I have first hand experience of the Cambridge interview process and was successful despite being a state school candidate. I read mathematics and my interviews

I have first hand experience of the Cambridge interview process and was successful despite being a state school candidate. I read mathematics and my interviews were purely technical. (None of those "hundred uses of a toothbrush" for me - perhaps those were for the arts students ;-) ) In the UK we are in the unfortunate situation whereby school examinations are so easy (as a result of political intervention) that it is effectively impossible to distinguish between the best candidate on examination results alone. Privately educated students do make up a much larger proportion of the student body than they "should", compared to the overall population. However, it could be (correctly) argued that state school pupils are more reluctant to apply in the first place. I can confirm that at Cambridge between'97 and '00 there was a concerted effort by the university and the student body to encourage applications from statistically underrepresented sections of society.