ADMISSION TO

UNDERGRADUATE
PROGRAMMES
Tips and recommendations
for preparing for
admission interviews

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Every year, many candidates hoping to join our Bachelor’s degree programmes ask us how
to best prepare for the admissions interview. This interview is for candidates who have
passed the first phase of selection (based on their written application). They are invited to a
25-minute interview, which takes place remotely via Zoom.

The interview is of crucial importance and acts as a filter in the admissions process, the primary
aim of which is to recruit students with excellent academic results and the qualities necessary
to adapt to the demands of the programme offered at Sciences Po.

This document, based on feedback from several admissions campaigns, provides a summary of
what is expected and advice on how to approach the interview with confidence.

What to expect from the interview

This meeting between the institution (represented by a pair of examiners) and the candidate
aims to:
• Assess the candidate’s intellectual curiosity and interest in the Bachelor’s programme at
Sciences Po (and at the partner university for dual degrees);
• Test the candidate’s thinking skills in situ;
• Assess the candidate’s ability to reason, structure their thoughts, argue in a nuanced and
convincing manner, and interact with the examiners; as well as their ability to succeed in a
demanding programme;
• Assess the candidate’s motivation and suitability for the programme offered at Sciences Po
(and at the partner university for dual degrees);
• Check the candidate’s oral expression skills in the language(s) required for the
programmes chosen by the candidate (English and/or French; German or Italian for
certain dual degrees).
This is not a test of knowledge but an exchange with examiners who will assess your ability to
observe, reason, argue and engage in dialogue.

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Our advice on how to prepare for
and succeed in your interview

General advice

Before the interview:

• Read the press (national and international) regularly and do not limit yourself to online
article headlines or summaries. It is important to understand the issues, causes and
consequences of events and to be able to discuss them. The aim is not to recite facts
but to show that you can explain issues, make connections and justify a point of view.

• Be prepared to be asked specific questions about the motivational factors mentioned

in your application (which the examiners have access to) and during your introductory
presentation. If you say you are ‘passionate’ about a subject, you must be able to
justify this, draw on in-depth knowledge of the subject and argue your case in a clear,
structured and relevant manner, or you risk being penalised.

On the day of the interview:

• Adopt an appropriate attitude throughout the interview: formal language, active
listening and a professional demeanour.

• Answer the examiners’ questions concisely: avoid answers that are too short or too
long, as the time allocated for the interview passes very quickly.

• Do not hesitate to take a few seconds to think before answering in order to structure
your response.

• Be open and receptive to the examiners’ comments and questions. There may be
several possible interpretations of the image commentary; the important thing is to
argue your point of view well.

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Specific advice for the three parts of the interview:

1. Initial presentation (approximately 2 minutes):

• The presentation should be prepared, but should not be written down and read
word by word in order to maintain a degree of spontaneity.
• It should summarise the key points of your background and motivation, mention
your choice of programmes, and your academic or professional plans, if any.

2. Image analysis (10 minutes):

This part of the test can sometimes be surprising, but you can approach it more calmly by
using these tips:

1. Choose the image: take a few seconds to look at the two images provided and
read the caption before choosing (cf. examples in the appendix).

2. Read the caption and describe the image

• The caption is very important. It can provide essential clues and help you avoid
gross misinterpretations or overly general interpretations. Read it aloud as indicated
in the instructions.
• The description is essential: it must be precise and structured, while remaining
concise. Beyond the formal description ‘in the foreground (...) in the background’,
you can offer a purely aesthetic analysis of the chosen image, analysing the use of
colour, perspective, framing, composition, etc. No technical vocabulary is required:
be simple, precise and clear.

3. Provide a reasoned interpretation of the image based on the elements

highlighted in its description
Examiners expect you to offer an interpretation based on the elements of your
description, linking your personal knowledge to the image being analysed and
explaining what the image evokes for you.
No prior knowledge of the image is expected: this is not a history or art history
test, but a test of reflection and argumentation. The committee members are not
expecting a specific answer, but rather an attempt to highlight the main issues you
associate with the image. They will assess the coherence of your reasoning and
your ability to justify an interpretation by asking you questions to help you develop
your thinking and your argument. They may engage in a discussion about possible
interpretations of the chosen image; it is important to listen to them and answer
their questions.
Example: a photo of the underground could be used to discuss issues such as
urbanisation, mobility, the environment, etc.
In general, candidates often do better when they adopt a modest and nuanced
attitude. It is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions if you do not know the
context of the image.

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 3. Free discussion with the examiners (10 mins):
This part of the interview allows the examiners to better understand your motivation and
gauge your intellectual curiosity. You must be able to:
• speak spontaneously and rigorously about subjects that are important to you and
that you have explored independently;
• answer questions asked by the examiners on current affairs;
• show that you have researched the programme and that you have thought about
how your experiences, interests and plans fit in with the programmes you are
considering (without necessarily knowing the course titles by heart, but being able
to explain the reasons for your choices in a convincing manner).

You must also understand the issues related to the programmes you have chosen
(particularly geographical minors) by keeping up to date with national and international
news in order to grasp the economic, social and political dimensions, etc., and be able to
discuss them. It is therefore not a question of being able to recount facts, but of being able
to reason about current events.

This knowledge will be assessed by the examiners through a variety of questions or based
on elements mentioned in your written statement of motivation.

Points to note:
• The interview is not a test of your level of political or community involvement,
especially since some candidates may not necessarily have the opportunity to
participate in extracurricular activities for a variety of legitimate reasons.

• Candidates who wish to highlight their extracurricular experiences must be able to

explain how they have impacted their personal journey.

***

We hope that these remarks and tips will help future candidates better understand
expectations, identify do’s and don’t’s and identify the qualities sought in future students.
Sciences Po looks forward to recruiting excellent students from around the world each year.
They enrich the Sciences Po family, an institution of excellence where, for more than a century
and a half, we have sought to teach our students to understand the world in order to act
upon it for the better.

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Appendix: examples of image combinations
from previous years

INSTRUCTIONS
Please select one of the two images, read the caption and describe the image
precisely. Then you will interpret and analyse the image. As a reminder, this exercise
does not require any specific prior knowledge related to the image.

COMBINATION 1

Kehinde WILEY, Portrait of Alpha Condé, Former President of Guinea, 2023; oil on
linen, 244 x 162 cm, galerie Templon, Paris.

Source : [Link]

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Tercio TEIXEIRA, for AFP and Getty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Macumba Beach
crowded during a heatwave), September 2023, colour photograph.

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COMBINATION 2

Alain JACQUET, Camouflage Jasper Johns, La voix de son maître (“Camouflage

Jasper Johns, His Masters’s Voice”), 1963, oil on canvas, 114 x 162 cm, Fondation
Pinault, Paris

Source: [Link]

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Jorge SILVA, Demonstration, Thailand, October 2020, photograph
(©Jorge Silva/Reuters)

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COMBINATION 3

Costfoto/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock, Lianyungang, China (A military sendoff

ceremony for new recruits in Jiangsu province), March 2024, colour
photography.

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Albert H. PAYNE (1812-1902) after Gerrit van Honthorst (1590–1652), The
Dentist or The Tooth Puller, 1840, engraving, dimensions unknown.

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COMBINATION 4

Guillermo ARIAS, Caravan of Central Americans Heading Toward the United States,
2019, photograph (© Guillermo Arias / AFP).

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Julia Margaret CAMERON, Mrs Herbert Duckworth, 1867, albumen print from a
collodion glass negative, 35 × 27.1 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt.

Source : [Link]

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[Link]

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