what are oxbridge interviews like?
Oxbridge undergraduate interview preparation
Oxbridge interviews are not general “personality chats”; they are academic conversations designed to test how you think, how you respond to unfamiliar material, and how you would learn in the tutorial/supervision system. At Grad Life Consulting (GLC), sessions are led by mentors with experience at Cambridge and other top global universities, bringing together deep subject knowledge and admissions insight.
This page is for students applying to undergraduate courses at Oxford, Cambridge or other top UK universities like Imperial, King's College London or University College London, who want rigorous, intellectually honest preparation without being coached into sounding artificial, or, worse, too much.
What Oxbridge interviews really test?
Oxford and Cambridge interviews typically involve one or more 20–30 minute academic discussions, often two or more per candidate, where tutors (sometimes PhD students or postdocs, or professors at Oxford or Cambridge) probe your reasoning using problems, readings, or objects you may be given shortly before or during the interview. Interviewers assess your academic potential, ability to think independently, and how you articulate your thought process out loud under pressure.
Rather than checking whether you already know the “right answer”, tutors are interested in: how you approach an unfamiliar question, how you use what you do know, how you respond to hints, whether you enjoy engaging with difficult ideas, and your subject motivation in general.
Key skills these interviews look for include:
- Clear subject understanding beyond the school syllabus.
- Logical, step-by-step reasoning and problem-solving.
- Willingness to think aloud (perhaps the most crucial skill), to revise your views (when found on the wrong footing), and build on interviewer feedback and prompts.
How we coach you for these interviews?
We emphasise on:
- Connecting you to your subject-specific tutor, with our access to a number of academics at Cambridge and Oxford who would be pleased to conduct mocks for you or deliver you tutorials
- Training you to unpack questions, verbalise your reasoning methodically (one of the most crucial aspects of the interview), and handle follow-up questions.
- Helping you connect your existing school knowledge and wider reading to unfamiliar problems in a natural way.
- Building your confidence so that you can think steadily, carefully, and clearly— even when you do not immediately know what to say in an interview situation.
GLC’s Oxbridge interview preparation program
Our methodology
GLC’s Oxbridge interview preparation program focuses on training you on realistic, subject-focused mock interviews alongside detailed feedback on how you can improve on each of these interviews. Each student’s plan is customised based on course, college choices (if any), academic background, and timeline.
A typical preparation process includes:
- Initial consultation call (free): This is to clarify course choices, strengths, and concerns, and outline a preparation roadmap.
- Interview skills audit: We do short academic exercises to identify how you currently think aloud, handle unfamiliar material, and respond to challenges.
- Subject-specific mock interviews: These include some tutorials on interview preparation followed by one-to-one, Oxbridge-style sessions using the kinds of problems, texts, or discussion prompts used in real interviews for your subject.
- Structured feedback and action plan: Written and verbal feedback after each mock, focusing on content, reasoning, and communication, with concrete drills for improvement.
- Follow-up refinement: These follow short sessions (optional) closer to the interview date to polish performance and manage nerves.
Sessions are conducted online, mirroring the current reality that many Oxford and Cambridge colleges either use online interviews or mix online and in-person formats, depending on the year and college.
Who this is for?
This programme is aimed at motivated applicants who:
- Are applying (or planning to apply) for undergraduate courses at Oxford or Cambridge, in any subject.
- Expect to be invited for interview (or have been invited) and want to make the most of that opportunity with targeted, intellectually serious preparation.
- Prefer rigorous academic discussion and want honest feedback from mentors familiar with the Oxbridge environment.
how to enrol into our program?
Next steps
To discuss whether this is the right fit for you, we invite you to schedule a free 30 mins consultation to review your course plans and interview timeline.
Before the consultation, we would like you to share your UCAS personal statement and subject interests in advance so that the consultation can be tailored to your actual application.
We offer two standard packages: the Advantage Interview Package and the Plus Interview Package. After our consultation, we can further customise these packages to meet your specific needs, which could be more training for the interview or more general or subject-specific mock sessions.
1. The Advantage Interview Preparation Package (4+4 hours of training): $895 onwards
This package consists of 8 or more hours of training, including 4 hours of interview tutorials and 4 hours of mock interviews conducted by Oxbridge alumni, PhD students or someone who has experience conducting these interviews. The sessions involve live problem practice, personal statement discussion and personalised review .
Depending on your needs and interview timeline, you can choose it be spread over several weeks or only a week.
2. The Plus Interview Preparation Package (2+2 hours of training): $550 onwards
This is a shorter, intensive set of 2–3 mock interviews with some tutorials and feedback,
Both packages include a session plan, examples of sample questions that the student can expect to be asked in interviews, mock interview simulation by different tutors.
The fees for each package is agreed in advance by the student or parent concerned, as discussed in the consultation.
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GRAD LIFE CONSULTING | GLC
info@gradlifeconsulting.com | +44 75085 60063 | +91 97178 09547
