You asked: Extracurricular activities, Brexit fee status and more questions from Twitter
Take a look at the questions applicants had for Oxford this time last year in our Twitter Q&A (now with updated and expanded answers!).
Your questions
- How high are the chances of getting a place?
- Should I include extracurricular activities and interests in my grad application?
- Will fees change for EU students because of Brexit?
- Will Oxford bring in more part-time courses?
- If a scholarship’s only for ‘new students’, does this rule out master’s students applying for a DPhil?
- Does ‘written work’ have to be published work?
Our answers
How high are the chances of getting a place?
Take a look at any of our course pages — ‘Entry requirements’ and ‘How to apply’ tabs give you an excellent steer on what that academic department is looking for.
The number of places and average number of applications are given on every course page too, giving you a rough idea of how many people you’ll be up against.
As with any position, though, above meeting the entry requirements your chances really depend on your competition (and we haven’t met them yet).
Should I include extracurricular activities and interests in my grad application?
Not usually, no.
Your personal statement should usually only include experience and interests that’re directly related to the course you’re applying to, like that summer you spent at NASA researching fireball activity (fantastic experience for that PhD thesis you want to research on fireball activity!).
Otherwise, it’s best to keep focusing on the academic — the ‘How to Apply’ tab on your course page will guide you.
Will fees change for EU students?
No, not if you’re applying now.
EU students who begin their studies at the University in 2018–19 will be charged the home rate for tuition fees for all years of the course.
We don’t have a policy for students starting courses after that just yet, but the University’s webpages on Oxford and the EU cover all new developments as they arise. Check back regularly if you want to keep up-to-date.
Will Oxford bring in more part-time courses?
New part-time courses are coming in all the time — for 2018–19 we now offer around 90 part-time grad courses to choose from, up 30% on last year, including part-time options for some of our most popular courses.
Most new courses and part-time options come in at the start of the new admissions cycle in early September, but some will be added during the year — see all of our courses and filter by taught/research, PT/FT in our Courses A-Z.
If a scholarship’s only for ‘new students’, does this rule out master’s students applying for a DPhil?
No! The ‘new students’ restriction only rules out students who have already started the course they want the scholarship to fund (‘continuing students’). If you’re applying for readmission from master’s to DPhil you’re still ‘new’ enough here.
Find out which scholarships and funding you’re eligible for with the Fees, Funding and Scholarship Search.
Does ‘written work’ have to be published work?
Unless the academic department explicitly says so in the course entry requirements, publications aren’t usually expected at all.
Your written work can usually be marked or unmarked, published or unpublished, serif or sans-serif. Check details for your course and get in touch with the academic department (quickly!) if you’re still worried.
Curiouser and curiouser?
Everything you need to know to apply is on the Graduate Admissions website, but if you’d like to see more of the questions we often get asked along with the answers then check out our FAQs.
Be warned, though — it’s a veritable rabbit hole of exciting detail about grad applications to Oxford.
