Physics & joint schools interviews
Thank you for applying to Oxford to study one of our Physics courses.
Congratulations on reaching this stage. We interview about three times as many people as we can offer places to, and the purpose of the interviews is to help us select the applicants who we assess to have the potential to benefit most from the course. It is very important that you do not give other candidates a competitive advantage by discussing your interview with others until the process has concluded.
Physics candidates will have two interviews, 20-25 minutes in length, with Hertford College tutors, and may also have a third interview with tutors at another Oxford college. Applicants for Physics & Philosophy will have an additional interview with our Philosophy tutors and a second Philosophy interview with tutors at another college. Conducting interviews at more than one college allows us to make assessments of the whole cohort of applicants, helping us to make sure that everyone has a fair chance of success, regardless of the college to which you applied or were assigned.
Physics interviews
The Physics interviews focus on Physics and Maths problems. While we may discuss some aspects of your personal statement, the aim is to assess your ability, motivation and potential to study Physics, which we judge is best done by seeing how you work through problems. You may have heard stories that tutors use trick questions: we want to reassure you that this is not the case. We may ask questions about topics that you are not very familiar with, but that is because we want to see how you analyse and set about tackling an unfamiliar problem.
WATCH A DEMONSTRATION INTERVIEW
Philosophy interviews (joint school candidates)
Your Philosophy interview will follow the same format as above. Before the interview you will be given some pre-reading, which will consist of four or five short questions. These may concern puzzles (e.g. apparent paradoxes), arguments (e.g. asking you to assess whether the logic is correct), or imaginary scenarios to think about (e.g. raising some moral issue). Sometimes there will be a right answer, but mostly we prefer to choose problems to which a number of different approaches may be equally reasonable. So this pre-reading is not a ‘test’, and we won’t be giving a mark to your responses to the questions. Rather, its point is to introduce you to topics which we can then discuss in the interview, thus enabling us to cover much more in the limited time available.
The interview will focus mainly on the pre-reading topics, though we might also invite you to discuss something on your personal statement. What we’re looking for is the ability to understand a problem, think carefully and logically about it, explain your thoughts, and respond intelligently to considerations for and against. Whatever view you take, we will raise objections, so don’t take this as a sign that you have made a mistake! Be prepared to argue in defence of your position, but also willing to change position if your realise that it has become indefensible.
Technology
For Physics interviews, the University recommends that you have access to a Miro whiteboard (www.miro.com) and a touchscreen device with a stylus to write out scientific/mathematical notation in addition to the device you use to access Microsoft Teams. Take a look at our Online Interviews Technology page to find out more and watch an introductory video. If you have any questions or concerns about the technology set-up, you should email undergraduate.admissions@hertford.ox.ac.uk and we’ll work with you to find alternatives.
Finally, we recognise that you may find the interview process unfamiliar and perhaps stressful, but we hope that you will engage with it and that you will view it as a learning experience.