University Interview Questions and Answers (30 Questions)

Most lists of university interview questions are just lists. This one is grouped by what each question is testing, because once you know what an interviewer is listening for, you stop guessing what to say. Sample answers are included where the shape of a good answer isn’t obvious.

By the AcceptMe team 11 min read Updated

A university interview, whether it’s a live panel, a one-to-one conversation or a timed video recording, is trying to answer a small number of questions about you. Can you talk about yourself clearly? Do you know why you want this program? When things went wrong, what did you actually do? Do you think before you speak?

Every question below maps to one of those. Prepare the underlying thing rather than the exact wording and you can handle a question you’ve never seen.

Questions about you

These open most interviews. They are not warm-ups. The interviewer is deciding in the first minute whether you can organise your thoughts, and your answer sets the topics they’ll ask about next.

  1. Tell me about yourself.The single most common opener. Sixty seconds, three things, ending on why you’re here. We have a full guide with sample answers.
  2. What are you most proud of?Tests whether you can pick one thing and explain why it mattered, not list achievements.
  3. What do you do outside of school?Looking for depth in one or two things rather than breadth. “I’ve played the same sport for eight years” beats a list of six clubs.
  4. How would your friends describe you?A self-awareness check. Pick a trait and give one concrete moment that shows it.
  5. What is a weakness you are working on?They want an actual weakness and evidence you’ve done something about it. “I’m a perfectionist” is a non-answer and everyone knows it.
Sample answer: what is a weakness you are working on?

I used to avoid asking for help. In Grade 11 physics I fell behind for three weeks because I didn’t want to admit I’d lost the thread on rotational motion. I ended up with a 62 on that unit test. After that I made a rule: if I’m stuck on something for more than twenty minutes, I ask someone. I started going to my teacher’s Thursday help sessions and I finished the course at 91. I still notice the instinct to figure everything out alone, but now I catch it.

Notice the shape: a real weakness, a real cost, a specific change, and an honest last line. That last line is what makes it believable.

Questions about motivation

Why this subject, why this program, why now. Interviewers ask these to separate students who chose the program from students who chose the ranking. The tell is specificity. A good answer names something about the program that a student who hadn’t looked closely couldn’t name.

  1. Why do you want to study this subject?They want the moment it became real for you, not a definition of the subject.
  2. Why this program specifically?Name two or three concrete features: a course, a co-op structure, a way the program is taught. Then say why those fit you.
  3. What do you hope to be doing in ten years?You don’t need a plan. You need a direction and a reason the program is on the way there.
  4. What have you read, watched or done recently related to this field?Answer with one thing and what you thought about it. This question is a bluff detector.
  5. What would you do if you don’t get in?A maturity check. Show you’ve thought about it without sounding like you’d be fine either way.
Sample answer: why this program?

Two things. First, the program puts you in a real team project in first year, not fourth. I’ve done my best work in teams with an actual deliverable, like the robotics competition where we had a working robot in six weeks, and I want more of that early. Second, the co-op sequence alternates every four months, which means by the time I graduate I’ll have tried three different kinds of work. I don’t yet know whether I want to end up in design or in operations, and I’d rather find out on a work term than after I’ve graduated.

Behavioural questions

“Tell me about a time when…” These are the heart of most competitive-program interviews, and the whole category runs on one idea: the best predictor of what you’ll do is what you’ve done. Each question targets a competency. If you have one strong, true story for each of the main competencies, you can answer any of these without preparing the specific question.

  1. Tell me about a time you led a group.Leadership. Not the title, the decision. See leadership questions for students.
  2. Tell me about a time you failed.Resilience and honesty. The failure has to be real and the reflection has to be specific.
  3. Tell me about a time you showed resilience.What did you do on the second day, not the first? Examples here.
  4. Tell me about a time you disagreed with someone on a team.Conflict resolution. They want to hear that you said something, and how.
  5. Tell me about a time you had to work with someone difficult.Teamwork and empathy. Never make the other person the villain of the story.
  6. Tell me about a time you took initiative.Something nobody asked you to do. Small and real beats large and vague.
  7. Tell me about a time you had too much to do.Time management. What did you drop, and how did you decide?
  8. Tell me about a time you helped someone.Empathy. The interesting part is how you noticed they needed help.
  9. Tell me about a time you changed your mind.Open-mindedness. What evidence moved you?
  10. Tell me about a time you made a mistake that affected other people.Accountability. Say what you did to fix it before you say what you learned.

The structure for all of these is the same: situation, task, action, result, and one line of reflection. The STAR method guide walks through it with two worked examples. The mistake students make most is spending half the answer on the situation and one sentence on what they actually did.

Sample answer: tell me about a time you disagreed with someone on a team

In our Grade 12 business case competition, my teammate wanted to open the presentation with the financials and I thought we should open with the customer problem. We had about a day before the deadline. Instead of arguing in the group chat, I asked if we could each present our version of the first two minutes to the other two teammates and let them decide. She went first, I went second, and they picked a mix: her numbers as the second slide, my customer story as the first. We placed second out of fourteen teams. What I took from it was that the fastest way out of a disagreement is usually to make it a test instead of a debate.

Situational and hypothetical questions

“What would you do if…” These have no right answer. The interviewer is watching how you reason: whether you gather information before deciding, whether you consider the people involved, and whether you can commit to a decision and defend it. Think out loud, in order, and land on a choice.

  1. A group member isn’t doing their share of a project. What do you do?Talk to them first, privately, and assume there’s a reason. Escalate only after that.
  2. You notice a friend cheating on a test. What do you do?Integrity. There is no clean answer; show that you’ve weighed the friendship against the fairness to everyone else.
  3. You are given a project with a deadline you think is impossible. What do you do?Say what you’d clarify, what you’d cut, and who you’d tell, and when.
  4. You are working in a diverse group and someone’s idea is being ignored. What do you do?Inclusion. The move is to bring the idea back into the room with their name on it.
  5. You have to choose between a commitment you made and a better opportunity. What do you do?They are looking for how you honour the first commitment, even while taking the second.
For situational questions, say your reasoning before your decision. “First I’d want to know whether… If it turned out that… then I’d…” is the sound of someone thinking. A bare answer sounds like a guess.

Curveballs

Some interviews throw in one question that has nothing to do with the program. The point is to see you think on your feet. There is no trick. Take a breath, pick an angle, and answer as if it were a normal question. A calm, ordinary answer to a strange question is exactly what they want.

  1. If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?
  2. Teach me something in two minutes.
  3. What is a popular opinion you disagree with?
  4. What would you do with a free year?
  5. Is there anything you want to ask us?Yes. Always. Ask something you couldn’t have found on the website.

How to prepare for all thirty at once

You cannot script thirty answers and you shouldn’t try. Scripted answers sound scripted, and under pressure you’ll lose your place in them. Instead:

  • Write one strong story for each competency. Leadership, teamwork, resilience, conflict, initiative, empathy, time management. A dozen stories at most. A single story can often answer three different questions depending on which part you emphasise.
  • Know your three motivation points cold. Why the subject, why the program, where it leads. These don’t change between questions.
  • Practice out loud, timed. Answers that feel complete in your head run long or trail off when spoken. Set a two-minute clock, record yourself, and listen back. It is uncomfortable and it is the highest-return thing you can do.
  • Practice with questions you haven’t seen. The skill isn’t recall. It’s hearing a new question and reaching for the right story in the first few seconds.

If your interview is a recorded video with a countdown rather than a conversation, the questions are the same but the format changes what hard means. The video interview guide covers that.

Three of the thirty have their own worked-answer guides: what is your greatest weakness, why do you want to study this program and tell me about a time you had a conflict. If the invitation is UBC Sauder’s, the Sauder admissions interview guide covers the March invitation and how to prepare in the days you get. The two hard parts of that list, building the dozen stories and practicing with questions you have not seen, are the two things AcceptMe does. The Story Bank coach interviews you out loud, one competency at a time, and drafts a story outline from your own words. The interview tool then puts you on camera with a fresh question, a prep window and a hard answer clock, and returns a transcript with the coach’s notes on what you said and how it was structured. Three Story Bank topics and two interview runs are free, which is enough to find out which of the thirty questions above you cannot yet answer.

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