Oxbridge history interview preparationGreat grades are not enough
Your child is bright, has excellent predicted grades, and is thinking about Oxford or Cambridge. But everyone who applies has great predicted grades. Cambridge reports that most History students who took A-levels and started there in 2018, 2019 and 2023 achieved at least A*A*A — 67% of entrants. Your very bright child will compete with thousands of others for very few places.
Oxford
CambridgeHow do you give them a fighting chance? Interview practice. This is the key stage in the application process — and yes, you can prepare for it.
The key stage in the whole application is the interview.
Say Jane is predicted A*A*A and wants to read history at Cambridge. She loves Soviet Russia. I find university-level books or articles we both read, then we discuss them in a one-to-one seminar — an organic conversation in which I challenge her thinking, ask tough questions, and push her to think laterally, exactly as an Oxbridge professor might. Practice, practice, practice.
Excellent grades earn a look — excellent written work earns the interview
Most history applicants no longer sit a written admissions test. Oxford's single-honours History course has none (History and Economics, and History and Politics, applicants take the TARA), and Cambridge sets an assessment only at some colleges. What both universities do ask for is written work — an essay for Oxford, and usually two pieces for Cambridge — and it weighs heavily in deciding who is called to interview. That work must be your child's own, submitted as the school marked it, so no tutor can polish it for them. What I can do is make sure they can defend it: tutors ask about the submitted essay at interview, and we rehearse exactly that.
And for every five one-to-ones, a feedback session is free.
I won't take just anyone
Oxbridge preparation is demanding. To do my best work, I look for students who are ready for it.
Your child is…
Ready- Predicted A*AA, with an A* in history
- Reads widely — real history books
- Motivated, hardworking and curious
- A capable, confident writer
Your child is not…
Not yet- Needs nagging to read and write
- Accepts everything they read as true
- Won't challenge ideas they disagree with
- Lacks genuine curiosity
What a history interview really looks like
Oxford and Cambridge publish mock interviews showing exactly how their one-to-one teaching works. Watch them — then let's practise.
