Interviewing for Medicine at Oxford

By Gauri Narendran

It's been three years since I underwent the process of applying for Medicine - and lived to tell the tale - so I thought I’d give an account of what it was like, and share some advice I wish I’d had at the time! In hindsight, I can say that the interviews were far less scary than they'd seemed at first, and actually quite an enjoyable experience once I managed to get past the panic. However, I know I would have been massively reassured if I had the chance to hear about the process from someone who knew more and had been through it themselves - which is the purpose of this post!

Your interviews for Medicine will be split between two colleges, of which one will generally be your college of preference (or college of allocation, if you submitted an open application), and the other will be randomly allocated. You’ll have at least two interviews as a result - in the interest of fairness, neither college will know which one is your preference or allocation. While the exact format and content of the interviews may vary between colleges, the selection criteria for candidates remain consistent - these are split between personal characteristics (such as empathy and communication skills) and academic ability (such as intellectual curiosity and problem-solving). There’s a full list of selection criteria on the Medical Sciences website – perhaps give it a read before your interviews!

Each interview tends to be split into a set of academic and clinical assessments - some colleges may split this into two different interviews altogether. For example, I was interviewed at Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall, and each college did two smaller interviews in immediate succession, one with an academic assessment team and one with a clinical assessment team. Other colleges may just do one large interview assessing both sets, but it really doesn’t make much of a difference - I simply stayed in the Teams meeting while the interviewers joined or left for the separate interviews. Before the interviewers begin asking questions, they’ll introduce themselves and do a few quick checks to ensure there aren’t any technical issues. Some colleges also have current students acting as interview helpers, who will be present with you in the meeting for a few minutes before the interviewers join - their main role is to reassure you and also to troubleshoot any issues you may be having before the interview begins.

In both cases, my scientific interview was the first - I wasn’t sure what to expect, as this is the part of the interview that is generally unique to Oxford, and tests your critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Please don’t worry about rote-learning science textbooks in order to prepare for this!! They deliberately choose topics that will be far beyond expected knowledge. In fact, if the interviewers got the sense that I knew the answer already, they’d actually move onto the next question - crucially, they aren’t testing you on what you already know, but testing how you react to a question which is completely new and challenging to you. I got asked about everything from knockout mice to quantum mechanics across my science interviews, but the questions were designed to be broken down into very accessible steps, beginning with basic science content which you will know, and slowly stretching you to reach conclusions through intuition. The most important advice I can give for this part of the interview is to think out loud! They don’t want to hear an immediate answer; however, you will have to narrate and explain your thought process as you approach the question. Once they know what you’re thinking and why, they’ll be able to give you hints and reveal more information, which will get you to the answer. This process gives them an insight into whether you would be someone they can teach. It’s also a very fun process, and I found myself learning a lot throughout, so don’t be afraid to ask questions in the interview either!

The clinical interview is much more similar to the style of Medicine interview which you would get at other universities, and features questions which are centred around testing your potential ability to work with patients. You’ll be asked about your motivation to work within the medical field, your thoughts on ethical dilemmas, roleplay scenarios, and some of the classic situational judgement style questions where you have to suggest the best course of action. There may be some scientific questions included too, but this can vary between colleges. Don’t go into an Oxford interview thinking that they’ll ignore the patient-focused side of Medicine, as they certainly test that too! I’d recommend reading up on the NHS pillars and going over some of the values and guidelines of good clinical practice. Keeping these in mind and name-dropping them while answering questions lets the interviewers know that you’ve done your research on what it takes to be a good doctor, and that your judgments aren’t baseless.

In terms of practicing for the interviews, the best thing you can do is to buddy up with a friend and test each other. There are plenty of lists of interview questions which you can find through a quick Google search - take it in turns to ask, answer, and give feedback on what you think went well and what could be improved! A big chunk of being interviewed is how good you are at articulating yourself, and this is a skill that comes with consistent practice. You can also record yourself answering questions and play back the video to see how you come across - are you speaking clearly, and can you understand yourself? It’s also completely fine to take a quick pause in the interview and think before speaking. It really does become easier over time, so don’t be disheartened at the start! Lastly, don’t worry if you come out of an interview feeling like it didn’t go as well as you wanted it to. I came out of my interviews thinking I’d done terribly, and was incredibly surprised when I did receive an offer, so it may not have gone as badly as you think. But no matter what the outcome, don’t be disheartened, and keep moving forwards. To everyone with interviews ahead of them - good luck, you’ve got this!