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Introduction
Universities in the UK have a long and illustrious tradition of serving as institutions for higher learning. Within their hallowed halls, students from across the globe gather in search of knowledge and insight. And in time, these students will go on to shape the world with their new found understanding.
Universities in the UK
As with the Ivy League in the US, universities in the UK are grouped and ranked. Oxbridge typically refers to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge while the term Russell Group is much broader and includes 24 top end universities in the UK. Often times, Russell Group is used to refer to world class universities in London such as King’s College, LSE, Imperial and UCL.
Advantages
Course Length
Applying to a UK university brings with it certain advantages. In terms of courses, many universities offer bachelor and master programmes. Students finish their bachelor degree in 3 years and go on to attain a masters after 1 additional year. This is a relatively short amount of time compared to places like the US where the same process would take 6 years (4 years for a bachelor degree and 2 years for the masters).
Prospects
A degree from the UK is highly prized by employers in many countries and England is without doubt an attractive destination when deciding where to further one’s education.
Alternatives to Applying Directly
Traditionally, students would apply to the UK university of his or her choice and complete their entire degree at that university over the course of 3 years.
Nowadays, there are more options available to students. Some universities like Warwick offer a 2 + 2 pathway where 2 years of studies are completed at a partner university and the last 2 years are spent at Warwick.
Overview
The requirements for applying to the UK are relatively straightforward. As long as you provide the following documents via UCAS, your applicant can be processed. Most students do not even need to supply additional documents such as high school graduation certificates.
1.
Academic qualifications
2.
Personal statement
3.
Reference
4.
Proof of English Proficiency
Bear in mind that if you are applying to competitive universities and courses, there are some extra assessments which will require more time to prepare for. These include:
1.
Admissions Tests
2.
Submission of Written work
3.
Interviews
Academic Qualifications
The most common academic grades used to apply to the UK are GCSEs and A-Levels:
•
GCSE: age 14-16 qualification
•
A-Level: age 16-18 qualification
Admissions Requirements for the UK
Students apply to UK universities using an online form called UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service). This usually takes place between 01 September and 15 January of the applicant’s third year of high school.
UCAS serves as an intermediary between applicants and the universities. Applicants fill in a form which can be used to apply to five different universities of their choice.
There are four main sections in the UCAS form
1.
Education history and academic qualifications
2.
Personal statement
3.
Reference letter
4.
Personal information section
After completing the form and paying the application fee of £24, you submit your application. That’s it!
Registering with UCAS
You can apply as a school student or as a private candidate.
Most A-Level and IB schools are UCAS registered schools and have a specific UCAS code which you as a school student should use for your application.
Private candidates are students who attend a non UCAS registered high school or do not attend high school.
The difference between non-UCAS and UCAS registered schools is that UCAS schools are automatically given permission in the system to write reference letters. School candidates cannot access the reference section. Private candidates get to manually assign a referrer.
Application via UCAS
Introduction
The following table sets out the various deadlines that you should be aware of. Note that the deadlines indicate the latest date by which your application must be submitted. It is possible to submit your UCAS application at an earlier date.
In fact, applying early works to your advantage since various universities give out offers on a rolling basis. This means that the offers are made as and when applications come in, even if the deadline has not closed yet. Some universities give out offers as early as late October. By late December, a large percentage of the offers available might already be given out so it pays to apply early.
Application Timeline
Date | General | Oxbridge/Medicine |
15 Oct | N/A | UCAS submission deadline (for majority of courses)
Subject admissions test registration deadline |
19 and 22 Oct | Cambridge COPA & SAQ submission | |
Late Oct / Early Nov | Admissions Tests | |
Dec | N/A | Interviews |
Early to mid Jan | Oxbridge offers sent out
Cambridge winter pooling (decisions made by end of January) | |
15 Jan | UCAS submission deadline | N/A |
Mar | Admissions results deadline | |
May | Deadline for applicants to choose their first and insurance choice universities | |
Jul / Aug | Unconditional offers made upon meeting of grade requirements |
Other Points to Note
•
Imperial College may require interviews for some subjects from between November to February
•
Some steps in the application process may be brought forward for Cambridge applicants wishing to be interviewed in Shanghai, Singapore and Malaysia:
◦
20 Sep - UCAS submission deadline
◦
Late Oct / early Nov - Interviews & admissions tests
◦
Some Cambridge admissions tests will be taken after the interview instead
•
STEP, the admissions test for Mathematics, is taken after the interview stage somewhere between mid to late June
•
For some arts and design courses, the UCAS application deadline may be in March. Therefore the deadline by which the university makes its admissions decision and the deadline by which applicants must decide their first choice university and insurance university will be pushed back accordingly
For more information, please visit the official Oxford and Cambridge application timeline pages:
Application Timeline
Key Points
1.
The personal statement plays a crucial role in differentiating your application from that of the other students.
2.
Focus on your interest in the subject instead of your interest in a particular university.
3.
Personal statements for Oxford and Cambridge require extra emphasis on academic interest.
4.
Demonstrating interest in the subject and keeping within the word limit are two of the most common difficulties faced by students writing their personal statements.
Introduction
In this section, we’d like to tell you more about how to write a strong and persuasive personal statement.
Why is the Personal Statement Important?
Scores for the A-Levels and IB exams are grouped into bands (A*/A/B/C/D or 7/6/5). This includes the predicted grades that you submit in your UCAS application.
Therefore, from the university’s perspective, a student who scores 99% is identical to a student who scores 91% for his or her subject. Both students will have their grades reflected as either A* (in the case of an A Levels student) or 7 (in the case of an IB student).
So how should the university decide who to pick? This is where the personal statement comes in. It helps to showcase your personality and academic interest. These are the things which will help you stand out from the crowd.
Personal Statement Structure
These days you can find plenty of personal statement templates on the internet. But in truth, there is no magic formula for writing a compelling personal statement. The best personal statement is one that is written in a style which suits you.
Having said that, good personal statements tend to share certain common features. Here’s the first similarity: they all have a coherent structure.
Having a clear structure is often just as important as having good content. You’re not the only applicant. The admissions officer has to read hundreds, even thousands of applications. If your personal statement doesn’t have a good structure, you’re going to lose the attention of your reader even before he or she gets to the content.
Personal Statement
Introduction
The TSA is a 2 hour test administered by Cambridge Assessment. It is primarily taken by Oxford applicants and to a lesser extent applicants to Cambridge as well as UCL.
Test Format
Section One
This is a 90 minute MCQ test with 50 questions testing students on their reading and comprehension skills, mathematical, spatial, as well logical reasoning.
Each question has 5 possible answers, of which one is correct. In calculating the final score, the TSA takes into account how well other candidates performed in the same test. This means that the same raw score may yield a different final score depending on which year the TSA was taken in and the students’ performance in that year.
Applicants should aim for a final score of 70. For the years 2013 to 2016, a final score of 70 translates to a raw score of between 36 to 40 marks out of 50.
Section Two
This segment involves a 30 minute written essay with a maximum of 1200 words. Candidates get to pick from 4 possible essay questions. In writing the essay, pay close attention to the question and make sure that you are answering the question (as opposed to a question which you prepared for). Adopt a clear and logical structure in your essay. Candidates are not expected to have any specialised knowledge in relation to the questions asked.
In contrast to section one, the essay is not marked by Cambridge Assessment but instead sent to the tutors of the individual universities that you are applying to.
Oxbridge Subjects Requiring the TSA
For Cambridge, only applicants for Land Economy need to take the TSA. On the other hand, a variety of courses at Oxford will require the TSA, including:
TSA
In this section, you’ll hear from an Oxford alumnus about his interview for Biochemistry and how it went.
What Happened On The Day Of Your Interview?
I woke up at 6am and took a train to Oxford. My high school was only half an hour from Oxford so I decided to travel on the date of the interview itself. I’d been to Oxford before for the Open Day in summer so the trip there felt familiar and also helped to make less nervous.
I checked in at the College lodge by 8:30am as requested by the admissions office and was given a room key. The room belonged to an undergraduate student who was away for the winter vacation and it had been tidied up for me to use for the duration of my interviews. It felt really huge! Especially the ensuite shower. After unpacking my belongings, I went to the JCR (Junior Common Room) to check my interview timetable.
There were a lot of people in the JCR, interviewees (me included) in casual and smart attire as well as undergraduate helpers in blue hoodies with the names of their degrees written at the back. I found my interview schedule on the noticeboard. The first interview would be at a randomly allocated college at 10:30am and second one would be at the college I applied to in the late afternoon at 5:30pm.
I went to talk to the biochemistry helper who greeted me enthusiastically and very kindly offered to take me to the other college for my first interview. I politely refused as I thought this was too much to ask for, plus there were other biochemists to look after. Besides, I had the map of Oxford and could probably find my way there.
How Did Your First Interview Go?
My 1st interview was at one of the furthest colleges in Oxford. I only arrived 10 minutes before the interview which was not what I had in mind.
I panicked because I was hoping to arrive well ahead of time. When I ran into the JCR of that college, I panicked again because there were no undergraduate helpers to be found. Fortunately, after some frantic searching a lovely helper spotted me and came by. At that time, she felt like an angel to me. With her guidance, I was saved from what could have been a chain of unthinkable disasters.
So I got to my first interview and there was only one interviewer. I thought I was quite well prepared but the first question sort of caught me off guard. He asked whether I enjoyed studying history (even though I was applying for Biochemistry). Perhaps he was curious about my varied interests.
Some of the questions I got were easy, like “Explain transcription and translation”. It was an AS level topic and all I had to do was explain what I learnt about the concept.
But this is something interviewees should be aware of. You are given a question on two broad topics. Obviously you could go on for ages talking about them but you don’t want to do that in a 30 minute interview. So what I chose to do was start with the basics, which I talked about for about one minute.
You don’t want to start by showing off and saying “I know additional information about transcription and translation which the A-Level textbooks don’t talk about”. Start by demonstrating that you can logically explain the basic concepts as well as the details.
Oxford Biochemistry