Am I clever enough? Will everyone be cleverer than me? Will the tutors like me?

These are the questions I asked myself over and over again. There is no doubt about it Oxford can seem intimidating.
The stunning architecture, Harry Potter-esque dining halls and world expert tutors are enough to make most prospective applicants feel daunted.
Being nervous is normal but being so stressed that you can’t get your words out in the interview room and burst into floods of tears isn’t the best sign. As much as the interviews are used to test your knowledge, they are also a great way of showing how you react under pressure. They are designed to reflect a mini-tutorial which once at Oxford you will have on aweekly basis. So if you can’t cope with the interview, it’s unlikely you’ll cope with the workload and pressure once you start Oxford.
If you think you can deal with the pressure then ask yourself the next lot of questions:

• Am I committed to working hard?
• Do I have the grades?
• Can I motivate myself to meet deadlines without a teacher pushing me?
• Am I open to new ideas?
• Does the tutorial system appeal to me?
• Am I good at exams?
• Am I passionate about my subject?
• Does ‘Oxford Life’ appeal to me?

If you can answer YES to most of these then you really have nothing to lose!

Top Tips

• Look around Oxford or research it online to see whether the University appeals to you.
• Research your course, to check you will be happy studying it in minute detail for the next 3-4 years.
• Self-analyse- ask yourself whether you truly believe you have the qualities to get you through an Oxford degree.
• Discuss your subject with everyone and anyone who will listen and get them to ask you questions– this is a great way to practice staying calm under pressure.
• Stop comparing yourself to everyone else – this is difficult but focus on the qualities you have.
• Don’t pretend to be what you think the tutors are looking for, be true to yourself.
• BELIEVE – if you really want something you have to believe you can get it and that belief, along with hard work, can go a very long way.

Glossary

Tutorials – a weekly meeting with your tutor to discuss your week’s work. The tutorial system makes Oxford different from other University. You can’t hide in the back of a lecture theatre, the spotlight is on you!

Matilda is a student and blogger at Oxford. She writes about the application process and student life in her blog and on instagram @thatoxfordgirl!

ThatOxfordGirl, 29 Dec 2016

Your first steps to studying at UK’s best universities

Studying abroad is a great adventure and a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will widen your horizons and grant you thousands of new possibilities. Here, we will outline the very basics of applying to study in the United Kingdom, in particular its top universities, so you can learn what the overall process looks like.

What universities are out there?

You must have heard of Oxford and Cambridge, the most renowned universities in the UK and Europe. While they may sound mythical at first, they are actually in your reach and would always devote a lot of time to assess your application, no matter what your background is. They view each candidate as a separate case and care a lot about your academic potential, far more than about other things such as grades or qualifications. If you are a naturally curious person with a lively interest in your subject, then you have a very good shot!

Oxford and Cambridge share a lot of similarities. They use the famous tutorial system so that each student is assigned a tutor that guides and mentors him on a very individual basis. They are both stunningly beautiful and permeated with bizarre traditions. They use the college system so that each student is assigned to their ‘house’, just like in Harry Potter, in which they live, eat and sleep, becoming a part of a family-like community. They are both crazy about their sports, most notably rowing, and would meet each year to compete in countless disciplines. And, most importantly, they are both amazing places to spend your initial years of adolescence while having great fun, meeting inspirational people and developing yourself academically, all at once.

If you prefer the atmosphere of a great, vibrant metropolis, studying in London may be your thing. Here, you may be considering London School of Economics or University College London, depending on the course you are interested in. The experience will be much different, less mythical and more urban than in Oxford or Cambridge – but it doesn’t mean it will be less exciting!

How the application system works

The whole application process is centralized and officially hosted by UCAS platform. You need to register by filling in a couple of forms and then you are good to go!. Everything you do regarding your application will be processed by UCAS. After you have registered, you can start selecting universities and courses. Up to five can be chosen, but Oxford and Cambridge cannot be picked at the same time – so you’ll have to make up your mind! It is generally a good idea to apply to more than one university, as they all receive the same application pack – it is a very small fuss for a higher chance of success.

Then, you will have to write a personal statement, which is a 4.000 characters long letter describing your motivations and key achievements. The purpose of the personal statement is to articulate to your university that you are the perfect candidate with lots of academic potential and to assure them that you will not squander the chance if you are successful. . You will also need to ask your teacher for your predicted grades and for a reference letter.

Once your PS is written, referee contacted and grades’ predictions uploaded around early October, it is the time to wait. For some universities (like LSE or UCL) that would be the end of the journey – for Oxford and Cambridge, however, this is just the beginning, so you will have many more opportunities to prove your academic potential in the subsequent steps of the process.

Next in line would be the aptitude tests, for Oxford usually written in November. Their purpose is to check your ability to think on your feet and solve problems you have not encountered before – but with proper preparation they should not be a problem. Many social sciences subjects would take the famous TSA test, but each course may have its own exam. The test result has a considerable impact regarding getting to further stages, but is not that important later on.

After the test comes the invitation to the interview – so that means you are flying to the UK! This is easily the most exciting part of the recruitment process and usually happens in early December. You will get to meet your tutors and show them in person that they would actually enjoy teaching you for the upcoming three years. You will get to see your dream university over a few days of fully funded accommodation, meet like-minded peers and dine in straight-from-Harry-Potter dining hall for free! Interviews are a great experience, but can seem stressful beforehand – make sure you come prepared! Most candidates have one to three 30-minute interviews and spend about 3-5 days enjoying their future colleges.

You will get your offers from Oxford or Cambridge around early January. The system here may be different than in your home country: Once you get an offer, you are not automatically a student. The offer will give you certain conditions that you have to meet to be enrolled – usually sitting a language certificate and achieving a proper A-Levels/IB/national exam score, based on what they think you are capable of achieving. The point of this is not to keep you idle and complacent once you have secured a place at a world best university, so make sure that you do not fail the final sprint – the vast majority of people don’t, so no need to worry.

The journey is long but exciting and rewarding! For your convenience, this is the timeline of all the important deadlines

Jakub Labun, 18 May 2016

If you are a non-native speaker and are planning on applying to a University in the UK or US, you will most likely have to submit a language certification as part of your application.

 TOEFL, IELTS, CAE, CPE, they are all quite similar: They consist of a set of standardised questions and tasks that you have to complete, so regardless of which exam you take. It goes without saying that you need a good level of English, but here are a few tips to help you prepare:

1. Start early
   Give yourself the time to prepare well. Start with a practice test to see where you stand and which areas you need to work on most.
2. Practice
   There is no secret recipe for doing well in these exams. After doing a number of past exams and exercises in books, you will start to recognise that there are only a handful types of questions and you will become familiar with the way they are phrased. This is crucial. I worked through my entire book and did every exercise, checked it and took notes of words or idioms I was unfamiliar with.
3. Master time management
   You have a limited amount of time to complete all the exercises, so whenever you practice do it under exam conditions. That means timing yourself, strictly not using your phone or computer to look something up and learn to find around things that you just cannot remember.
4. Go above and beyond
   Learning a language is a lengthy process, you will need to invest a lot of time into it, but it should be fun! Reading helps tremendously, you can also listen to audiobooks or the news to soak up the intonation and come to grips with accents. The internet is your friend.

Don’t worry if that sounds stressful, many people have done it before and if you are well organised and practice, get exposure and keep your head cool during the exam, you should not have to worry.

Good luck!

Hannah Niese, 02 Mar 2017

The most frequent question we get when doing workshops for high schoolers is: ‘when do I have to start working on my university application?’ The easy answer to this question is 3-6 months before the deadline. That’s approximately the time it takes to get an overview of the admissions process, find out what universities are looking for, write your personal essays/statements, prepare for tests, get references, etc. The right answer, however, is that thinking about this question as a matter of number of months is the wrong mindset.

It is definitely possible to “play” the admissions system; sign-up for a gazillion extra curricular activities if you are applying in the US, or play the ‘grades game’ to impress your high school teachers if you are applying to UK universities. Most students at the top universities have done this to some extent, but the fact remains that the best way to maximise your chances of getting into your dream universities is to dedicate time and effort to your academic passions.

Although there are many tedious aspects of university applications, the process becomes significantly easier if it follows naturally from being passionate about what you want to study. If you like maths, then don’t restrict yourself to textbooks. If you are interested in studying literature, then read (a lot of) books. It sounds almost banal, but the single most important element in your university application is to be truly curious and dedicated to becoming better at what you want to study.
What we’re getting at here is that creating a successful application to a top university does not consist (merely) of a set of robotic motions. It is about dedicating your time to becoming an applicant worthy of attending a top university – whether this means becoming really good at some extra curricular activity or being insightful about the subject you’re applying for. It also helps if you can find the school you really want to attend and start reading about the quirky, fun aspects of life there: personally, this made me extra motivated to spend that extra hour fine-tuning my personal statement. None of this starts some arbitrary number of months before the deadline, it starts as soon as you discover your passions.

What does this mean for you if you don’t know exactly what you want to study? If you’re 1-2 years away from applying, there’s a significant chance that you’re not quite sure yet. Don’t panic – but know that the best you thing you can do then is to start finding out. The best way to do find out what you really enjoy is to dive deep into the subjects that seem the most interesting. Watch TED Talks, read outside your school curriculum, find inspiration in your preferred university’s ‘pre-reading list’ for that course. Plunge into different subjects, be aware of how much you enjoy it. Follow the trails you find most interesting. Once you start reading something that your teacher doesn’t care if you read or not, it will be much clearer if you enjoy it or not. If you can’t focus for the length of a TED talk, there’s a good chance you won’t enjoy spending thousands of hours on it during university. If you really aren’t sure, US colleges may the be better choice for you because that way you don’t have to choose a major straight away.

If you do know what you want to study, get started. Work hard, but ensure you don’t burn out – many good students do nowadays. Spend your spare time in ways you truly enjoy but also make an attractive candidate. Have fun and don’t get too caught up in the “game” of admissions, where you try to model yourself to fit an admissions officer’s ideal candidate. If you are the type who brings psychology books on the Summer vacation with your parents, you will soon discover that this passion is what will really distinguish yourself from the other applicants.

Steven Yew, 18 May 2016