Most undergraduate courses do not use interviews. If one of your choices does, the university will contact you after application with the arrangements and any preparation it expects.
For most undergraduate courses, an interview is not part of the admissions process. On courses without interviews, universities make decisions from the application and any other course-specific assessment, such as an admissions test or portfolio. If none of your choices interviews applicants, you can move from submission to a university decision without an interview stage at all.
Some courses use interviews because admissions staff want evidence that is difficult to judge from an application alone. Professional courses such as medicine, nursing and teaching are more likely to assess communication, motivation and understanding of the profession. Some universities also use academic interviews to explore how shortlisted applicants think about their subject. Creative and performance courses sometimes combine an interview with a portfolio discussion or audition.
One university might invite you to interview while another considering you for a similar subject makes a decision from your application alone. Receiving no interview invitation from a course that does not routinely interview applicants says nothing negative about your application.
If interviews form part of a course's normal selection process, the course page should explain that before you apply. The invitation itself comes later, after the university has received and reviewed your application. An invitation means the university is continuing to assess your application and will use the interview as additional evidence before reaching its decision. What Happens After You Submit Your UCAS Application? covers the wider period between submission and university decisions.
How interview invitations arrive
UCAS says interview invitations arrive either through your UCAS application or directly from the university or college. Check the email address used for your application as well as your UCAS account, then follow the booking or confirmation instructions you receive.
The invitation should give you the date, time and format, together with any action needed to confirm or book the interview. It should also tell you if you need to prepare or bring anything specific, such as written work or a portfolio. If anything is unclear, contact the admissions team named in the invitation.
Interview timing varies considerably: a university may begin interviewing soon after the application deadline or run interviews over several months. An early invitation from one choice and silence from another are not directly comparable because each course controls its own selection timetable.
If the proposed date is impossible, contact the university promptly. UCAS admissions principles state that applicants should receive reasonable notice of interviews and that universities should give reasonable consideration to requests for flexibility. Large fixed interview programmes leave less scope to rearrange individual slots, so raise the problem as soon as you know about it.
Academic interviews and professional interviews assess different things
An academic interview focuses on your subject and your capacity to engage with it. Questions can draw on material from your application, ask you to work through an unfamiliar idea, interpret information or explain how you reached an answer. Oxford, for example, describes its interviews as academic conversations designed to explore how applicants think and respond to new ideas. Other universities set their own interview formats and criteria, so use the guidance for the course that invited you rather than treating one university's process as a general model.
Professional or vocational interviews place more weight on suitability for a course leading towards a profession. Depending on the course, interviewers assess motivation, understanding of the role, communication, judgement, relevant experience and the qualities expected in professional training. Medical schools, for example, commonly use structured interviews as part of selection. UCAS also notes that interviews are compulsory for some courses, including teaching and nursing.
On a creative or performance course, the interview may centre on work you have submitted, sit alongside a portfolio review or form part of an audition process. Follow the course instructions closely because the balance between conversation, practical assessment and submitted work varies by provider.
Prepare for the interview you have actually been invited to
Start with the invitation and the course page. They tell you more about the likely interview than generic lists of university interview questions. Check the format, length, location or platform, whether there will be one interviewer or several, and whether the university wants you to prepare anything in advance.
Reread your UCAS application and any work submitted separately to that university. You should be able to discuss the subject choices, experiences, reading, projects or professional interests you have already presented as evidence. You do not need to memorise your application, but being surprised by your own claims makes it harder to develop them naturally in conversation.
For an academic interview, refresh the ideas and material most closely connected to your course and practise explaining your reasoning aloud. Practise following a thought through clearly, including when you need to reconsider it. For a professional course, review the course and profession, then think carefully about what your own experiences have taught you about the work, the people it serves and the demands of training. Examples from genuine experience are more useful than memorised model answers.
For an online interview, test the device, camera, microphone and connection in advance and use a place where you can hear and concentrate. For an in-person interview, plan the journey and arrival time, check the building or campus instructions and keep the university's contact details available in case travel is disrupted.
If you need reasonable adjustments for a disability, health condition or learning difference, contact the university early enough for arrangements to be made. Universities arrange reasonable adjustments for interviews and other admissions assessments, while disability information is handled separately from the academic judgement on your application.
During the interview
Listen to the question that was actually asked and give yourself enough time to think before answering. If you do not understand a question, ask for it to be repeated or clarified. In an academic discussion, explaining how you are approaching a problem gives the interviewer useful evidence even when you do not reach a perfect answer immediately.
Keep your answers grounded in what you genuinely know and have done. Be ready for follow-up questions: an exaggerated example or a memorised answer that you cannot develop is difficult to sustain. Where the interview concerns a profession, distinguish between what you observed or learned from an experience and responsibilities you did not personally hold.
If the interviewer gives you an opportunity to ask questions, use it for something you genuinely need to understand about the course or selection process.
What happens after the interview
The interview becomes part of the university's assessment of your application. If the course uses more than one interview or assessment stage, the university will tell you what follows. Once its selection process is complete, it decides whether to make an offer or record an unsuccessful decision, and UCAS shows that outcome with your other choices. UCAS Offers and University Decisions Explained covers those outcomes and what each one means.
Do not try to read a decision from how long the interview lasted, how friendly the interviewer seemed or how quickly another applicant hears back. Selection methods and decision timetables differ between courses, and a course that interviews several applicants may wait until later interviews are complete before making decisions.
If you have another interview coming, make brief notes while the experience is fresh. Record any part of the process that caught you out, any answer you struggled to explain and any practical problem that affected you. Use that information to prepare more effectively for the next interview without trying to reproduce the previous conversation.
Once the interview is over, keep checking the communication channels the university uses and respond promptly if it asks for further information.
