S24 applied via UCAS to a few schools in the UK and just heard back from a college at Cambridge asking/inviting him to submit a supplement and additional info and asking for availability for an interview.
Anyone have insight about what this means? Is he being seriously considered?
So I think a fairly high percentage of Cambridge applicants get an interview, but of course this is in a context where usually people do not apply unless they are objectively well-qualified for that specific course (unlike in the US system with general admissions and holistic review).
The supplemental information and interview are then going to determine which people actually get admitted, and the interview is not typically a meet-and-greet thing, it is usually a serious academic discussion. The general advice is usually they are looking for people who are passionate, informed, independent thinkers about the subject, but also they are determining if you are suitable for the tutorial teaching system generally. Like, these tutors interviewing you are going to be spending serious time having academic discussions with the students in their course at their college, so they want to know that will work well for both you and them.
So there is a lot of guidance online about how to do well in these interviews, but ultimately I think a lot of it comes down to just understanding what they are looking for, and hopefully being that sort of person.
Since Covid, many colleges now do interviews online, and all at least give international applicants the option of an online interview. In many ways I think this is a great shame, as there’s nothing better than spending 2-3 days there to convince you that you really want to attend, and conversely Cambridge colleges don’t like to make offers to applicants who they think will go elsewhere. For that reason, if you are serious about the UK and can afford it (and you shouldn’t be applying if you can’t afford to be full pay), I would consider taking an in person interview if you have that opportunity.
That being said, Cambridge do interview a much higher proportion of applicants than Oxford (who use admission tests as a first cut so they interview 3 applicants for every place), so the chances of admission after interview are lower at Cambridge:
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
This is a rigorous academic interview, asking questions you will find challenging, to see how you think, and whether you are “teachable” in the supervision format (typically 1 teacher with 1-3 students). I still remember one of my questions 40 years later.
Read up and prepare, for example look at the reading lists for admitted students, because these are the sorts of books you should have been reading all summer, here’s an example:
https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/files/archaeology_reading_list_for_prospective_students.pdf
What is often a shock to Americans is the degree of self-study and reading around the subject that is expected of applicants. That is the basis for admissions, not ECs. That’s why Oxbridge admissions tutors famously say that they don’t want “second rate historians who play the flute”:
Hi, a bit late but want to add context. They ask for AAIF and interview availability so that, if he is invited, he can just be assigned a date without having to hassle.
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