Why do universities interview?

Essentially universities will use interviews to further assess their applicants and to choose those best suited to the course.

An interview allows a university to find out more about the applicant and for the applicant to expand further on their application. Think of it as a fantastic opportunity for you to give the institution all the detail that you couldn’t fit into the word count of your UCAS application!

Universities may find that they have many more applicants applying to their courses than they have space for and that all applicants are predicted very high grades – an interview allows an institution to fairly select the applicants they want to offer a space to when judging by application alone is impossible.

For example, some of our courses here at York will invite over 1000 students to interview for just a couple of hundred spaces. This isn’t said to scare you! But to emphasise that there are lots of people who will be in the exact same boat as you, as well as how key it is to prepare to your best ability so that you stand out.

A university interview may also allow a department to see an example of your work – this may be particularly relevant for Creative or Arts based courses and will allow them to see your potential and how suitable you may be for that particular course and institution.

For anyone that has already been invited to a university interview, or attended one, were you asked to bring an example of your work with you? What are you going to (or what did you) take?