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An Oxford interview is modelled on the tutorial, the university’s own teaching format: usually two or three students and a tutor working through a problem. The interviewer is deciding whether you would be worth teaching that way for three years, which is why the conversation keeps going past the point where you have an answer.
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We also build cookie, which has free guides to applying to Oxford and Cambridge. This one covers what happens in an interview, what the tutors are looking for and how to practise, with the universities’ own pages to check it against.
Read the Oxbridge interview guideMost Oxford courses shortlist on an admissions test, and several change for 2027 entry: the TMUA replaces the MAT for Maths and Computer Science, the ESAT replaces the PAT for Physics and Engineering, and the TARA replaces the TSA for PPE, E&M, Human Sciences and other courses. English, Modern Languages, Classics and History have no written test for 2027 entry.
The reasoning the tests reward is the reasoning the interview rewards, so preparing for one is rarely wasted on the other.
Expect to be handed something unfamiliar, a passage, a graph, a problem or a source, and asked what you make of it. Expect to be interrupted, and expect a follow-up to every answer, including the correct ones.
The most common failure is going quiet while thinking. The interviewer cannot mark silence, and a good mock interview is largely about breaking that habit.
Oxford reallocates candidates between colleges, so being interviewed somewhere you did not apply to is normal and is not a signal about how the first went. Preparation does not need to differ by college.
In December, with shortlisting decisions in November. Preparation in late November and early December is the usual timing.
It depends on the course and it changed recently: TMUA for Maths and Computer Science, ESAT for Physics and Engineering, TARA for PPE, E&M and Human Sciences, LNAT for Law, UCAT for Medicine. Check the current course page.
Oxford reallocates candidates between colleges. It is routine and says nothing about how your first interview went.
Typically twenty to thirty minutes, and most candidates have two or three.
Not really. The teaching models are named differently and the admissions tests differ, but what the interview is measuring is much the same.
No. A tutor who studied there says so on their own profile; that is a fact about them, not an affiliation. Cookie Tutoring is not endorsed by, affiliated with or connected to the University of Oxford.
We are selective about who teaches here: we look for tutors at top universities, everybody is interviewed by us, and nobody is listed without a criminal record check on file. Lessons run in the browser with live video and a shared whiteboard.Rates start at £30 an hour, the first 15 minutes with any tutor is free, and every student gets cookie's study software at no extra cost.