[Alxy]

I'm currently studying for my A2s in England and have recently applied to study Chemistry at Uni.

My interviews are now incumbent: UCL in a week and Oxford 2 weeks later.

I would be greatly interested in other people's experiences of interviews, and appreciative of any advice given.

Oh, and Hi!

Thanks.

Alex.

[Dan]

Oxford interviews (and probably UCL too) will depend on the tutors. Which Oxford college are you interviewing at? I can at least tell you what the tutors are like.

In my interviews at Somerville college, I was required to choose a subject from a list given to me 10 mins before the interview and then talk about it when I got in. The interviewer then stopped me at various points to ask questions.
I had two interviews, I chose something like "electronegativity & bonding" for inorganic, which went very well, and "nucleophiles & electrophiles" for organic, which was ok, but by no means great.

Somerville college doesn't have a physical chemistry fellow, so I didn't have a physchem interview (thank god)

Also bear in mind that this was four years ago.

Rule one - RELAX. I know it's difficult.
Rule two - never give "I don't know" as an answer. You WILL be asked questions that you don't know the answer to, and you have to be comfortable with the idea that it WILL happen, otherwise you'll panic when it does - which causes you to break rule one. They are looking for people who can think on their feet and not give up straight away. Any reasonable stab at the answer is MUCH better than "I wasn't taught that" - because that is the the whole point of the question, they already know that you don't know the answer, they wan't to see how you cope with it.

Also, as an obvious side note, don't drink alcohol the day before your interview(s) - at least not heavily. You would be suprised how many people miss interviews, get barely any sleep or are hungover for their interview, because they were partying with their new friends - you could be called for additional interviews with little notice too.

[Alxy]

Thanks.

I'm applying to Jesus.

I think I'll stay away from alcohol for a couple of nights - I've got the rest of Uni for that, but I need to get in first.

I'm a little concerned about organic, as we haven't covered it at all for A2 yet. My knowledge from AS organic is also somewhat patchy by now.  I think I might have to read ahead. I have done a reasonable amount of reading outside the A2 syllabus, though, just not much in organic.

[Dan]

Jesus has 3 chem fellows

Prof Brouard - physical, seems like a nice guy, not scary.

Dr Fairbanks - Organic, excellent lecturer, also not scary, but he's in New Zealand at the moment, so he might not be back for interviews.

Dr Laidlaw - Inorganic, I've not had any contact with him, I'd never even heard of him until I looked up Jesus's fellows.

Those are the guys who will probably interview you.

You should definately brush up on your AS organic, even if you aren't interviewed by an organic tutor you could still be asked difficult organic questions.
It's good that you've done some further reading, but make sure you understand what you should understand before you read outside the syllabus - you may find that further reading doesn't help all that much because it may be too specific (that happened to me), but it certainly won't hurt.

It is better to show good understanding of the general principles rather than as many facts as you can fit in your head.  Basically, you need to be able to think analytically rather than be a walking encyclopedia - but obviously you need to strike a balance.