Tips for giving a great Oxbridge history interview
Oxbridge interviews typically start relatively straightforwardly, but quickly get complicated. It鈥檚 entirely normal for candidates to emerge from the experience feeling wrung out and as though they have never thought so hard in their lives. And, while it鈥檚 thankfully less common than it used to be to encounter aggressive or self-satisfied dons, even the kindliest interviewers are still going to force you to think carefully.
The best way to impress them is to be careful too. Be rigorous when you make statements; nuance them and even go back and second-guess yourself if you need to. Avoid absolutes (it was always like this; it was never like that) 鈥� they offer easy attack points for your interviewers. Never suggest that studying the past is something simple, nor that a problem facing some historical actor was straightforward, because it isn鈥檛 and it wasn鈥檛. Oxford and Cambridge interviewers in history tend to dislike candidates who fail to define their terms, or throw around the word 鈥渏ust鈥� (as is in 鈥淪talin was just paranoid鈥�). They love those who can show them they are thinking all the time.
Interviews can often become quite theoretical. Remember that history is a discipline that deals in case studies, and always try to give examples from the times and places that you know about to support your arguments. Don鈥檛 expect your interviewers to believe every single thing they say to you; they will often play the Devil鈥檚 Advocate, and you cannot win a place simply by agreeing with the people you are talking to. At some point, you have got to take your courage in both hands and disagree with them. Your interviewers will respect you if you do.
What is it like to interview to read history at Oxford or Cambridge?
The short answer to this question is that interview experiences vary considerably from college to college. However, I debrief all my candidates each year on what happened in the interviews, and excerpts from those debriefs can give a good impression of the interview experience overall. Remember that many of the issues that are being discussed have been prompted by mention of some topic in a personal statement or in written work. These are specific to that student, and would not be asked of everyone.
Let鈥檚 start with the comments of one applicant who obtained a 鈥� vanishingly rare 鈥� overall score of 10/10 for his interviews. This, evidently, is how you impress your interviewers 鈥� and it鈥檚 well worth noting that this experience did not seem 鈥減erfect鈥� to the student at the time:
鈥淲e began with a general discussion of literate vs. illiterate societies, then the interviewer asked for other factors that might change societies other than literacy. Knowing this interviewer's research interest in the religious conversions of kings, I brought up religion and the 6th century Chinese Buddhism project I had been working on. I distinguished between the change in how "permanent" the sources are, while there is continuity in their subjectivity. We also talked about the impact of literacy on the establishment of the state 鈥� I framed it in terms of "distance" and "power", just as you had showed me in that HAT paper.
鈥淭hen they turned to my written work, and on the types of "power" that Elizabeth I had wielded, and on the "reputation" she tried to create for herself. I framed reputation as a more "two-sided" creation, with both Elizabeth's efforts to foster it and her subjects responding to that, and power as a more "one-sided" creation, with the queen wielding it... likely not the best comparison, given the compromises of power Elizabeth had with Parliament, but the idea of reputation as both active and reactive should be fine?鈥�
Oxford candidate
鈥淭he second interview began with a discussion of my educational background. When they found out I had studied languages, they asked about the problems that historians have in viewing societies through the lens of languages other than their own. Then we moved on to the written work 鈥� initially, we explored the connection between Edmund Burke's background and the reason why he was asked to write on the French Revolution (they gave me additional bits of info as we progressed, I tried to respond to this). Then we talked about my interest in cabinets of curiosity, where a comparison with a collection of Lamborghinis came up 鈥� the assumption behind their question was that this kind of collection was historically unimportant, yet at the end I realised that the cars might in fact be significant and argued why this was so.鈥�
Cambridge candidate
鈥淭hey asked about my written work on the Catholic restoration under Mary I. The opening question was about which was the most significant problem for the new regime in its efforts to reverse the changes of the previous reigns. I said the Pope, and we had a bit of a discussion about that, and then we moved onto the 鈥榟earts and minds of the people鈥�. They seemed to really appreciate that I had read Eamon Duffy鈥檚 book The Voices of Morebath, so we had a good discussion about that, which lasted probably for 15 minutes.
鈥淚 did manage to mention attitudes and actions as categories of evidence, which they seemed interested in, and regional variation. We then moved on to note that Duffy was a Catholic, and they asked whether that made a difference, as well as whether burning 300 people was 鈥渁 lot鈥�. Then it was the second interviewer鈥檚 turn to ask some general questions about Welsh mediaeval history. We only had one topic 鈥� he wanted to ask about national identity and whether there were real examples of that in Welsh history. He was quite insistent that I stick to the time period of the 1100s, and this certainly made it more challenging. They were impressed that I had read the other book you suggested [R.R. Davies鈥檚 The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415闭.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;
Oxford candidate
鈥淭he first question was very creative: tell us something about the history of where you live/grew up, so exciting!! Living in Lancaster has finally paid off. The second interviewer then asked me about some sources (pictures). The way they did it was they flicked through 6 different images and asked me to pick one. The first question they asked was why I picked that one, and then asked me questions about it. Next they gave me another source which was related to the first one, and again asked some questions about it as well as what other sources I would want to see to be able to understand more about the international relations that were referenced in the sources.鈥�
Cambridge candidate
鈥淔irst the interviewers asked me a question about my personal statement 鈥� I had mentioned seeing Jack Kerouac鈥檚 desk in the New York Public Library, and was asked what historians could learn from the items he kept on it and in it. Then I was asked why I thought comparative analysis was useful, so I talked about the 1830s secession crisis v. 1960s Arkansas desegregation; she asked for more examples.
鈥淭he written work bit also seemed a bit strange. I was asked about Booker T. Washington's definition of honest work 鈥� would sharecropping count? I said no. Next was if I would categorise Washington as working within the system and Du Bois working outside of it. Naturally also a no, because they're both still operating within the American political/social system, but I also took the opportunity to bait the interviewer a bit by calling them both revolutionaries. After having me define a revolutionary, the interviewer asked if violence is necessary to be one. The next question was an interesting one: what would Washington have thought of Plessy v. Ferguson? After hedging a bit, I speculated that he was sharp enough to realise that the "separate but equal" ruling would do more harm than good by providing opportunities for white people to engineer inferior conditions for African Americans. We finished up with a request for me to explain how the US government鈥檚 treatment of Chinese Americans related to Washington's vision for the country.鈥�
Oxford candidate
鈥淭he most memorable questions to me were: What responsibility do historians have? And how do historians know what the attitudes of the majority (non-academical/political elite) were? For the first question, I tried to apply your tactic of questioning the question, asking if historians even have a responsibility to anybody else. I was thinking aloud and concluded that, although it鈥檚 nice to think of history as simply a pleasant activity, it can also be a powerful political tool that can be misused. The responsibility of a historian is thus to the public, to write history as 鈥渇airly鈥� as possible to prevent further manipulation. Of course I didn鈥檛 put it as eloquently as that! For the second question, I only gave one answer: look at rituals/traditions. If I could go back, I would try to find more. One of the interviewers then suggested food, which initially stumped me 鈥� but then I remembered our practice HAA on kitchens, and said one could argue that they can show differences in class structure and values. I later googled the interviewer (something I should have probably done before), and found that she specialises in culinary history.鈥�
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