Ayaz Manji:

‘That’s great. Now imagine a universe that only contains the banana, would that change your answer?”

Maybe I was too busy focusing on the fruit in front of me, or taken in by the absolute seriousness with which the philosopher posed the question, but it honestly was a good few hours later that I realised just how surreal my interview had been. Urban legends and overzealous teachers had warned me to expect the leftfield questions. It was the poker faces and the pointed silences and the frustratingly non-committal nodding that really threw me.

That’s perhaps the most intimidating aspect about the whole thing. It’s the awkward uncertainty that comes when you look into someone’s eye and know they’re judging you but don’t quite understand what for. In Jeevan Vasagar’s recent fly-on-the-wall for the Guardian he goes a long way towards shedding those layers of doubt and mystery that surround the interview process. He shows that when they get it right the academics seek out people who can think for themselves and handle the workload. But what he doesn’t do is ask if this is enough. He leaves unchallenged the idea that there’s a standard here and that we can try sincerely to move people towards it but on no account should it move for them. That’s a shame because, if only so we can remember why we think it’s true, it’s an idea that needs to be challenged.

Molly Avery:

There is, in general, a huge misrepresentation of the Cambridge interview process in the public consciousness; stories of obscure questions unanswerable by any state school applicant lacking sufficient preparation, of answers met by discouraging stony silence, and overall a process in which only wealthy, white applicants of an independent school education could possibly succeed. The reality, although varying from college to college, could not be more different.

To me, the interview process is the fairest aspect of university admissions. Although inevitably nerve-wrecking, contrary to the myth of obscure questions, interviews are not designed to catch a candidate out, but provide a unique opportunity to display competency and indeed passion for a subject far beyond that which is allowed by a 4000 character personal statement or simply AS grades. The state/private school ratio ever present at Cambridge is not a result of this process, it stems instead from the inherent inequalities in our own education system. It is no surprise that as the best university in the country a huge bulk of Cambridge applications come from the very best independent and state selective schools; however interviews give the chance for candidates who may lack an exemplary academic record and are in attendance at a less successful school- typically a state comprehensive- the chance to compete against students of Eton or Westminster who are undoubtedly appear far better on paper, and allow colleges a considerable level of discretion.

Interviews thus allow colleges to see the potential in candidates whose own extenuating circumstance may have prevented prevent said potential from being evident on paper.

Although it is undeniable that the Cambridge intake is disproportionate in north/south, state/private, and white/minority ratios, this is not a result of the admissions process, but of the huge disparity in education provision on a national scale. It is this disparity that prevents some students from ever reaching the lever where they would consider a Cambridge application feasible, let alone have the capability to overcome inevitable gaps in knowledge in order to benefit from the Cambridge degree system.

Freya Rowland:

Cambridge interviews: fair or not, they are the hand of God that placed us here. But the peculiar Cambridge ‘bubble’ isn’t for everyone. Perhaps those who don’t get in are on the greener grass. When I was applying, we heard that the interviewer may ask you to throw your chair out of the window, just to see how you’d react. What on earth are you supposed to do? (Answer: open the window first.)

But if any prospective students last time round felt blind panic when they got in to their interview, perhaps it would actually have been better to smash that window, pop the bubble, and make their escape.

It can sometimes feel like there’s a lot of pressure on you here, just to keep up with the pack, whereas at school a lot of people enjoyed the unappreciated bliss of effortlessly being top of the class. Looking back, that was a bubble of blissful ignorance.

The question I pose is an old one: is it better to be a pig satisfied or Socrates dissatisfied? I feel that here in Cambridge, you can be so acutely reminded of your own ineptitudes. Sometimes it’s nice to keep them out of the limelight, but with so many bright people around you, a bit of intellectual shade can be hard to come by.

If the interview wasn’t for you, then perhaps, neither was the prize.