Here in Electronics at York we interview as many undergraduate applicants as we can. We ask technical questions, and for Media Technology programmes we ask students to bring along a portfolio of their work to discuss.

The main reason we interview while many others don't is the market. Fewer and fewer students are applying for Engineering and the Physical Sciences. Some of our competitors have adapted to this by being more generous with offers. We have taken a contrarian approach. We ask our applicants to demonstrate their quality in interviews, make offers to those we believe will add to the quality and ethos of our Department, then trust that the impression we make on them on the UCAS day is as good as the impression they have made on us. This strategy has worked, but it does mean that for you as an applicant, coming to an interview at York can be more intimidating than just attending an Open Day elsewhere. This page is intended to given some perspective from the other side of the table. Although focused on what we do here, much of the advice should be applicable to other places that interview candidates.

Warm-up questions

As in most interviews, we start by asking gentle questions, but there's no reason to be unprepared. You should be able to say why you've applied for University, for this particular University, and for this particular course. Have you thought about a gap year or industry sponsorship? The point of these questions is to see how carefully you have thought out the options for the next few years of your life. We aren't looking for introspective soul-searching, just the signs that you value your time and abilities and want to make something of them. We also ask how things have been going at school and if there have been any disruptions to your studies. We want to make sure we have that data if your exams don't turn out the way they should. We ask you what grades you expect to get and, if your estimation is different from that of the report that's on the UCAS form, we quiz you about that.

Technical questions

We will ask some technical questions. I usually ask what you've been doing in maths, physics, or another science subject recently, and then try to frame a question about that. The important thing to remember is that we are not very interested in testing your memory, so the questions are much more to do with how you think and explain. Here is a tip that probably applies to any interview for any engineering programme, and certainly applies to my Media Technology and Electronics interviews: Almost every technical question is really a GCSE algebra question in disguise. For example, if you tell me you have recently been studying capacitors in physics, I might draw the diagram below, where the capacitors all have value c, and ask what the total capacitance between A and B is.

Of course, because you've just done the subject, I expect you to know the rules for series and parallel capacitors. But that's not why I'm asking the question. I want to make sure that you can give me an equation with the total capacitance as the subject, and that's just algebra. The point is, it should be algebra at your fingertips.

I also try to include a "pure" maths question. My favorite is to ask how you might go about proving that sin²x + cos²x = 1. Some interviewees are able to do this without help, but usually we need to talk about it. Try not to:

• freeze
• fill the air with words that have nothing to do with the problem
• say "We have never done that so I don't know"
• get intimidated by the lengthening silence
• start showing it is true for particular values of x.

• Focus your mind by thinking about the first or most elementary things you learned about the things in the question.
• Think aloud about what you might do.
• Draw a diagram

Portfolio

We ask to see a portfolio of your artistic or performance work. This is for two reasons. We're interested to find out about your talents beyond science and engineering. I have seen and heard some beautiful pieces of work. Other portfolios are less arresting and more a record of craft and graft. Many of our applicants have done lighting or sound in school plays, for example. That's fine -- we have a lot of respect for craft and graft -- and the portfolio still tells us about your ability to organise thoughtfully and present clearly. The second, and perhaps more important, reason for the portfolio is to hear your opinion of it. We ask applicants to show off and talk about something they have achieved because we are looking for people who are proud of their work but aware of how they can improve, eager to talk about their enthusiasms, and willing to learn more.

Your Questions

Interviews always end with the opportunity for the interviewee to ask questions. You don't have to ask anything -- there are no points for clever questions. But this is your best chance to get a direct answer on anything about the University, the course, the place, so why not take it?

Don't forget

Be honest. Be yourself. Relax.