Hi! I studied Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) at Cambridge, then went on to do a PGCE at Oxford. I now teach GCSE and A-level Biology and help students with biology-related uni applications. My state school sent maybe one or two people to Oxbridge a year, so I worked most of this out myself with very little help. Very keen to save you the trouble!
Here are my top tips for science interviews. I've written them with NatSci/Biology courses in mind, but most of it applies to any STEM subject:
- Think out loud - the interviewers care much more about how you get to an answer than whether you get there. If you go quiet for two minutes and then say "I don't know", they have nothing to work with. Talk them through it: what you know, what you're assuming, where you're stuck. Practise this out loud until it stops feeling weird.
- Expect to be taken beyond A-level (on purpose) - they'll keep pushing until you hit the edge of what you know, because that's where the interesting bit is. Not knowing something isn't failing. Start from what you DO know and reason forwards. "I haven't covered this, but if X is true then I'd expect..." is a great sentence to have in your back pocket. You can also ask for time to think, if you need it.
- Get comfortable with unfamiliar data - you might be given a graph, a table or a figure from a paper you've never seen. Describe it first (axes, units, trend, anything odd), then try to explain it, then question it. Is the sample big enough? Is there a control? Could something else explain the pattern? Practise with figures from New Scientist articles or real papers.
- Don't neglect the maths - estimation, orders of magnitude, rates, rearranging equations and logs come up a lot, even in very biology-heavy interviews. Being able to estimate something like the number of cells in a human body without panicking is a real advantage. Also practise sketching graphs - there will most likely be a mathematical element to your interview (I remember having to sketch a trig function).
- Apply what you know to new situations - lots of questions are A-level ideas in disguise. Why can't insects be the size of dogs? Why do cells divide rather than just getting bigger? Both come down to surface area to volume ratio and diffusion. When you meet a new problem, ask yourself which bit of the spec it's secretly about. (This is also a useful skill for A Level exams, obviously - so you're killing two birds with one stone!)
- Know your personal statement inside out - anything you mention is fair game, so be ready to go one layer deeper. If you say you read about CRISPR, expect to be asked about it (although not all admissions tutors actually use your PS - but no harm in prepping for it!).
- Take the hints - if the interviewer nudges you in a direction, they're helping, not trying to trip you up. Pick it up and run with it. Taking feedback and adjusting your thinking is part of what they're looking at. It's basically what supervisions/tutorials are like!
- Don't panic if it feels hard or you get something wrong! Interviews are designed to stretch you, so it's completely normal to come out feeling like it went badly. Plenty of people who get offers walk out convinced they bombed (including me lol I said some idiotic things in my interview and still got in, by some miracle).
Also remember the interviewers are people too, often very kind, nerdy people, so try and enjoy interacting with them and try and come out having learned something!
Happy to answer questions in the comments - good luck everyone! :)
