Your Month by Month Guide to Oxbridge Applications

Admissions Test Preparation - January to October

January to June

Once you’ve chosen the subject you want to apply for, it’s time to investigate whether your chosen university or college has an admissions test for said subject. Most courses at Oxford and Cambridge have some kind of pre-application or pre-interview admissions test, so make sure you know what you’re going to need to sit to get into the course you want to. Whilst preparing for the admissions test might take a back seat to things like your academic studies and personal statement prep until the summer holidays, we still recommend being aware of the kind of questions you’re going to be answering so that you can keep them in the back of your mind, and make sure that you’re excelling at these kind of questions as part of your regular studies. 

June to August 

Once the summer holiday period is upon you and you’re certain of the course you’re applying to and admissions test you’ll be taking, we recommend starting up with revision targeted directly at the admissions test itself. Since the ideas and knowledge tested might not be exactly the same as your subjects at school, we recommend heading to the university or test provider website and looking at past papers to get a feel of the kind of information required. 

September

September is usually registration time for admissions tests, so by this point make sure that you know when the registration period starts and ends, and on what date you’re going to be sitting the test. Investigate testing centres and, if your school is not running a test centre, make sure that you have identified the closest local centre. Keep the date of the test free well in advance, since you will have to do it on that specific date! Continue revising for the test, working through past papers in timed conditions at regular intervals to test your progress and monitor which areas you need to improve in most. 

October 

Most of the pre-admissions tests are held in October, so most of this month will be spent fine-tuning your exam technique and keeping on top of the knowledge you need just to keep yourself topped up. Good luck!

This year has brought the news that there is going to be a change of provider for most Oxford and Cambridge admission tests, some of which come into effect this year (2023) and others next year (2024). It’s important that you consider what effect these changes might have on the admissions test you’ll be sitting so you’re preparing correctly. Check out our article rounding up all the changes to Oxford and Cambridge applications coming into effect  (and follow us on social media for updates) to stay on top of the situation.

Academic Studies - January to December 

Naturally, keeping on top of your studies is going to be important throughout the application process and after the point at which you have (hopefully) received an offer. However, the focus of your academic studies might want to shift slightly with different periods. 

January to June 

Ensure that during the academic year you’re keeping on top of all of your school subjects (not just the ones you’re considering applying for at university) so that you’re giving yourself the best chance of meeting your offers in your final exams next year. This can be easier said than done when you’re spending lots of time on other aspects of your application alongside your schoolwork, but we cannot stress enough that no amount of preparation throughout the rest of the application process will make up for bad exam results (not including extenuating circumstances, that is!) 

July to December 

In the second half of the year, once you get to the summer holidays in the year of your application, it is best to focus on extending your academic knowledge beyond just the foundations that you have been building through your school studies. This doesn’t mean we are recommending not paying attention in school! Quite the contrary; since you will have been paying attention in school so well over the previous six months, this period can be spent looking at concepts perhaps slightly above or extended from that which you’ve been looking at in school. This will be useful for your knowledge in general, but also crucially will help you in interviews and admissions tests, since it’s going to give you some high level concepts that show off your knowledge and abilities to admissions tutors. 

Interview Preparation - January to December

January to August
Up until the start of the academic year in which you’re applying, we recommend working generally on your skills of analysis and critical thinking skills as well as how you communicate these ideas. These are all crucial abilities that will help you come up with interesting ideas and put them across to admissions tutors in an interview. There’s not a strict need to replicate and practice the interview format year (unless you want to get ahead of the game!) but do make sure that you’re working on these skills in a meaningful way so that you can just alter them to fit the interview format in the last months of your preparation.

September to December
From September until your interview at some point in December (first two weeks of December for Oxford, slightly later for Cambridge) we recommend that you undertake as much targeted interview practice and mock interviews as possible! Be careful not to prepare canned responses (tutors can always sniff these out), but practice different questions with as many different people as possible so that you’re well prepared to deal with whatever your interviewers are going to ask you.