Each year during the Oxbridge application cycle we host practice interviews not only for the applicants from Fettes but also for anyone at an Edinburgh High School who is applying to Oxford or to Cambridge.

This year 40 interviews were requested, 20 from Fettes and 20 for external candidates from Boroughmuir High School, St Thomas of Aquin's RC High School, Firrhill High School, James Gillespie's High School, Currie Community High School, Balerno High School, The Royal High School and Trinity Academy.

Practice interviews were conducted in a realistic format on-line with feedback given to the applicants afterwards.  We are exceptionally grateful to the 19 members of the Fettes staff and the 17 members of the Fettes community with academic excellence who dedicated one evening, or in some cases two evenings to provide insightful and specialised support to these students. 

Applications this year were particularly high for Engineering and Physics but also covered, PPE, Economics, Classics, Medicine, Maths, Computer Science, Chemistry, Human Sciences, HSPS, Psychology, Philosophy, Law, History, Education, Architecture, English, Geography and Land Economy.

The students found the practice interviews very valuable.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. It was helpful to practice speaking my ideas and my thought process out. I was really encouraged by the feedback I received following the interview. I was given lots of ideas about what I could look at and revise in preparation for the actual interview.

I found the mock interview useful in general because it put me on the spot and forced me to think quickly. I received some really crucial advice from my interviewer to improve in producing an argument both ways as well as offering examples to back up my assertions.

I have found my interview to be extremely helpful, and would be grateful if you could pass my thanks onto interviewers! It was really good practice to be put on the spot in the conditions that an Oxbridge interview would be. The most useful thing for me was that my interviewers were able to look at my personal statement and tell me things that they thought would definitely come up and would be good to have prepared answers for. They also made a point of telling me the sort of language that is best to use which was something I did not know. Again, thanks for the  organisation of this, it has been so beneficial.

I felt it was incredibly useful to have an informal chat predominately within the confines of my chosen university subject, and the direction towards the ideas I should be communicating. I found the feedback at the end of the interview so helpful with the direction towards further reading/listening.

I really enjoyed my interview and found it to be a useful exercise especially looking at the unseen text and discussing it with my interviewer as he directed me to look at different perspectives and practice analysing certain elements.  Going through my personal statement was helpful as it highlighted both my strong but also weak points showing me where to improve.

I personally found my interviewer very engaging and he gave great insight throughout on how I should improve.

We would like to offer every applicant our best wishes in their further preparations for their application.