Bearing in mind that it could be as long as 6 months between writing your personal statement and being invited to interview , you are most definitely going to need to re-familiarise yourself with your personal statement in the days (or weeks) before the interview takes place. Even if your UCAS form was only submitted a fortnight before, you still need to make reading your personal statement a serious part of your preparations.
Think about it: the interviewers are about to meet you (most probably) for the first time. They know nothing about you other than the information submitted on your UCAS form. A huge element of this is the personal statement, thus it makes perfect sense that a lot of the questions that come up in the interview will be based around things that you wrote in it.
So, grab a notebook, read your statement through, and write down a list of the questions that you would ask if you were the interviewer. If you find it difficult to stand back from the situation and put yourself in the interviewers role, ask a friend or family member to read it through and think of the questions that they would go on to ask. (In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do this anyway).
Expect to be questioned about the areas you have mentioned you have a special interest in, both in terms of the studies you have done to date, and also what you are looking forward to learning about at university. Be prepared to expand on the information you had previously given. They will not want to hear you just repeat back what you have written on the form. So you may need to do a fair bit of further research on some areas. Don’t forget, it’s not just the academic stuff they will want to know about. Prepare to be grilled on your extra-curricular hobbies and achievements as well.
Of course, these aren’t the only questions that will come up. They may well also ask about issues that haven’t arisen in your personal statement, but more about that later. For now, the content of your personal statement will be a great starting point.
Don’t forget that Momentum Careers Advice provide a mock interview service for just £60.