How to conduct a mock university interview (even if you’re not a subject specialist)
Each year, teachers and advisers up and down the country are asked to run mock interviews for students applying to competitive universities, especially Oxford, Cambridge, Medicine and other highly selective courses.
And every year, many colleagues quietly worry: “But I’m not a subject expert… am I really the right person to do this?”
The good news is: yes, you absolutely are!
A valuable mock interview does not require specialist knowledge of quantum mechanics, medieval literature or immunology. What students need most is practice with academic conversation: listening carefully, thinking aloud, structuring ideas, handling follow-up questions, and staying calm when nudged just beyond their comfort zone.
Any thoughtful adult can help them do this.
Below is a practical framework you can use, or forward to colleagues who may be running mock interviews for the first time.
This guidance draws on:
university interviews I’ve been involved in myself
interviews I’ve observed in person and online
years of gathering insights from admissions tutors and teachers
and, most recently, two years of running mock Oxford/Cambridge interviews for applicants at my wife’s former school
What makes a good mock interview?
A good mock interview should:
Feel like a free-flowing academic conversation, not an interrogation
Stretch students just beyond their comfort zone
Build confidence rather than expose gaps
Focus on thinking, not recall
Last around 20–25 minutes
End with short, supportive feedback
Crucially, you are not testing subject knowledge.
You’re giving them practice in explaining ideas, exploring unfamiliar problems, and responding thoughtfully to follow-up questions; exactly what happens in many real interviews.
The questions
Each section below includes a suggested question, why it matters, and prompts for follow-up. Feel free to adapt the wording to suit your style.
1. Subject and university choice
Primary question:
“You’ve applied to study [subject] at [university] and at [college] - where appropriate. Can you tell me how you came to make those choices?”
Why ask this?
This is a deliberately multi-part question; excellent for assessing how well they structure a complex answer. Students often forget to cover one element (usually the college), which gives you an easy opportunity to prompt them and see how they recover. It encourages reflection on motivation and decision-making.
Follow-on prompts:
“You’ve explained your subject choice - what about the college?”
“What research did you do about it?”
“Where did you get your information from?”
Try to nudge them from “I looked at the website” to how they chose between different options, based on course structure or content, size, atmosphere, learning environment.
2. Current studies
Primary question:
“You’re currently studying X, Y and Z at school. What would you say has been the most challenging part, and why?”
Why ask this?
It encourages honesty rather than rehearsed achievement-speak. Strong candidates can talk openly about difficulty, and this question normalises the idea that intellectual struggle is healthy. You get insight into resilience and how they handle discomfort.
Follow-on prompts:
“How did you approach that challenge?”
“Did you develop any strategies or techniques?”
“Has it changed how you work more generally?”
3. Explaining complex information
Primary question:
“Within your studies (or any research projects), what is the most interesting thing you’ve learned in the last year?”
Follow-up:
“Assume I know nothing about it. Can you explain the idea or problem and what you discovered?”
Why ask this?
This question mimics a real interview scenario where the academic knows the topic but wants to see how the student explains it. You’re testing their clarity, structure and enthusiasm, not technical accuracy. This also gives space for deeper probing:
“How do we know that?”
“Why does that matter?”
“What’s the next question you would investigate?”
4. Personal Statement exploration
Choose an activity from their personal statement; a book, EPQ, work experience, a lecture they watched.
Ask them to expand on what they’ve written.
Example questions:
“Why did you choose to do X?”
“What did you find interesting or surprising?”
“What was challenging?”
“If you were doing it again, what would you do differently?”
Why ask this?
It tests the authenticity of their personal statement. Real interviews often do this too. Students who have genuinely engaged with something can talk about it fluently; those who wrote it because a teacher suggested it will find this much harder - but that’s part of the learning experience.
5. Bonus subject question (for those who are a subject expert)
If you happen to teach the subject they’re applying for, you can introduce some subject-specific discussion. The key is:
Take something from the curriculum they have studied
Apply it in a new or unfamiliar direction
This isn’t about testing recall (though clearly they will need to recall certain facts or theories), it’s about application and discussion.
And feel free to prompt them every step of the way if they need it. This is how real interviews work - and the interviewer will be watching how they respond to prompts and new information.
Examples:
A mathematician might take a standard A-level concept (e.g. logarithms) and ask how it might behave in a different scenario.
A historian might start with a syllabus topic and ask how the student would analyse a similar theme in a different period.
A biologist might ask them to apply a taught principle to a new organism or context.
The point here is to help them practise thinking with their knowledge, not retrieving facts. Keep it conversational and exploratory.
Giving feedback
End with brief, constructive and confidence-building feedback. Tone matters enormously - feedback should feel like guidance for next time, not criticism of who they are now.
A simple structure works best:
1. Ask them how they thought it went
Students will instinctively know what went well and what didn’t. Allowing them to reflect on the interview out loud - and to hear whether you agree with them or not - helps them develop and refine their self-awareness.
Where they have identified a genuine weakness, you have the opportunity to help them work out how to address it. Where they have identified a strength, you can help them build on it.
Where they have identified something that you don’t agree with, you can tell them. And if its a perceived weakness, then having it challenged can be a real, and very helpful, confidence boost.
2. What went well
Once you’ve discussed their perception of the interview, tell them what you thought went well, and how they can use these things again in the future.
Examples:
Clear explanations
Structured responses
Good eye contact
Thoughtful use of examples
Calmness under pressure
3. One or two areas to develop
Finish with some areas for improvement. Just remember to keep it really simple, and action-oriented. They need to go away with two, or at most three, concrete actions that they can take.
Examples:
Answering all parts of a question
Slowing down and thinking aloud
Providing more detail
Being more concise
More positive or open body language
Final thoughts
Mock interviews are one of the simplest, most powerful ways to help students prepare for highly selective admissions processes, and you do not need to be an expert in the subject to make a real difference.
What matters is creating a space where students can think, explore, explain and reflect.
I hope you find this structure and these ideas useful. Please do pass this on to anyone you know who could be asked to conduct mock interviews with their students!
