What advice would you give about the interview to see if im suitable for sandhurst and what was the hardest thing there?

Hi Baris,

It’s great to hear that you are interested in becoming an Army Officer, it is a fantastic career.

I went through the selection process quite a while ago so it may be more helpful if some of the younger officers on here could help out too (Caroline M. can you offer any tips?).

My advice for the selection boards would be to get to a decent level of fitness, read up on your current affairs, be well read and ensure you have a good level of general knowledge, read into the military and research the corps or regiments that you are interested in, and train your brain in quick mathematics and problem solving techniques.

I really enjoyed my time training at Sandhurst, it is a truly inspiring place. The hardest thing for me was probably the lack of sleep which takes a bit of getting used to.

I hope this helps but please come back to me if you have anymore questions.

Katie

Hi Baris.

I went through the application process about four years ago so I might not be super up to date either. But here goes:

Interview advice - have a really good think through your motivation for wanting to be an Army officer and be able to articulate it. For example, do you want to be a Troop Commander and lead soldiers in training and on deployments? Do you want to develop people? Have an idea about which Corps / Regiment you might want to join (visit if possible) and the sort of roles that they do and what your first job would be on commissioning.
The most important thing is just to be yourself. Don't pretend to be someone you're not. Be confident and try and enjoy the application process (briefing and main board). If you really don't like it and don't get on with the people then the Army is probably not the right place for you. That's a really important thing to find out sooner rather than later.
It would also be useful to have an understand about what the Army is doing at the moment. Where are we deployed, why are we there, a bit of recent military history is always useful.
For the group discussion on current affairs just brush up on the news. I listened to the evening news on Radio 4 for the few weeks / couple of months leading up to the assessments.
Know what the fitness tests are and practise them. I used to do the bleep test on a weekly basis so that it became very easy and it was something I didn't have to be worried about.

The hardest thing at Sandhurst - this varies for everyone. I sometimes struggled with the physical side of things. I'm 5'4 and slight, and arrived there weighing about 51kg. My hardest moment was on one exercise doing a long extraction tab with all my kit where we kept getting contacted. I was so exhausted and I felt like giving up but didn't. The Army makes you choose not to give up which is such good training for life.
Other things that people find hard is the sleep deprivation, especially on exercise and in the first 5 weeks.

Good luck and please keep asking questions.

Caroline