How to prepare for a Cambridge interview - list of interview questions

The final stage of the Cambridge selection process is the interview. If everything else in your application is up to standard, you'll almost certainly be called for an interview some time in December.

The Cambridge interviews are a crucial part of the selection process. If you've made it to interview, the fate of your selection pretty much hangs on how the interview goes so you need to be very well prepared. At Cambridge, you might have anywhere between 1 and probably 3 interviews, depending on which college you chose to apply to. It's quite likely that you'll have 1 or 2 interviews, each of which will be around half an hour long. There are several things that you might be asked at interview. In this post I'll cover common interview questions but you'll also be asked things to do with A levels, GCSEs, your personal statement and so on.

There are common interview questions that are likely to come up. These include questions such as:
- Why have you chosen to apply to Cambridge?
- Why have you chosen to apply for Natural Sciences/Medicine/English etc. ?
- Why did you chose to apply to this college? (Note on this: this question should not be asked because it disadvantages people who made an open application. However that does not mean it won't be asked. I know for a fact that someone was asked it at Oxford recently and so it could come up at Cambridge as well.)
- Why have you chosen to take a gap year?
- Why have you chosen NOT to do a gap year? (Yes believe it or not they do sometimes ask this)
- What did you do during your gap year?
- Why did you choose those A levels?
- What areas of Maths etc. do you enjoy most?
- What do you do in your spare time (extra curriculars)?
- Do you do any sports/play any musical instruments?
- What experience do you have of the subject you're applying for? (eg. do you have any programming experience for computer science)
- Do you have any work experience in the subject you're applying for? (common for medicine and veterinary medicine)
- What books have you read related to your subject?
- Have you read any news articles related to your subject that interest you?
- How much reading have you done outside of your A level curricula?

These are the most common interview questions. You will very likely be asked a couple of these to kick off the interview. They do not count for much but you don't want to mess up any of the answers before the interview properly gets going. I'd recommend that you had prepared answers to at least all the questions I've given here if you want to maximise your chances of getting in.

In preparing answers, you don't have to have scripted answers for each one, but you do need to have two or three points that you'll cover for each and be able to expand on these if required. For example, if you're asked about your outside reading, you need to have a few books you've read in your subject that you can mention. You might then be asked to elaborate on them, for example by giving your opinion on them, what you found interesting, what you didn't like and so on.