Oxbridge Interview Access Arrangements: Who to Tell, and What Does Not Change

Cambridge interviews run from 7 December to 18 December 2026, and Oxford’s are online that month. If you need an adjustment — extra time, a rest break, a document in an accessible format — no central Oxbridge office arranges it. The request goes to the college interviewing you, and at Cambridge it arrives on a form most applicants have never heard of.

This page sets out the sequence: who you tell, when you tell them, what happens next, and — just as important — what does not change. Where the universities publish nothing, we say so rather than guessing, because guessing about an access process is worse than admitting a gap.

Who Do You Actually Tell, and When?

There are two separate moments, and confusing them is the most common way an adjustment gets requested too late.

The first is the application itself. Both universities want the disclosure on your UCAS form. Cambridge adds a second box at the end of My Cambridge Application. Oxford frames the reason for asking plainly: “We only ask you to tell us so that we can offer support if it is needed and make reasonable adjustments to facilitate your access to your course and our University.” That is a support trigger, not an assessment input.

The second moment is after shortlisting, and it is the one people miss. Cambridge does not treat the interview adjustment as part of your original disclosure at all. Its guidance is explicit: “You will be asked about any adjustments you might need for interview (like extra time or rest breaks) at a later stage, so you don’t need to submit those as part of your extenuating circumstances information.” The mechanism is a document called the Adjustment at Interview form. Cambridge says: “The College that is interviewing you will provide you with the form. Return it as soon as possible to allow the College to make the appropriate arrangements.”

Oxford has no equivalent named form in its published applicant guidance. Its instruction is a direct one: “If you require any reasonable adjustments because of a disability, make sure that the college which has invited you to interview knows about these as soon as possible.” In practice that means an email to the college that invited you, not to a university department.

If you have already submitted everything and only then realised you want an adjustment, Cambridge closes that gap in writing: “Already submitted your UCAS application or My Cambridge Application? Don’t worry, you can tell us about your disability at other points in the process. You can submit the Adjustment at Interview form.” Nothing in either university’s guidance says a late disclosure is held against you.

Note where both routes terminate. Cambridge attributes the arrangement to “the College that is interviewing you”; Oxford to “the college which has invited you to interview”. Both phrasings do the same careful work: they point at whoever is actually running your interview, which is not always the college you named. That matters if you made an open application. Oxford spells out the consequence for extenuating circumstances, and the same logic applies to arrangements: applicants who have not expressed a college preference “will need to wait to share any extenuating circumstances until after they have been informed which college has received their application”. If you are waiting on an allocation, you are waiting on a contact address as well.

Interview invitations themselves mostly arrive in November, occasionally in early December, so the window between knowing who to write to and sitting the interview can be short. Our page on Oxbridge interview dates sets out that calendar in full.

Which Adjustments Are Named in the Guidance, and Who Arranges Them

Neither university publishes an exhaustive list of adjustments it grants. Both do name examples, and those named examples are the safest things to ask for, because you can point at the university’s own words when you do. The table below is built only from adjustments that appear in published guidance we read directly.

Read the Cambridge and Oxford rows together and a pattern appears. Cambridge names the adjustments that happen inside the interview — time and breaks. Oxford names the adjustments that happen around it — formats, reading time, timings. Neither list excludes the other’s. If what you need sits in the other university’s row, ask anyway; you are asking a college, and the college decides.

Does Asking for an Adjustment Change How You Are Assessed?

On the published record, no. Cambridge states it as a property of the process: “Our application process is fair, accessible and inclusive. If you’re a disabled student, your application will be assessed in the same way as any other application.” Oxford states it as a property of the decision: “Our admissions decisions are based on academic merit alone”.

It is worth being precise about what that does and does not promise. It does not promise a softer interview. Oxford is direct that difficult personal circumstances “do not guarantee shortlisting for interview or lead to a lower conditional offer”. An adjustment removes an obstacle between you and the question. It does not change the question, and it does not lower the bar the answer is measured against. That is exactly what most applicants want, and it is worth saying out loud, because the fear that an adjustment will be read as a concession is what stops people asking.

Oxford’s guidance for disabled applicants ends its interview advice on the point that actually settles the anxiety: “The interviewers are looking for your strengths and your potential to study here, not to pick out the things you find difficult.” If you want to know what those interviewers are recording, we have written separately on what Oxbridge interviewers actually mark.

Should You Disclose Autism, ADHD or Dyslexia Before an Interview?

This is the question that recurs most often, and it deserves a straight answer about what is known rather than reassurance.

What is known is that you would not be unusual. Cambridge publishes the proportion directly: “We are committed to supporting disabled students - around 25% of our undergraduates have a disability.” Its list of what that covers names ADHD, autism, mental health conditions, unseen disabilities and long-term health conditions, and specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia. Oxford publishes a headcount instead: its “Disability Advisory Service (DAS) currently holds records for more than 7,500 students”, and “Around a quarter of students known to DAS have long-term mental health conditions or specific learning difficulty (SpLD) such as dyslexia, dyspraxia as well as attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADHD)”.

What is also known is the mechanical consequence of not disclosing: no adjustment can be arranged. There is no route in either university’s published process by which an interviewer discovers a need that was never declared and accommodates it on the spot. The Cambridge form exists precisely because someone has to know in advance.

What we could not establish, and will not pretend to, is whether the individual academics interviewing you are told. Neither university publishes that detail. If that specific question is the one keeping you up, it is a fair and answerable thing to put to the college admissions office directly, and Cambridge’s own guidance points you at the College for exactly this kind of query.

The Assistive Technology Rule That Catches People Out

Accepting an Oxford interview invitation means agreeing to a code of conduct, and one clause in it surprises candidates who use assistive software daily. The clause reads: “I agree not to use any assistive technology (including artificial intelligence and automatic transcription tools) beyond that required for my subject during my interviews (unless explicitly permitted to do so, for example as a reasonable adjustment for a disability)”.

Read it twice. The default is prohibition. The carve-out is real, it is written into the clause itself, and it names disability explicitly — but it turns on the words “explicitly permitted”. Permission that exists only in your head is not permission. If you use live captioning, a screen reader, speech-to-text or a reading tool, the adjustment you are asking for is not the software; it is the college’s written agreement that you may run it.

Oxford attaches a consequence to the code as a whole: “Candidates will be at serious risk of having any offer withdrawn if they do not abide by any aspects of this code of conduct.” That is the reason to settle this before the interview rather than mention it in the first minute. Ask, get the answer in writing, and keep the email. Our guide to Oxford’s online interview setup for December 2026 covers the rest of what is and is not allowed in the room.

Can You Ask to Be Interviewed Online Instead of in Person?

At Cambridge the format is set by your College, and the published default is that you cannot choose. The guidance then makes a specific exception: “You will not usually be able to request a particular format. However, in exceptional circumstances (for example if you have a disability or your visa application is declined), you may be offered an alternative format. This will be at the discretion of the College assessing your application.”

Two things follow. Disability is one of only two examples Cambridge gives, so this is a route the university anticipates rather than an unusual request. But “at the discretion of the College” means it is not a right, and the answer will depend on which College you are dealing with. Check what your College does by default first — some interview entirely online, some entirely in person, some split by course or by where you are based. Our college-by-college table of Cambridge interview formats lists the published position for every College.

At Oxford in this cycle the question mostly does not arise: “In 2026, shortlisted applicants will take part in online interviews in December.” If travel, fatigue or an in-person environment is the barrier, Oxford has already removed it. If the online format is itself the barrier — and for some candidates it is — that is a conversation to have with your college, using the same route as any other adjustment.

What Happens If You Are Ill on the Day?

Both universities publish something here, and the two positions differ in an important way.

Cambridge sets a high bar for moving an interview, but names illness inside it: “We cannot reschedule interviews, unless under exceptional circumstances. This may include unavoidable commitments such as hospital appointments or illness, religious observance or exams.” The same passage adds the consequence of simply not turning up: “If you do not attend your interview, you will not be considered for a place at Cambridge.” Not attending and asking to move are not the same act.

Oxford routes it through a named person: “If you are invited for interview but are then too ill to attend, please contact the Tutor for Admissions at the college which has invited you, as soon as possible.” It adds that a teacher or a member of your family may do this for you if you cannot. Oxford also publishes a fallback that is not widely known: the college may consider your application without an interview, by reviewing the UCAS application, the results of any admissions test for your course, and any written work you were asked to submit.

The hardest sentence Oxford publishes is about what happens once you have started: “Tutors will consider information submitted before the interview (including extenuating evidence) as part of your application, but it is not possible to exclude your interview performance from your assessment once you have attended an interview.” The decision about whether to sit an interview while unwell is therefore made before it begins, not after. Oxford’s advice is to tell your interviewers as soon as possible if you start to feel ill during it.

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What We Could Not Confirm, and Where to Ask Instead

Several things applicants ask about are simply not in the published guidance we read. Rather than infer them, here they are as open questions, with the right place to put each one.

• The deadline for the Cambridge Adjustment at Interview form. Cambridge says to return it “by the relevant deadline” and “as soon as possible”, but publishes no date, because the form comes from your College. Ask your College when it sends the form.
• Whether interviewers are told. Neither university publishes this. Ask the College admissions office.
• What evidence you must supply. Cambridge asks you to complete the form “in full”, but neither university publishes an evidence standard for interview adjustments specifically. Ask, and ask early, because gathering a diagnostic report takes longer than a December fortnight allows.
• Anything about admissions test access arrangements. These are a different process on a different clock, run by the test provider rather than the college, and Cambridge warns that “The deadline for requesting adjustments may be earlier than the test registration deadline.” Do not assume an arrangement granted for a test carries over to an interview. It is requested separately.

For contacts: at Cambridge, your College first, with the University’s guidance for disabled students as the reference, and the Accessibility and Disability Resource Centre picking things up once you hold an offer — “If you disclose your disability in you UCAS application and you’re made an offer our ADRC team will get in touch with you before you start the course.” At Oxford, your college first, and then the Disability Advisory Service: “If you are offered a place at Oxford, please contact the Disability Advisory Service as soon as possible.”

A Sequence to Work Through Before December

Nothing above is difficult on its own. It goes wrong because the steps sit on different clocks and nobody sets them out in order.

1. Declare on UCAS, and at Cambridge in My Cambridge Application as well. Do it even if you expect to need nothing.
2. If you are taking an admissions test, handle its access arrangements as a separate task, on the test provider’s deadline, not the university’s.
3. When the invitation arrives, identify the College or college that is actually interviewing you. If you applied openly, this may be a new name.
4. At Cambridge, complete the Adjustment at Interview form in full and return it immediately. At Oxford, email the college with a short, specific list of what you need.
5. If you need assistive technology at Oxford, ask for it explicitly and keep the written permission.
6. Raise the format only if the format is the barrier, and expect the College to weigh it rather than simply grant it.
7. Rehearse under the conditions you have actually been granted, not under ideal ones. Our guide to running an Oxbridge mock interview at home is written to be adapted this way, and specialist tutors can build a mock around the timing and breaks you will really have.

Most applicants have 1 or 2 interviews lasting a total of 35 minutes to an hour. That is a short window to have earned. An adjustment exists so that the window is spent on your subject rather than on the obstacle, and asking for one is an administrative act, not a confession.

Frequently Asked Questions