves (as I’m sure you know from your last interview) are not that hard just phrased in a way that makes you think about it to get to the answer. If you don’t know the answer to a question, think out loud! Tell them what you are doing to try and work out the answer. Don’t sit there in silence.
I got a Cambridge offer for vet med this year by doing this stuff (from Downing). You probably know you aren’t meant to reapply to the same college so choose another one, and good luck!
For the interview:
Do as much science further reading as possible between now and October. Stock up on work experience- while you’re there be super inquisitive, take notes, ask how stuff works (try and familiarise yourself with what each bit of equipment they use does, common drugs and what they do- they won’t directly ask you about a specific drug but it’s useful to mention in questions, and treatments for common conditions you see). See if your school can set you up a mock interview.
The questions themselves (as I’m sure you know from your last interview) are not that hard just phrased in a way that makes you think about it to get to the answer. If you don’t know the answer to a question, think out loud! Tell them what you are doing to try and work out the answer. Don’t sit there in silence.
I got a Cambridge offer for vet med this year by doing this stuff (from Downing). You probably know you aren’t meant to reapply to the same college so choose another one, and good luck!
Original post by stimtothesky
Do you already have other offers for vet med? If you have another offer do not reapply just for the chance of getting into Cambridge.
For the interview:
Do as much science further reading as possible between now and October. Stock up on work experience- while you’re there be super inquisitive, take notes, ask how stuff works (try and familiarise yourself with what each bit of equipment they use does, common drugs and what they do- they won’t directly ask you about a specific drug but it’s useful to mention in questions, and treatments for common conditions you see). See if your school can set you up a mock interview.
The questions themselves (as I’m sure you know from your last interview) are not that hard just phrased in a way that makes you think about it to get to the answer. If you don’t know the answer to a question, think out loud! Tell them what you are doing to try and work out the answer. Don’t sit there in silence.
I got a Cambridge offer for vet med this year by doing this stuff (from Downing). You probably know you aren’t meant to reapply to the same college so choose another one, and good luck!
For the interview:
Do as much science further reading as possible between now and October. Stock up on work experience- while you’re there be super inquisitive, take notes, ask how stuff works (try and familiarise yourself with what each bit of equipment they use does, common drugs and what they do- they won’t directly ask you about a specific drug but it’s useful to mention in questions, and treatments for common conditions you see). See if your school can set you up a mock interview.
The questions themselves (as I’m sure you know from your last interview) are not that hard just phrased in a way that makes you think about it to get to the answer. If you don’t know the answer to a question, think out loud! Tell them what you are doing to try and work out the answer. Don’t sit there in silence.
I got a Cambridge offer for vet med this year by doing this stuff (from Downing). You probably know you aren’t meant to reapply to the same college so choose another one, and good luck!
I got 4 rejections this year, but I still love Cambridge so I will apply again in October.
Thank you this was helpful. Well done on your offer from Downing!! That is so exciting! Weirdly, I came out of my interview feeling great, there hadn’t been any questions I couldn’t answer. But on reflection, this was probably more because I was going so slowly I didn’t actually progress to the difficult questions. My school did offer mock interviews but they were so different to the oxbridge style, I never got a practice in.
One thing I think affected my chances was that I almost immediately felt like the director of studies (at Magdalene) didn’t like me. The other interview without this guy was much easier.
Hopefully my rejection was a combination of ill-preparedness and bad luck but I can’t be sure as I have yet to receive my feedback.
Doing more work experience would definitely help because I noticed my questions were taken from contexts they knew I was unfamiliar with (I got lots on cattle, and I had no work experience with them).
Anyway thank you for your advice, a lot of it was new information for me, unfortunately. Good luck with your A levels!
It's very science focused so you need to know your science, but also look at some further reading- not necessary for you to learn anything new, but get familiar with looking at new topics/ideas as the interview will probably introduce a new topic/expend on something you already know and then get you to take a leap and guess. It's ok to not know, say you're not sure but then say your thought process. "I don't know X but I know A leads to B leads to C so I'm going to guess X is D" And then they'll either correct something in your thought process or give more clues and try to help- but I guess they want to see you make a leap and work it out.
At least that's how my interview went, and I started this year
At least that's how my interview went, and I started this year
Original post by laurakyna
It's very science focused so you need to know your science, but also look at some further reading- not necessary for you to learn anything new, but get familiar with looking at new topics/ideas as the interview will probably introduce a new topic/expend on something you already know and then get you to take a leap and guess. It's ok to not know, say you're not sure but then say your thought process. "I don't know X but I know A leads to B leads to C so I'm going to guess X is D" And then they'll either correct something in your thought process or give more clues and try to help- but I guess they want to see you make a leap and work it out.
At least that's how my interview went, and I started this year
At least that's how my interview went, and I started this year
Okay, thank you. That sounds like maybe just revision of my A level content could help!
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