Applying to Oxford & Cambridge
To win a place at Oxford or Cambridge, you must have an excellent academic record, in early October you must submit a top quality UCAS application, including a carefully-worded Personal Statement, you must achieve a high score in the admissions test, and then you must perform strongly in the subject interviews in December, in a way which demonstrates your intelligence, your wide reading, your problem-solving skills, and your interest in the subjects.
How can we help?
We provide a range of opportunities to support the UK university admissions process.
Advice on Choosing a College
We can advise you on whether to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, and we can offer information and opinions on which colleges within each university might suit you best.
Advice for your UCAS Personal Statement
You can submit to us a draft of your Personal Statement, so that we can offer you critical feedback. We help you find your own voice and encourage you to draw attention to aspects of your experience and interests most likely to give the tutors who will read your Personal Statement a true picture of your suitability for the degree course to which you are applying.
Admissions Test Preparation
We have developed a diagnostic test to help you identify weaknesses with regard to admissions tests, such as the Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA) and the History Aptitude Test (HAT). On the basis of this information, we can offer you advice and (limited) training to prepare for the test, which takes place each year in early November.
Interview Practice and Advice
An excellent preparation for the Oxford or Cambridge interview, which remain the centrepiece of the Oxbridge admissions process, is to practise responding to difficult, interesting questions. We provide mock interviews with written feedback for students who want to familiarise themselves with the feel of an Oxbridge interview, which for some people can otherwise be intimidating. Our interviewers have all been in the interview room themselves, either as tutors or as students, and we use questions and techniques which correspond closely to what you should expect in the real thing.
Our Courses
The very best preparation for an Oxbridge application is to become better at thinking and speaking, which is impossible to fake! For students currently in Year 10, Year 11 or Year 12, we strongly recommend you consider applying for our Summer School in France. This is the perfect way to develop your thinking skills, and your ability to express and defend an argument. Every student who attends the Summer School is introduced to our core curriculum, which includes the seminars Logic & Critical Thinking, Ethics, Political Theory and Political Economy. For more information, please click About the Summer School.
For students contemplating a Gap Year, we strongly encourage you to get in touch with us to discuss our bespoke residential programmes in Princeton and Oxford, designed around your interests and ambitions. Fall Term in Princeton runs from 24 September to 23 November 2018, Trinity Term in Oxford from 28 April to 22 June 2019. These programmes includes tutorials and seminars with Oxford and Princeton academics, former academics, graduate students and alumni. We believe there is nothing quite like them anywhere in the world, and we are confident it is the best possible preparation for admission to one of the world's elite universities. For more information, please click Why Take a Gap Year?.