Préparer un entretien dans une université étrangère

Oxbridge, University Colleges in the Netherlands, Lausanne Hotel School, IE University in Madrid… In many foreign universities, shortlisted or eligible candidates still have to pass a decisive stage: the admission interview.

Below you’ll find our advice on how to succeed in your admission interviews.

Admission interview: what to expect?

Invitation to an interview arouses different emotions in applicants: on the one hand, the joy and excitement of having caught the attention of the admissions committee; on the other, the anxiety and apprehension of not being up to the job at the interview.

While it’s difficult to anticipate some of the sometimes surprising or unsettling questions you’ll be asked during the interview, it’s important to remember to understand the purpose of the test and the intention of the jury members, which can be summed up as follows.

Test your thinking skills

After taking the time to look at your profile, your motivations for joining the university and the course, your career plans and your areas of interest, the jury (which can be made up of two to four members) will then try to test your responsiveness, originality of your thinking and your ability to reflection when faced with a theme that may be – deliberately – foreign to you, by observing how you take up the problem and find a way to solve it.

Evaluating your eloquence

Jury members will also be interested in your ability to toargument and convince. Are you able to defend your positions with tangible arguments? Can you support a theory without being thrown off balance by the jury’s remarks?

Of course, if you suddenly realize that your reasoning is wrong, don’t be stubborn. You have the right to change your mind and revise your positions.

Assess your adaptability

Studying at Oxford, Cambridge or IE Business School requires the ability to think for yourself. The members of the jury will test this ability by studying a text, presenting a problem or solving an exercise.

You need to be able to process new information and adapt to new issues in a structured and original way.

Gauge your motivation

It’s likely that you won’t be able to answer all the questions posed by the jury. But don’t worry, you won’t be disqualified.

The most important thing is to show your motivation and enthusiasm to the idea of joining the university you’re applying to, and show interest for the subject you wish to study.

How do I prepare for an interview?

Although, at universities such as Oxford or Cambridge, jury members tend to ask unpredictable questions, good preparation for this oral exam is essential. Knowing how to present yourself by highlighting your qualities, knowing how the test works, working on your oral expression and understanding the jury’s expectations are all factors that will help you feel more serene on the big day.

Here is a list of questions often asked in personality interviews:

Introduce yourself in 2 minutes.
Why this course? Why this university?
What are your career goals after university? How will this course enable you to achieve these goals?
What are your three main strengths and areas for improvement?
What is your definition of leadership? Describe a situation in which you demonstrated leadership.
Share with us an experience of working in a group – what was your role in the team?
What newspapers do you read regularly to stay informed? What have you read in the news recently?
Do you have a question for the jury? (Note: don’t ask the jury why you should choose the university of X!).
What are your greatest failures and proudest achievements?

Here are a few tips to help you prepare for your interview:

learn to highlight your assets, without becoming egocentric. Highlight your strengths, skills and qualities. Don’t hesitate to think of examples for each asset, but avoid reciting a text, as the jury will also be judging your skills. spontaneity ;
demonstrate motivation and enthusiasm at the idea of joining the benches of the university you’re applying to;
talk about your professional experience, your interests, and any volunteer work you’ve done, always explaining your choices and the benefits you’ve derived from them;
demonstrate a good general knowledge. You’ll need to be able to hold a discussion on any subject: current affairs, art, science, philosophy, literature and so on. Don’t hesitate to research and read as many books as possible on the subject you wish to study, to show the jury that you’re passionate about it;
explain why you want to go to this university rather than another. What are your expectations of the new facility?
take the time to understand the jury’s questions, even if it means asking for the question to be repeated.

Jean-Eudes tells us about his interview for admission to the IE University in Segovia (Spain) for a business course:

« I had come for an open day and took the opportunity to do my interview on the spot. I practiced with my parents, teachers from the school and friends of my parents. It’s important not to train only with people who are close to you, to get as close as possible to real interview conditions and to have more objective and critical opinions. Personality interviews require you to know how to talk about yourself, which doesn’t always come naturally. Friends can help us describe who we are, our qualities and faults. »

However, at Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial College in London, the interview will not simply assess your motivation, but above all your academic potential in your chosen course of study, the content of your degree course and your academic qualifications. personal statement, your ability to think… To illustrate this, you will find below examples of questions asked to candidates for the philosophy, politics and economics course at Oxford:

Some neoliberals claim that poor people are poor because they’re too lazy to work. Do you agree?
Why do you believe what your teacher tells you?
What is freedom?
Should prisoners vote? What is the main argument for or against? What other groups of people are excluded from voting and why?
How do you measure the success of a political voting system?

As you can see, the questions asked are quite different from those of a traditional motivational interview.

Lorcan, a student at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, tells us how he prepared for his Cambridge interview:

« The head of the history department at my lycée was very keen to train me for the Cambridge interviews and put me through two simulations. It’s impossible to know in advance what topics will be raised during the interview, as it’s entirely up to the jury to decide what they want to talk about.

However, once you have selected the college in which you would like to apply, don’t hesitate to ask about the history teachers who teach in that college in particular and their research, and try to get some knowledge of what they do.

For example, I knew that one of my interviewers, Dr. David Smith, was a specialist in England under the Stuart dynasty. So, before the interview, I read a biography and online articles about the period. This was actually very useful, as during my interview I had to comment on an article from that period.

Finding out which members of the jury might interview you is usually a strategy that pays off. Similarly, during her interview at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, my friend had to describe a painting of London in the 19th century. xix^e century. The jury member who had given him the assignment was in fact a professor specializing in Victorian England.

So, before her interview, she did some online reading and borrowed a book on Victorian England from the library to better understand the teacher’s work, as she knew this period might come up during the interview, which it did.

You may be asked a few surprising questions, but you won’t get any impossible ones.

We’ll never ask you questions about “the meaning of life” or try to make you feel uncomfortable, but simply try to gauge the way you reason.

During my interview, for example, we had a discussion with the jury about the Soviet economy. One member of the jury asked me what France would look like today if the Soviet model had prevailed in the 1920s.

Although the question may seem unsettling, the members of the jury were simply looking to see how I deal with a complex problem.

Jury members are not there to trick you, but simply to have an intellectual debate with you and assess what you’re capable of. They are looking to understand how you think, and to see if your way of thinking is suited to the tutorial (one-to-one lessons with the teacher) offered in Cambridge.

Indeed, at Cambridge, I feel like I’m going through an interview every week, during which I have to debate and argue. The aim of the interview is to assess whether your personality is suited to this type of environment. . »

Need help with prepare for your interview for a foreign university? Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your project!