My Experience with the Online Imperial Admissions Process

Created: November 24, 2021

See also: [[My Experience with the Online Imperial Admissions Process]]B.

I’m writing this post because before my interview I had a lot of questions about what it was going to be like, but couldn’t really find much information from people who had already had one. For some context, I made my UCAS application on October 11th 2021 to the following universities:

  • Oxford, Mathematics and Computer Science
  • Imperial, Mathematics and Computer Science
  • UCL, Mathematics and Computer Science
  • Southampton, Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence
  • Bristol, Mathematics and Computer Science

And received a Imperial offer for A*A*AA with Grade 2 STEP requirements.

Timeline

  • October 12th: Sent off UCAS application.
  • October 13th: Got an email from Imperial saying they’d received my application.
  • November 1th: Got notified I’d have to sit an online admissions test.
  • November 3rd: Sat the MAT (not required for this course, but for Oxford).
  • November 4th: Sat the online Imperial test (see “the online test” below).
  • November 17th: Got email inviting me to an online interview.
  • November 19th: Had my online interview confirmed.
  • November 24th: Had online interview (see “the online interview” below).
  • December 16th: Got an A*A*AA offer with Grade 2 STEP requirements.

The Online Test

The online test consisted of 10 multiple choice questions which I had 45 minutes to complete. About half of them were computer science/programming based, and the other half were mathematics based. The computer science questions weren’t really anything like computer science A-level questions, more like logic puzzles and keeping track of variables in a pretend program. The maths questions were much easier than MAT questions and covered quite a few topics, like interpreting graphs and geometry.

The time pressure made the questions hard though. The email explaining the online admissions test made it sound like you had 24 hours to answer the questions but in reality it was a hard limit of only 45 minutes for the assessed part of the test.

From the email:

You can start the test at any time within 24 hours of 10am GMT on Thursday 04 November 2021, but you must finish the test in one sitting. You cannot pause and go back to the test later. You should allow at least 90 minutes for the whole exercise. We recommend starting with plenty of time to spare, as the test will not accept any responses after 10am GMT on Friday 05 November 2021.

There was a short tutorial on how to use the test software which you were allowed unlimited time to complete but took me only 20 minutes. This part wasn’t assessed, it just showed me things like how to change my answer if I wanted to go back and how to submit the test.

The email said that I’d get the link to log in to the test website at 11AM, but it was around 11:05AM when it actually got sent through. There was another anxious 5 minute waiting period between completing the tutorial test and getting the new test sent through (it was like a list of assignments on the website and the real test only came through once you completed the practice one).

The Online Interview

After filling out a short survey in the email that invited to an interview, they sent me another email confirming that I would have an interview at 2:45PM on November 24th. The email contained information like the exact time, the name of my interviewer, the duration of my interview and the Microsoft Teams link that I had to join only at the time and date given.

They didn’t have any requirements for things like smart tablets to write answers on the computer, but just asked that you had a clear camera and microphone with a strong internet connection. I ended up completing the interview using my phone and holding up an A4 pad which I wrote on with a whiteboard pen so it would show up.

At the start of the interview, my interviewer introduced themselves and explained that they would ask a few warm-up questions before moving onto two maths and reasoning questions.

I got asked why I wanted to study maths and computer science and then was asked a few follow up questions to my response. Then they asked about a few things specific to my personal statement, such as how I’d used programming in my EPQ.

Then we moved onto the two maths questions. I don’t want to describe exactly what they were in case they get asked again, but they were quite different from A-level maths questions and involved more lateral thinking. I’d describe them more like MAT questions, but with less working out between the steps. In fact, one of the questions I was asked was very similar to a previous MAT question.

Answering the questions was definitely a two-way process. I’d suggest an idea and they’d tell me if I was going down the correct route or not and gave me a few hints when I was stuck. I didn’t have to do too much writing down and the interviewer drew diagrams on a large whiteboard in front of the camera.

Of course, my experience with the questions might be different from everyone else’s and so this might not actually be any help whatsoever and it undoubtedly varies from interviewer to interviewer.

After the two maths questions, they said that we were done and that now I had an opportunity to ask them any questions. I asked one about advice they would give to themselves if they were an undergraduate again, and after talking through it for about 3-4 minutes, the interview was over.

All in all, the entire process took around 30 minutes. I think the only real useful information I can give is about the format:

  • A couple warm up/personal questions
    • A question not specific to me (“Why do you want to study maths?”)
    • A question about my personal statement
  • 2 maths questions
  • An opportunity to ask my own questions

I was really expecting to be asked “Why Imperial?” but I wasn’t.

The Decision

Apart from hoping that I’d get an offer in the first place, I was hoping for an A*A*AA offer without STEP requirements, but got an offer that would mean I had to get Grade 2 on the STEP exam. Specifically, the offer text read:

This offer is subject to you obtaining:

   GCE A level
          Grades A*A* in
             Mathematics
             Further Mathematics

   and
          Grades AA in
             Computer Science
             Physics

Grade 2 in Mathematics STEP Paper 2

Applicants taking reformed (linear) English A levels in Biology, Chemistry, Geology or Physics are also required to pass the practical endorsement.

These conditions must be met by 24th August 2022.

Conclusion

I hope any of that information was helpful and hope this post is fairly objective, I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to give advice or anything. I just wish I had something like this to read before my interview so I knew a bit more specifically about what the process was going to be like – the interview was the most stressful part, and I was scanning the r/Imperial subreddit and The Student Room anxiously for like 2 days for any information about how it would be.



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