Oxford Admissions

A view from Classics

I’m just coming to the end of a two-week process, conducted alongside colleagues in my discipline of Classics, to help assign places for next year’s intake of classics undergraduates to Oxford.

The weeks following the end of the Michaelmas (winter) term at Oxford are taken up with interviews by tutors in a range of subjects, given to candidates who have applied for admission to undergraduate courses. The interviews are only one part of the decision process, but a crucial one. There’s a widespread fascination with Oxbridge interviewing, and I’ve heard various urban myths about interviews that are worth dispelling. The key point is that Oxford aims to be as fair as possible in offering places to the ‘best’ applicants – those judged as having the highest degree, relative to other applicants, of achievement, aptitude, motivation, analytical ability, potential, and teachability.

How can this combination of qualities be best assessed? Oxford and Cambridge traditionally run interviews prior to applicants taking A-levels (a few will already have done so, and will have achieved the required A-level grades – 3 As or equivalent for Oxford Classics). Since Covid, Classics interviews (among other subjects) have moved online, freeing up time and expense that was spent in the past hosting applicants for the time needed for them to present themselves for interview at one or more colleges; the system has proved at least as fair and effective as in-person interviews. (After every in-person admissions cycle I used to be afflicted by flu, thanks to the intensity of the process and having to shake hands with dozens of candidates; thankfully that no longer happens!)

Students for Classics usually apply to a particular College on their UCAS forms, and are interviewed by panels of subject tutors who have undergone training to ensure fair and productive interviewing. At the end, interview panels convene and discuss each student, giving a final score that determines who merits a firm offer of a place at the College and who should be given a chance of a place at another College. Those that are deemed deserving go into the ‘pool’ to be interviewed elsewhere.

This is a competitive process, and in any particular year some applicants will sadly fail to secure a place, while others, judged stronger on a range of criteria, will be offered one. How are those criteria assessed? Interviews are the tail end of a process in which various elements are presented on an electronic spreadsheet. These include two pieces of schoolwork (submitted for marking prior to interview); a personal statement and school reference; GCSE scores (or equivalent) and a calculation showing how these grades relate to their school’s overall attainment. Applicants should have achieved or be predicted three As in A-level exams (or equivalent); they are marked on a translation test or, if they have not yet studied ancient languages, a specially designed language aptitude test; and disabilities and other relevant background information are also detailed on the spreadsheet.

Armed with all this information, tutors in the various Colleges coordinate their efforts to give places to those who score highest overall. It is a careful and lengthy process that should allow applicants and tutors to feel assured that every effort has been made to arrive at the decision as fairly and validly as possible for all concerned.