History at Oxford

Hi!
I am considering studying History with Econ at Oxford and I'm interested in Balliol College in particular, but still haven't committed to a certain one. I got advice from an alumni to look at what the academics are interested in and then research my own niche area of History which links to that, so we can talk about it in our interview and personal statement. Does anyone know if this is actually true? Or am I better off just talking about what interests me in particular regardless of what the academics are interested in

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by tvi.123

You have no guarantee of being interviewed by any particular academic at any particular college you apply to (and I believe many programmes will interview at a second, random college anyway as well). Also the point of the interview as I understand is not about what you know per se but how you apply your existing knowledge to unfamiliar questions - and if you are already familiar with something they are asking you about they may just ask a different question to avoid that. Also I gather often they may not ask much about your PS other than as an icebreaker.

So I don't think there is anything gained by doing as stated. If they do want to hear about your interests, they want to know your interests, not what you know about their own research (they already know that, and better than you do).

Reply 2

BetaVersion2.9

Depending upon the age of the alumnus who offered the advice it is highly likely the interview format will have changed since they were interviewed. Alas, gone are the days when you could spend the interview talking about cricket and still be offered a place. As above, you can't predict who will be interviewing you. The interviews aim to find out how you think, how you respond to questions in an unfamiliar context and to demonstrate your problem solving abilities.
Far better to talk about what interests you in the PS.

Reply 3

xyz1234567

No, as others have said, thie is bad advice. Don’t talk about what you think they are interested in - it comes across as cringey and there is a risk of it then turning out that you don’t know much about it. Talk about what you are interested in. You will talk with much more genuine passion and come across much better.

Bear in mind that alumni don’t have any deep insight into admissions - they just have experience of their own interview (perhaps many years ago). They don’t know what it was that made the tutors offer them a place.

Reply 4

tvi.123

Thank you so much! so is it best to just do extra reading? when everyone says 'have your own arguments' how do I do that? do I write down what I read? do I do extra essays? further more , for joint honours, how to I integrate the two

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

In my interview the interview subjects didn't link to any of the tutors speciality or own research or my personal statement (I applied last year for PPE at Balliol), so no way of predicting what they will talk about. With own arguments I think this means that if you have read an article/ book/ essay you form your own opinion on it. Thinking about if there is anything you disagree with, or anything which you think is particularly interesting or strong, you can also link ideas from different sources together and draw comparisons.