UKC

Last Friday my son had a Uni interview and I'd told him in advance about the importance of eye contact.

The interviewer spent the entire interview on his mobile phone. Never looked up once, just flung out technical questions and when X was close to answering them correctly he flung out the next one.

Not surprisingly son was a bit flummoxed but decided just to press on without saying anything. His mate had a similar interview where halfway through the professor got up, went to the back of the room and played on his laptop while continuing the interview.

Rudeness? arrogance? or some deliberate tactic? I have no idea but it seems a bit below the belt with 17 year olds experiencing their first proper interview.

In reply to Babika:

Dare I ask where it was?

In reply to ianstevens:

Cambridge......

In reply to Babika:

Sounds like inexcusable rudeness to me. If there is a single person interviewing, if they intend to use an electronic device that should be explained up front with a justification (e.g reading personal statements) - as it stands even that's pretty rude and they should bloody well print it or view it in advance.

I've been in an interview where the boss person spent almost the entire time blasé to my discussion with the panel and comparing part of my CV with part of another applicant's on their iPad.

If it was a tactic I would view it as entirely inappropriate. Such crap might be justified if you were testing aptitude to spending 9 months in a confined inter planetary spacecraft and wanted to check someones irritability but it has no relevance on the academic study and no place in an academic interview.

In reply to Babika:

They might well have made their decision based upon the school he went to before he walked in.

In reply to Babika:

Professors in the best research universities are weird and asocial. Usually they don't care about undergraduate teaching. This is because only weird, introverted people are sufficiently obsessed with their field of study to get to be a professor at a top university .

In reply to Babika:


I did think it might be one of the Oxbridge universities, but didn't want to presume anything. Apparently they like to do things such as this to see how the interviewee reacts, and there are some horrendous urban legends around about it!

As others have said, pretty shocking interviewing technique in my book.

In reply to ckms:

Yeah that's what worried me. His very inclusive comprehensive didn't prepare him for this - whereas the Eton kids probably had been prepped in what to do in such circumstances

In reply to Babika:


Very probably rudeness and arrogance, also completely inappropriate behaviour.

I wish the interviewer could be reported - in a formal written complaint sent as high up in the organization as possible. They should be sanctioned for something like that. Of course you might feel that could be counterproductive, and/or a waste of time. But I wish the interviewer could be held accountable.

In reply to Babika:

but maybe these are academics who have never been in any kind of interview themselves, or trained in techniques, except ones like this, and they don't realise?

In reply to Babika:

That's actually unbelievable. Oxbridge have recently put quite a lot of resources into training their undergraduate interviewers in interview technique - and stories like yours are 99% of the time confined to history and urban legands (thankfully). Until this thread I would have said 100% of the time, based on the fact that no-one I know had an interview remotely like that (I was an undergrad there).

Personally I would complain.

On the plus side, I don't think anyone (eg. from Eton) would have received any "coaching" in how to deal with this situation, because it shouldn't be encountered, so at least it's a level playing field in that regard.

In reply to wintertree:


I agree it just seems like plain rudeness. I don't have much problem wiht people looking at application forms on an electronic device rather than at a paper copy (it's becoming increasingly common at meetings I go to for people to have the "papers" on their laptop or tablet rather than printed out) but it doesn't really sound like that's what was going on.

And it sounds utterly the opposite to my Cambridge interview many years ago, where the interviewer was certainly paying his full attention and listening carefully (to the point of it being a touch disconcerting, but that's within the bounds of reasonable for an interview!)

In reply to climbwhenready:


I can assure you its true! It happened on Friday!
My son said the worst bit was that there was zero encouragement, so when he got part way through solving a really complex problem and started to win, the interviewer just moved on straight away without any acknowledgement or facial recognition at all.

The other lad (with a different college, interviewer and subject) actually said he no longer wants to go to Cambridge if he's going to be taught by people like that as he found it so dispiriting.

I would love to complain - or at least raise the issue - is there an overall Uni admissions body?

In reply to Babika:

Obviously we're getting this account third hand, but on the face of it, it Just sounds like the interviewer wasn't particularity interested in the undergraduate recruitment process. Nothing more sinister than that. Maybe they had a paper or funding application deadline that day. Obviously this doesn't excuse their attitude, but a lack of interest in undergraduates is quite common amongst academics.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I'm afraid that's an absurd generalisation. I work at such an institution, and have several friends/ colleagues who are professors (at a variety of institutions). Many of our profs are committed to undergrad teaching - right from the first week of first year. And most are indistinguishable from the rest of society were you to meet them in a pub or bothy.

While I have no doubt what you say is true in some cases, it certainly isn't the norm.

In reply to Babika:

Not really - there's an explanation of the process here:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/admissions/handbook/section1/1_10.html

In reply to Babika:

Did he solve most of the problems they gave him. I thought they set them impossibly hard.

In reply to Babika:


Tone of voice doesn't come across on the internet. I mean - "I am gobsmacked." But I believe you!

In reply to Babika:

Complain. if you do not , then the interviewer will carry on doing this for others.

In reply to Babika:


UCAS, or the head of admissions of the college in question.

But if you do put in a complaint, make sure your son (i.e. the intervierveiwee) does so, rather than you. If you do go down this line, I'd make sure you do it before any offer/rejection is made, otherwise it just looks like sour grapes. Equally, if you do it, it will look like a case of "pushy parent".

I'm sure someone will be along to correct me in due course.

Furthermore, whilst you've created the impression the interviewer seemed disinterested (which they undoubtedly where) this could be due to the fact your son was making progress with the problems in hand - the interviewer may have seen him as a dead cert for a place as Cambridge interviews are phenomnally difficult, rather than a waste of time. This train of thought may require application of some rose-tinted glasses however...

In reply to Babika:

Totally unacceptable, arrogant and rude.

I would definitely complain.

My son had a similar experience with an interviewing officer when applying to enter the RAF for aircrew selection. He complained and received an apology from the RAF saying that the officer in question had been reprimanded and offering a fresh interview with someone else.

Unfortuinately, for them, the damage had been done and he said that he no longer wanted to join the RAF if that meant saying "Sir" to w&nkers like that! A pity, because his heart had been set on joining the RAF. He went for a different career and is now a successful geologist with an oil exploration company.

In reply to Babika:

Pretty much normal behavior. Your son is just not that interesting yet, would you rather he faked interest?

In reply to Babika:


I guess the least sinister explanation for this is that the interviewer has realised he's cracked it, and is moving straight on to a harder problem. But that'd involve being sorely lacking in social skills, let alone intrview skills.

In reply to kipman725:



I think there is a difference between just eyeballing someone (albeit thinking of the weeks shopping, TV, sex anything else) and deliberately spending the whole time on your phone.

And if you are interviewing with someone's life chances in your hands shouldn't you perhaps actually be interested?

In reply to Babika:

Maybe the professor was down the pub and was getting a flunkey to ask his questions via the mobile phone...

In reply to Babika:
Some thoughts from someone who's done this before (and spoken to admissions tutors about the process)...


Cambridge interviews have a fierce reputation but are really just a 'check', the decision having been made (mostly!!!) before the candidate walks in. If the student has the right marks, good references, an interesting personal statement, then the interview will only confirm what the tutors think, check s/he is not bluffing, etc. Any surprises, positive or negative, will of course affect the outcome and the tutor's interest is always getting the "best" student, "best" in this case referring to the student that the interviewer believes will do best at the university. Different colleges and subjects (and interviewers) will have different interview strategies but the thinking behind the process will be fundamentally similar.

The point you make about changing questions as you get to an answer is completely standard, the line of questioning will start very basic—I had the unnervingly simple "So what sort of things do you like to read in English?" to kick off a modern languages interview—and become harder until the candidate reaches his/her natural limit, then the whole thing will start again up a different road. The process is opaque but actually quite fair, since it is verging on impossible to prepare specifically for these interviews age 18. Interviewers have a lot of contextual data available and will be able to tell a lot about background and attitude from a seemingly anonymous application system, much like recruiters learn to make inferences from CVs. There is no bias towards public/private schools in the admissions system, apart from the fact that candidates from those schools are perhaps more likely to apply to Oxbridge because they are inherently more comfortable with the traditions, etc. and the universities' status as "institutions" (but I personally would dispute this).

Regarding the attitude of the interviewer: it may be that the interviewer is a bit of a "scientist" when it comes to social interaction, it may be interview number X of the day/week/month, the decision may have been 90% made one way or another, who knows, who cares... all the other applicants in that subject/college would have had exactly a similar experience so the idea that it will disadvantage your son doesn't hold much water. Rejecting the university's offer of a place due to one antisocial tutor is another overreaction given that the university that your son/his mate would go to instead would have a more impersonal, anonymous teaching system than just an awkward tutor or two....

In reply to Babika:

So uni is Cambridge.... Can I make a wild guess he's applying for an engineering or science degree?

Being able to calculate the energy in a drop of water using a spoon and kitchen scales does not pair with amazing social skills.

Good luck with all the applications.

Toby

In reply to JackG:

I'm not sure the "decision made beforehand" is so true for science interviews; in my experience they were trying to distinguish between those who could regurgitate the textbook, and those who were able to think new ideas through in a sensible manner.

So, for example, I shared a waiting room with a bunch of wannabee engineers. They were first asked "how does an aeroplane fly?", to which they gave the standard textbook answer about the shape of the wing making the air on the top go further, and so faster, and so reducing the pressure giving lift. And then when they'd shown they knew what the book said, they were asked "so how can planes fly upside down, then?". I don't think there was necessarily a "right" answer to the second part - they were more looking for a willingness to explore possibilities (maybe the ailerons can change the shape of the wing enough? maybe most planes can't really, only for a very short time? Maybe the explanation I just gave isn't the whole story, because planes can fly upside down?).

I'm not sure what subject the interview in question was for, though?

In reply to Carolyn:

Perhaps... Your interview example follows the pattern of a straightforward opening leading to a more complex problem, the process is designed to see if you "think" in the way that they want, it is more about the process than the answer you finish with I think.

I would also bet that you (or the admissions tutors) can also see this rather ephemeral quality in paper applications, especially after looking at 100s of different ones, interviewing more or less the same number of people, and then teaching the ones that get through the process (I was taught by both my interviewers in my first 2 years).

In reply to Toby_W:


Whilst I could strongly argue against your rampant stereotyping, the pertinent point is that poor social skills does not excuse lax interview etiquette. A simple flow chart, along the lines of "are you playing with your phone?" --yes--> "STOP" would suffice, and I would expect every member of every science and engineering department in the UK to be able to follow that...

In reply to JackG:


I'd agree that it follow the process of an apparently innocuous question leading to a harder one; I'm far less convinced decisions have usually been made beforehand. Some candidates will have had far more help from the school (or parents, etc) to polish their applications, and that's only easily determined by interview.

The Directors of Studies I worked with (whilst I did my PhD) certainly valued interviews as a chance to check on interpersonal skills (perhaps more than "thinking skills"), but they were interviewing for medicine, where it's arguably more important than in some other subjects.

In reply to Babika:

The decision is most definitely not made beforehand, as some seem to think. If it was, they wouldn't bother with extensive and expensive interviews. Academics really do have better things to be getting on with! Incidentally, in almost all cases (even in maths) they do not fit the archetype of the somewhat autistic genius.

I do some training for these interviews, and one of the things I always tell students is to understand that they already know you're clever enough: you wouldn't have got the interview otherwise. What they are doing is looking for someone they can bear the thought of spending a couple of hours a week with, 24 weeks a year, for the next four years. They want someone interesting and challenging and worth teaching. This article in the Grauniad was very telling, and matches my experience well:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/06/what-im-really-thinking...

I don't know what's happened in this case. Young interviewer, poorly trained, reading crib notes or their UCAS statement on his phone? How did your son's other interview(s) go? Cutting off answers halfway through is fairly normal - they want to know how you would get to an answer, rather tha see the answer itself, so once you've cracked a problem then there's little benefit to watching you dot the 'i's and cross the 't's.

I would hesitate about complaining. Is there any suggestion that the interview process was unfair? Did other students get the same treatment?

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


BUT if I was complaining about that interview, I wouldn't be complaining on the grounds of unfairness - I'd be complaining about the unacceptable behavior of the interviewer.

In reply to Babika:

Based on my experience of the process as a candidate, and from talking to friends who are now on the other side of the desk, I'd agree with what a lot of people have been saying - it was probably just a rude or socially inept interviewer rather than a deliberate tactic.

It might be worth complaining - someone might usefully have a word with them, although it's equally possible that it's well known internally that they're a bit useless but no-one can do much about it because politics.

In reply to Babika:

There's a (probably apocryphal) story about a rude interviewer asking questions from behind a newspaper they were reading. The candidate supposedly set fire to the paper. I don't know what the modern equivalent would be - maybe remotely install a virus on their phone/laptop? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9550464/A-survivor...

In reply to Babika:

Switching questions is a good sign, examiners/interviewers (me included) usually stick with questions when there is no answer forthcoming. The thought process is more interesting than the answer.

Conversely, typically exams/interviews are pitched so that no applicant/student is expected to answer all questions, it is more interesting to see how they react when faced with a question they know nothing about. If you have a good student you will have to crank up the level and stop asking stuff the student/applicant obviously knows.

Playing with an ipad is rather rude, though.

CB

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I'm not saying it was unfair or that he was disadvantaged - I just think it is astonishingly rude and reflects very poorly on the college.

Suggesting that he was reading notes, questions or the personal statement doesn't wash as he never raised his head. I've carried out plenty of job (not Uni) interviews where I've had to read, write, listen and maintain an interested nodding face to the interviewee on and off - its not that difficult to do all 3. After all you want to see the best of a candidate, not the worst.

FWIW I think he will get an offer and may come up against this arrogant g*t on a daily basis if he chooses to accept, so it may not be in his interests to start off on the wrong foot!

In reply to SteveRi:

LOL. I've been known to Tweet people in similar circumstances (playing on tablet in conferences), but it's not quite as dramatic......

In reply to the OP:

I do think there can be an element of pushing people to see how they react (I was bluntly asked "So, what happened in English Literature, then?" - my worst GCSE grade - presumably to see if I got stressed by "failure"), but this interviewer appears to have taken it to a new level!

In reply to Babika:

I would suggest that most colleges have at least 1 awkward or unpleasant fellow (I can think of 1 from my college, who was very unhappy when I proved him wrong in one of my interviews!). Often they are very good in their field and they just hate interviewing and teaching duties.

However, for every unpleasant fellow there are many more excellent ones. I found that 99% of my lecturers / professors / supervisors were friendly, helpful and caring people. Do not let your son be put off by meeting this one bad example.

(This wasn't someone at St. John's was it?...)

In reply to wintertree:

As an Engineering academic with wonderful social skills and perfect manners I quite agree with you and am also quite sure you would argue most strongly against my awful stereotyping....... just not very effectively (now how do I do the winking devil emoticon?)

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Toby_W:

Weird in this day and age when social skills in a workplace environment are highly rated values, that this type of practise is allowed to go on in academic institutions. After all in engineering and science, students will be working in teams ( the LHC is a shining example of what has to be done these days. I suspect the days of " lone scientists " are well gone). It is even more so when you consider that students will be running up vast debts to go to a university.

I understand that some universitys measure socially observable behaviours "in " their students in science/engineering. About time.

In reply to Babika:

Oh, I agree absolutely that this was bad interviewing, and I agree that it's rude and unprofessional.


This is partly what I was thinking - there's a very good chance that he'll have tutorials with this person. For the good of all, it might be worth making a complaint, but for the good of your son, perhaps not...

In reply to Babika:

For what it's worth, i went to a normal school and found the interview process hostile enough that i thought about not accepting the place, but am very glad I did, and ended up on the other side of the table a fair few years later. Maybe it's worth your son talking to some current students if he gets an offer before considering rejecting it?

I agree the interviewer playing with his phone is rude and unnecessary. Some bits of academia have a strange culture where it's totally normal for half the audience in a seminar (which is often for all intents and purposes a job interview!) to be doing something completely unrelated on their laptops while the other half is trying to destroy the speaker with awkward questions. Of course this shouldn't carry over into interviewing undergrads, but I can imagine some people don't adjust their style enough.

This is totally normal. We always said something like "ok great, you clearly know how to solve this so we'll move on", but again I can imagine some interviewers don't think about it enough to realise this is a useful thing to say. It also may well be a sign he was doing well. If someone's clearly competent it almost feels weird and patronising to be too complimentary- you end up thinking of them as just another academic who happens to be a few years younger than you, so it's not surprising that they managed to solve the problem! Of course an interview isn't the place to introduce them to this new approach but it still happens unfortunately.


I'd be willing to bet this is totally untrue. There might be some small remnant of interviewers who think this way (probably in some bizarre subject like classics) but I've never met anyone who didn't make significant adjustments for the background of students- we even checked school websites and league tables to try rescale scores fairly. One of the problems with getting enough state school kids in is that many just don't apply because people keep telling them it's not for them (not to say that colleges shouldn't do more to make the atmosphere more welcoming as well).

In reply to climbwhenready: I couldn't agree more. As an ex Oxbridge don such behavior is not only inexcusable but unproductive. Name the College and subject please. And take it up with the authorities of the College concerned officially.

In reply to abseil: exactly

In reply to neilh:

I am joking slightly, all the worst cases I know are physicists

Personally I am far more worried about the general lack of maths and science skills and the quality of what is learned on a lot of degree courses. My wife was talking to a primary school teacher who covers the maths teaching for a colleague because they don't feel able to teach it! Primary school maths!
There have always been jokes about arts degrees but arts graduates if not actually artistic would have a fantastic command of language and excellent critical thinking skills. Increasingly I find myself dealing with people who have jobs I would describe a secretary or clerk with some ridiculous new title and some generic degree. These people can't do maths struggle with spelling, grammar and English language and it takes a whole team of them weeks to do what I would consider a mornings work of basic admin.
I joke to my friends that you have to worry when an engineer is having to re-write English for people. All subjects are important in a good education but basic maths is something people will need all their lives and too many leave school,without out it.
I utterly agree that bad manners are un-acceptable though, sorry to rant on off topic. I'll bow out as all this writing has tired me out.
Again best of luck with applications and exams, at least your visit was memorable I don't even remember my interview at Cambridge, and talking of stereotypes I chose Bristol in the end

Toby

In reply to Toby_W:

I still remember mine. It was painfully obvious I was not the kind of kid they were looking for, but in all three interviews the interviewers were courteous throughout. (Mind you, academics didn't have mobile phones or laptops back then. A game of Candy Crush Saga to distract them from the tedium of talking to the oik was not an option.)

I ended up in Sheffield - result!

In reply to stubbed:

Do you really think that academics have no experience of being in interviews? for how do you think they got to the position they are in?

Maybe they haven't had specific training in interview technique, but why should they? if they have a clear idea about what skills they want he successful applicant to have and know how to find out this information then why on earth do they need so HR fool to tell them how to do their job.

Academics are not some alien species, they have likely all the same experiences and flaws as everyone else in similar senior positions.

In reply to Toby_W:


Couldn't agree more - we've had a number of maths worksheets that weren't mathematically sound (eg games based on chance, but inherently biased), perhaps most worrying downloaded from national resource sites rather than being invented by an individual teacher. And one recently that seemed to jump from very straightforward subtraction to really quite a complicated mathematical problem without realising what it had done (I put the more difficult problem on Facebook, and it got quite a few wrong answers from - admittedly tipsy - engineers and scientists with degrees before they agreed on the right answer!)

And as for science - the older child (9 yrs) has been learning about solids, liquids and gases. I saw his book at parents' evening - they'd been asked "Is toothpaste a solid, liquid or gas?". Child had written a perfectly sensible answers (along the lines "I think it's a bit of both, because sometimes x and sometimes y"), which got marked wrong, with the comment "No. We discussed this in class. It's a solid"). No surprise all critical thinking has been knocked out of them by uni......

In reply to Carolyn:

Very interesting you should say that, we had some sort of STEM fair recently and the secondary school children were interested but didn't want to touch stuff and seemed very reluctant to step up so to speak. What a breath of fresh air the primary school children were when they arrived, into everything, asking questions, pressing buttons. Wonderful.


Cheers

Toby

In reply to Babika:
In reply to the original post:

No, it certainly shouldn't be like that. My son was interviewed last year in a manner which was relaxed, encouraging, thoughtful, and highly challenging. That's how it should be.

Each college has an Admissions Tutor responsible for undergraduate admissions - you should be able to contact them by email.
The university has an admissions office which publishes guidance and runs training sessions for interviewers -also easy to contact by email.

In reply to Toby_W:

LOL. Mine are certainly in to poking everything, no doubt about that!

According to the 9 year old, the teacher's explanation in class was that "it must be a solid, or it would just run out of the tube when you take the lid off", and she didn't appreciate being asked "But if it's a solid, how does it come out when you squeeze the tube?". He spent the evening watching youtube videos about non-Newtonian fluids and playing with cornflour & water, and deciding that teachers don't appear to know everything.......

In reply to Toby_W:


I am a maths teacher with a maths degree, but I wouldn't have a clue how to begin teaching maths to a class of 5 year olds; the idea horrifies me! But yes, a primary school teacher should be able to teach primary school maths.

Anyway, while on the face of it, it appears that this particular interviewer's behaviour was certainly odd, probably inappropriate, and possibly inexcusable, it dismays me that some people on here still seem to think that these universities are looking for candidates from the "right" school or who are the right "sort". These universities only have it in their own interests to bend over backwards to attract and select the most able candidates for their courses. Ignorantly and irresponsibly perpetuating these myths will only tend to deter suitably qualified and able candidates from applying. It's a bit like the way people still go tediously on and on about how the SMC is run by misogynistic old men who don't want women in the club - and guess what, women are put off applying for membership!

In reply to Babika:

University interviews came up in conversation at a party this weekend - quite a few of us had awkward interviews at the universities we were accepted to. What became apparent though, was that the interviewers had been finding out how we reacted to difficult or uncomfortable situations - they were looking for us to challenge them (most of us had later asked about our interviews in casual conversation once we had been accepted on our courses and got to know the interviewers better).

I'm sure this isn't always the case, but it seems it sometimes is.

In reply to whenry:



But do you really think it was reasonable to expect a 17 year old in their first ever interview, with a lot at stake to say "Oi, excuse me but could you just stop texting and lift your head for a moment, so that I can make some eye contact and maybe get some visual signals as to whether I'm doing ok?"

There's challenge and there's f*$3*ing challenge (to paraphrase a famous climbing vid)!

In reply to Robert Durran:

i can't comment on what you say about the SMC, although I don't doubt it, but I wholeheartedly agree with the rest. Long ago, I went to then worked in a global top 10 university. The people there might have been cultured, they might have been to a posh school, but also, they might not have. Many certainly weren't or hadn't.. Nobody cared when it came to giving them a job or when working with them. It just doesn't come up. The fact that people may socialise once they are there does not mean that universities aren't a social club. They are places for learning and for finding out things. They try to attract the people who they think are likely to be most able at doing that.

As an admissions tutor now I try to be super nice to the candidates but try to ask them some super hard questions, having primed them that the idea is to see how they apply to them the knowledge they should reasonably be expected to have. I don't particularly care whether they get to the final correct answer, it's their way of going about things and what they bring to bear on the task that interests me.

In reply to Babika:


It is absolutely not reasonable, and that's the whole point of assessing interviewing - it is such an asymmetrical social situation (the interviewee has zero power) that interviewers have a duty to be very careful, respect the interviewee, and remember the situation.

I think mbh had it right in the previous post - try to be super nice to candidates - I respect that.

In reply to abseil:

Interestingly enough (although not related to this issue) I'm old enough and established enough to treat interviews as a symmetric conversation (to use your appropriate and accurate terminology) but I already have work and I'm trying to find something that is a better fit for my skills and aspirations - so I'm trying to find out about the organisation that is interviewing me as much as they are trying to find out about me. I agree that this is a big challenge for a 17 year old - although I can see some of the more precocious teenagers might relish the opportunity to poke an interviewer I'm thinking most will feel pretty uncomfortable and it won't bring the best out of them.

In reply to cander:


That's interesting, and I wouldn't have thought it was possible to have a symmetric situation in an interview till I read your post - but now I see that it is.

Lots of luck with your search.

In reply to Babika:


It's not reasonable for your average 17 year old, but this is Cambridge - they're not looking for your average 17 year old.

In reply to kipman725:

Idiotic response. Or would you rather I faked politeness.

In reply to whenry:

Disagree. I only know one Oxbridge admissions tutor personally, but from everything they've ever said about the process, and from my experience of it fifteen years ago, trying to create "difficult or uncomfortable situations" is very much not something that they have any interest in doing. They'll ask challenging questions and try to see how the candidate deals with being stretched intellectually, but they generally aim to make the situation as welcoming and stress-free as is possible for a difficult and potentially life-changing interview. If the candidate is being made awkward or uncomfortable then the odds are that the interviewer is either socially inept[1], being a dick, or both.

[1] I wouldn't say that all, or even most, STEM academics are socially inept, but I wouldn't deny that some of them are...

In reply to whenry:


This is not - should not - be the aims of the Oxbridge interview process. Both admissions tutors and interviewers have been very open that this shouldn't happen and that gels with my and other's experiences too. (The OP's situation may be the exception that proves the rule.) They're interested in academic potential, not weird social stuff.

I can't speak for other universities.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Well said
I couldn't figure out why 17 year Cambridge interviewees were somehow supposed to be able to handle such idiotic behaviour any more than the rest of us! They're clever, yes, but not supposed to have some overwhelming confidence/arrogance to challenge rude middle aged professors with their future in their hands!!