Eleanor Hamilton Clark, Undersecretary General for Content
The Oxford application process is quite an adventure. Some people achieve their desired goals at the end of their journey, others unfortunately don’t make it, but whether you end up coming to Oxford or not, the application process is certainly an adventure.
Some specific courses, like medicine, have entirely different application processes than everything else, but for the most part, courses share a similar application process. Long before the actual application, students who want to apply to Oxford should start making preparations. Things like good grades, a general understanding of the subject that you are applying for, and interesting experiences are all crucial to the application, but these are not things that can be done overnight. Of course, these things are required for any university, not just Oxford, so students who aren’t applying to Oxford should also prepare for them.
The actual Oxford application starts in September of a student’s final year. The application consists of three components. The UCAS application, with the personal statement and relevant information, the Oxford Exams, and the Oxford Interview.
The UCAS application for Oxford is identical to every other school, with the exception that while other schools allow students until January to apply, Oxford applicants must submit their applications in October. So most students begin to prepare their personal statements in September, or even earlier.
Students also have to remember to sign up for the Oxford exams, if their course requires an exam. Most exams open signups in September. After the students sign up for the tests, they have the next month to prepare for the test. Different subjects require different tests, which test for different skills, but generally the tests are more designed to test how the student thinks, rather than what the student knows. The TSA, the test required for most Politics, Philosophy, or Economics courses, for example, tests a students’ ability to reason and think logically when given very difficult questions. The History Aptitude Test similarly assesses a student’s ability to derive information from a given piece of historical text, and piece together various pieces of evidence to create a holistic understanding of history.
These tests are quite hard to prepare for, as they are designed to test innate abilities, rather than specific points of knowledge, but students should still prepare for the test as best as they can by doing past papers and practicing essential skills.
After a month of preparation, the students will take their exam at the time and date specified.
In December, students will learn whether they have made it to the interview phase. For most courses, only roughly 30-40% of all applicants will be shortlisted for interviews. The interview announcements will often come only a week, sometimes mere days, before the actual interview, which usually takes place in Early December, so students won’t have much time to prepare for the interviews.
As such, students who are optimistic about their chances may choose to start preemptively preparing for the interview, even before they receive their shortlist notification.
The interview, similarly, tests for a students’ ability to think and reason, and while some tutors may cover some subject specific knowledge, students are by no means expected to be a master at whatever they are applying to study for.
After the interviews comes the hardest part - the anxious wait. In mid January, students will be notified by their colleges of whether they have been accepted. For most courses, only approximately 30% of the interviewees get accepted. At this point, the students who have succeeded will be given further instructions for how to enroll, while other students can select another school to attend.
To all those wishing to apply to Oxford, best of luck!