You don't have to get everything right in your Oxford Interview - if you had all the answers, you wouldn't need to do a degree! The tutors are interested in how you approach a problem, and whether they think you'd be suited to the tutorial system. To show you that it doesn't matter if your interviews don't go to plan, here are some of our most awkward moments!
ID: Beyza wearing academic dress ('sub fusc') at her matriculation ceremony (the ceremony where you become an official student of Oxford University) outside the Sheldonian Theatre.
"My most awkward moment from interviews has to be when I told my (now) tutor who interviewed me at the time that enzymes in our body worked best at 60 degrees (they actually work best at around 37 degrees). It was the dumbest thing a potential Biochemist at an Oxford interview could have said. He looked at me in such confusion and said “Really?” It was so awkward and I’ll never forget that face."
- Beyza, Biochemistry
ID: Thomas sitting on a rock against a background of hills and forests.
“I think one of my most awkward moments was that I could not follow the interviewers words while he was explaining the entire experiment he wanted to make me think about, so I tried to figure out the question just from his drawings on the board, which of course he picked up on and then repeated the entire thing again!”
- Thomas, Medicine
ID: Alex (she/her) and Greg (he/him) celebrating finishing their first year exams, or prelims, together on Merton Street in Oxford.
“My second set of interviews were at Trinity college, where I spent some time deriving an equation linked to blood pressure. My interviewer asked me what the best way to treat hypertension (high blood pressure) was, and so I looked at the equation and said: “well, one of the determinants of blood pressure is blood volume, so could we reduce the blood volume?”
He agreed that was a potential method, and asked me how I would go about reducing blood volume. Before I could stop myself, I very triumphantly exclaimed “using LEECHES!”. He looked puzzled for a moment, and then laughed, and said “I don’t think that’s really accepted medical practice anymore.”
At the end of the interview we both laughed about it, and although I had said a totally ridiculous answer, it didn’t matter because I had been thinking along the right lines!”
- Alex, Medicine
“In one of my interviews, the interviewer asked me ‘tell me about an area of medicine that interests you.’ I soon realised I should have thought beforehand about an answer to that question, and just ended up blurting ‘stem cells’ after a long silence. The moral of the story is make sure you’re prepared to talk about what interests you about the subject, and also don’t worry if you have a bad question no one’s interview goes perfectly!”
- Greg, Medicine
ID: Shariz in academic dress ('sub fusc') holding a large teddy bear in the front quad at Teddy Hall.
"Not all schools teach Economics, so my economics interview was mostly working through mathematical problems. The challenge to these puzzles is figuring out what steps to take and therefore, given the lack of calculator, the actual maths in intermediate steps was relatively simple.
After around 5 minutes, one of the steps involved the very simple fraction 3/4. Three quarters. And so the interviewer looked at me and went: "so 3/4 in decimals is...?"
"Um..."
Silence followed and, somewhat surprised by my hesitation, he gently repeated: "3 divided by 4...? What is it?"
"Er... Nought point..."
"Yeah...?"
"Nought point ssss..."
"Yeahhh"
"Nought point six?"
He looks at me and just flatly says "0.75. Moving on."
That's one of those decimals you learn when you're like 7, and I struggled over it for a solid minute or two in my time-pressed Oxford interview. It was incredibly awkward. Yet the interviewers understand we're only human and that our nerves can get the better of us."
- Shariz, Economics and Management
ID: Jojo sitting at a table at formal dinner dressed in a shirt and tie.
“So basically, I don’t remember much because it was so long ago, but what really stuck in my head was that when I arrived at the front desk they didn’t have my name on the sheet. I was convinced they had accidentally called me to interview or something. Even up until my first interview I was so nervous I actually couldn’t write on paper because my hands were shaking so much. I gained a bit of confidence by the second but the nerves I had going into the first really had me doubting my own name!”
- Jojo, Economics and Management
ID: Ruchita standing in front of the chalkboard in the Teddy Hall front quad, which reads 'Welcome to Teddy Hall!'
"If there’s one thing I love about studying at Teddy Hall, it’s getting to use the library. However, as an interviewee unfamiliar with the intricate architecture and narrow, spiralling library staircase, I was thoroughly unprepared for the trek up to the library tower, which was where my interview was held. Attempting to compose myself on the walk to the interview, I religiously followed the student helper who sprinted up the library tower expecting them to stop at the next landing - except we didn’t. Instead I mindlessly followed the sprint as though I were chasing a rare mythical creature at risk of disappearing from my line of vision at any moment.
The result was a rather pitiful sight: I shuffled sheepishly into my interview, red faced, sweating profusely, heart racing from the stairs and the anticipation of the interview and struggling to breathe. I proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes of my interview gasping for air while trying to gather the mental resilience to answer the epistemological problem placed before me. Needless to say, my tutors were more than mildly concerned with the spectacle before them. Probably worried that I was suffering from a stroke, they offered me a glass of water multiple times, all of which I refused in the fear that I would sputter it all over the valuable mantlepiece. Awkward? To say the least. But since then it’s become one of my favourite dinner table stories!"
- Ruchita, History and Politics
ID: Skye, dressed in academic dress ('sub-fusc') with her arm around the statue of St Edmund in the Teddy Hall graveyard. St Edmund is wearing her cap.
“I was walking around my accommodation for the interview, which was very pretty, and taking photos for memories. As I was taking pictures of a particularly nice fireplace, I managed to walk straight into a protruding part of the ceiling and broke my tooth! Thankfully I'd finished most of the interview process, but I still had to go downstairs and explain to everyone why I now looked like Dracula!! Moral of the story - concentrate on where you're going!”
- Skye, History and Politics