Cambridge interviews

Hi everyone,
I’ve always wondered and never managed to get a clear answer , what actually goes on in Cambridge interviews, especially for medicine?
• What kind of questions do they usually ask?
• Are they more like academic/problem-solving discussions or more personal/“why medicine” style?
• Do they expect you to show any practical skills during the interview, or is it mainly thinking on the spot?
Or do they idk give you scenarios and you come up with a solution ( isn’t that done in the UCAT too? So what’s the point of asking again?)
I do not have any info in this regard
Would love to hear from anyone who’s been through it or has insight into the process!
And almost everyone old and young that I know who has applied to Cambridge has gotten an interview even if 97% of the time they did not get a place, is it really that easy to get and interview ? Or the people I know happen to be very lucky 😅 Whereas for Oxford barely anyone gets an interview!!
I’d appreciate any advice regarding this topic.

Hello, so regarding interview ratios — it's true a much higher proportion of candidates are interviewed Cambridge compared to Oxford, something like 70% vs 30% of applicants (thought don't quote me on that) so you can see why you would know far more who get interviews at Cambridge!
This is mostly just an application difference in how they collect data, ultimately they make a similar number of offers in the end.
I wouldn't say it's "easy" exactly, but put it this way, usually Cambridge only reject people from interviews if they think they have an extremely disqualifying factor about their application that would bring their application down even if they went on to perform really well at interview. Oxford tend to shortlist only the best candidates however, that's why it's more competitive up to that point.
In terms of interview questions, best way I can describe it is it's like having a brief conversation with an academic about their research as someone who probably knows nothing about it. You'll mostly have to throw ideas out there, be flexible, be willing to be wrong.
For Med, they do have some scenarios/ethics questions just to see in person a candidates mannerisms and handling of a situation (which ucat can't do) but they tend not to ask generic "why medicine" questions as they know everyone will have a pat answer and they would prefer to get you to think creatively rather than regurgitate an answer.
In terms of practical skills, they do ask you to be able to have a device that you can use to write on the screen with, but I think this is mostly for engineering and stuff. For Med, the most "practical" stuffis generally some basic maths calculations.
Let me know if you have any more questions. Best of luck with prep xx

Hello, so regarding interview ratios — it's true a much higher proportion of candidates are interviewed Cambridge compared to Oxford, something like 70% vs 30% of applicants (thought don't quote me on that) so you can see why you would know far more who get interviews at Cambridge!
This is mostly just an application difference in how they collect data, ultimately they make a similar number of offers in the end.
I wouldn't say it's "easy" exactly, but put it this way, usually Cambridge only reject people from interviews if they think they have an extremely disqualifying factor about their application that would bring their application down even if they went on to perform really well at interview. Oxford tend to shortlist only the best candidates however, that's why it's more competitive up to that point.
In terms of interview questions, best way I can describe it is it's like having a brief conversation with an academic about their research as someone who probably knows nothing about it. You'll mostly have to throw ideas out there, be flexible, be willing to be wrong.
For Med, they do have some scenarios/ethics questions just to see in person a candidates mannerisms and handling of a situation (which ucat can't do) but they tend not to ask generic "why medicine" questions as they know everyone will have a pat answer and they would prefer to get you to think creatively rather than regurgitate an answer.
In terms of practical skills, they do ask you to be able to have a device that you can use to write on the screen with, but I think this is mostly for engineering and stuff. For Med, the most "practical" stuffis generally some basic maths calculations.
Let me know if you have any more questions. Best of luck with prep xx

Hey, you gave some great advice here.
Could you expand more on the basic math calculations - would it be dosages and drug calculations?
I've also heard that some interviews require to draw graphs - would it be graphs related to Maths (e.g drawing sin, e^x graphs) or graphs related to Biology/Chemistry.

Every interview question will be different, so they could ask you about drugs, dosages, etc. But what I meant more was that the actual maths is very simple, like it's a single step thing that you could do in your head. This was my experience at least for Medicine they tend not to ask too much.
In terms of graphs, I don't think they would ask you to draw trig graphs or common function graphs for maths, I think it would more be like based on experimental variables? So like, can you predict what will happen to this variable as I change this one. I didn’t get a question like this myself, but that seems so make the most sense for what kind of graph Qs could come up.

Thank you for your reply!
I saw that you have received an offer from Cambridge - congratulations.
May I ask what you read in terms of interview prep? I have already done all the A level biology content, and I am doing further reading on Epigenetics and Immunology (my personal interest), and also looking at how to interpret some scans/graphs. Do you know where I could source some potential questions, and would it be worth doing further reading on Medicinal Chemistry?
(Sorry for all the questions!)

Thank you so much, no worries on all the questions x
I actually didn't do that much reading to tell the truth, I'm from Scotland and a year younger than all English students applying (because Scotlanf has no equivalent of y13, school ends at y12 but we're competing with y13s for uni) so even catching up with some A Level content felt like a lot for me 😅.
I think the main thing is probably be able to back up everything you have said in your PS with an explanation. You should be able to explain it in simple terms and also maybe say a bit more than what you wrote down.
I don't think you need to worry about understanding medicinal chemistry, because you might just learn a lot of information that never comes up - remember the interview is about how you think not what you know. You need to get conformable not knowing!
You can watch lots of mocks in YouTube (aspiring medics have lots and so do different Oxbridge colleges) to get an idea for questions. If you search up "Oxbridge interview questions" some should come up as well - I think Blackstone tutors has a long list. Don't get too stuck on these as they're not too like what you'll in your interview, but just use them to stretch your brain.
The thing that really helped me was asking my subjects teachers to test me based on knowledge that was beyond school - basically just ask them to have a mock where they kind of get you to understand new things from first principles. If your basics are strong and you can stretch them then you're in a good place.

I would say also don't forget basic things like ethics and public health, those also come up a lot and you don't want to mess up the simple parts.
Another thing that is actually really useful you can do once you get the names of your interviewers is search up their research specialties as they are quite likely to ask questions based around this (mine did! and I really regret not looking into it more but even the little bit of background reading I did was massively helpful I think) so try and get to grips with what their research is. Obviously you won't become an expert but if you can understand the most basic aspects of it and the parts of A Level that relate to it that would be really good.

Hey, I cannot thank you enough for your advice! I'll let you know how my interview goes if and when I do it. Best of luck in all your studies.

Thank you so much, glad I could help. Best of luck to you as well xx

Hey! Op here ! I had one question regarding your experience, what would you say got you the interview in the first place? Like was it your personal statement ? Grades or something else that caught their eyes . Also for extra curriculars did you do anything specific? Thanks girl! You’re such an amazing person for answering all these questions 🥹 my GCSEs are mid but my A levels are 4x A*s predicted now idk if I have a chance? Because I am not sure if they consider GCSEs heavily .

Hello, thanks so much for ur kind words <3
I think it's important to remember for Cambridge that their philosophy is they try to interview most people (like around 75-80%). The way I've heard it described is that they would only not interview someone if their pre interview stats were so bad that even if they did really well at interview they wouldn't have a high chance of getting an offer, so at that point it would just be a waste of the uni and the applicant's time.
Basically, if they offer you an interview they think you could be offered a place!
In terms of what made the difference for me, I think my grades were quite high (I'm from Scotland so I did Nat5s and Highers not GCSEs but I had all A1s (kind of the equivalent of 9s I think). I don't know exactly what was on my application for my Advanced Highers/A Levels because my school messed up predictions I think, but I do know that Cambridge generally considers A Levels more important because they are more recent so they tend to be a better indication of someone's potential. However, schools are also wary of grade inflation and everyone predicting A*s.
My admissions test was quite low, so honestly I think the other things that helped me is I meet some contextual flags, and I think my PS and reference really made a difference. My school is very good with references and includes lots of important things (like I had a lot of subject prizes for three consecutive years and loads of Olympiad participation as well) and then I think my PS was quiet good for showing supercurriculars - actually I did a project on AI in Medicine and AlphaFold and that year a Cambridge scientist actually won the Nobel Prize for work on that, so I think that looked quite good, like I had identified a "hot" research topic ahead of time and done a project on it.
When I asked for feedback, the college I interviewed at said that I was invited to interview on the basis of a "strong academic profile, plus an enthusiastic personal statement". Whereas my written assessment (the UCAT) "fell within the second lowest quintile within the University gathered field". So yeah, I think it was my PS, reference and grades overall.
Best of luck and let me know if I can help in any other way xx

Thank you so so so much! I was wondering if you’d like to look at my EPQ question? It’s based on a medicine topic and I want to know if it’s good? I can message you privately and send it to you ( to avoid other people using the same one)

Of course, feel free to message.
I will just say that I'm from Scotland so I don't have experience with how EPQ marking works specifically as I haven't done one myself, so I can't advise if it's a good question in that sense. But generally in terms of the topic and how to go about it I'd be happy to help (I did a Gold CREST which is kind of similar, it was like a literature review).

Ok thanks! How can I message ? On here I am not too familiar with tsr 🥲

Well if you're using the app you can click the pencil icon that shows up on the homepage when you open it in the bottom right and type my username in "maryammajick" and it should let u PM me?
If you want to give me your username I can also message you first.
Let me know if you figure it out x

Thank you so much! This is my user !