Facing a grilling: boys given university practice interviews by top academics

Next year’s QE leavers completed their university practice interviews over the summer, seizing the opportunity to experience questioning from senior academics.

The School arranges such practice interviews boys to help Year 12 boys prepare for their university applications.

Among the interviewers, this year, were:

• Professor Sarben Sarkar, of King’s College, London (the father of current QE pupil Robert Sarkar) who interviewed physicists
• Professor Stuart Sime, of The City Law School (formerly the Inns of Court School of Law), who interviewed seven boys
• Professor Dick Brealey (OE 1946-54), of the London Business School, who saw six QE economists.
• Consultant Dr Charu Deshpande, of Guy’s Hospital, who saw around 12 boys planning to become medics.

For the boys who visited Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (part of Queen Mary University of London), Professor Trish Greenhalgh (pictured right, interviewing QE pupil Musaji China) not only “grilled them with some real interview questions”, but also arranged for them to be shown around the Centre of the Cell science education facility, which is located in the middle of a working biomedical research laboratory. In addition, during the visit, Dr Martin Carrier, Head of Queen Mary’s Graduate Entry Programme, met the boys.

Liam Hargadon, last year’s Head of Year 12 and now Head of Year 13, said: “These practice interviews have proved to be of considerable value to the boys in their preparation for university applications. We are most grateful to these interviewers for making time in their busy schedules to assist our pupils in this way.”