On this page we will take you through the application process for the Earth Sciences course at Oxford, including insights from undergraduate students into what to expect during your interviews.
How to Apply
Submitting Your Application
As with all courses at Oxford, you will need to submit your UCAS application by October 15th (the early application deadline). Unlike applying for most other subjects at Oxford, however, there are no written tests to apply for Earth Sciences, nor is there any written work that needs to be submitted along with your application. You can choose to either apply for the three-year course (BA in Geology - UCAS Code F642) or the four-year course (Masters in Earth Sciences - UCAS Code F644). These are exactly the same course, except that the additional year enables the continuation of your learning through more specialised taught modules as well as the ability to undertake a research project on a topic of particular interest to you. It is most common (and also often logistically easier) for students to apply for the four-year course and then decide in their third year if they would like to stay on for the final year or not. For more information about the course structure and the modules available to study each year check out the Earth Sciences Department’s Course Information page. For some ideas on how to get started with writing your personal statement, as well as tips to make your application stand out, check out our Preparing To Apply page. And for more information on the application procedure in general, the qualifications you need to apply, as well as the personal qualities that the Earth Sciences Department is looking for in a successful applicant, make sure to have a good read through of the Department’s Undergraduate Admissions page and the University's Admissions Page for the Earth Sciences Course. |
Choosing a College
The colleges where you can currently study as an Earth Sciences undergraduate student are Exeter, St Anne’s, St. Edmund Hall, St Hugh’s, St. Peter’s, University and Worcester. For the Earth Sciences course all candidates will be considered equally by the Department, regardless of which college you apply for or if you make an open application. Once the successful applicants have been selected by the Department's admissions team, they will then be allocated colleges depending on the preferences they gave on the UCAS application. As there are limited spaces at each college this can sometimes result in students ending up at a different college than the one they initially applied to. However as all teaching is centralised this will have very little impact on your studies, and indeed the vast majority of students end up loving whichever college they end up at. Therefore as overwhelming as it can seem, try not to stress out too much about choosing a college! And if you want to choose a specific college when you apply, it's usually a good idea to pick one on the basis of where you would most like to live. Try to visit as many colleges as you can on the Open Days so that you can get a good feel for what each of them is like. To learn more about the Oxford colleges that offer the Earth Sciences course and which academic tutors are based at each, click here.
Open Days
Open Days are typically held in either late June or the beginning of July, as well as around mid-September each year. These provide fantastic opportunities for you to get to meet some of the students and staff in Department, to learn more about the course and to explore all the different colleges you can apply to!
Interviews
Interviews are held sometime between early to mid-December each year and will usually take place over a period of 1 - 3 days, so you will be accommodated in one of the colleges listed above for the duration of your interview period (if you applied to a particular college on your UCAS form this is normally the one you will stay at). You will typically have two interviews. Unlike many other subjects, these will take place within the Department, and each one will usually be led by two interviewers (who are often based at different colleges themselves). Below are some examples of interview experiences written by Earth Sciences students to give you an idea of what the interview process might entail:
The colleges where you can currently study as an Earth Sciences undergraduate student are Exeter, St Anne’s, St. Edmund Hall, St Hugh’s, St. Peter’s, University and Worcester. For the Earth Sciences course all candidates will be considered equally by the Department, regardless of which college you apply for or if you make an open application. Once the successful applicants have been selected by the Department's admissions team, they will then be allocated colleges depending on the preferences they gave on the UCAS application. As there are limited spaces at each college this can sometimes result in students ending up at a different college than the one they initially applied to. However as all teaching is centralised this will have very little impact on your studies, and indeed the vast majority of students end up loving whichever college they end up at. Therefore as overwhelming as it can seem, try not to stress out too much about choosing a college! And if you want to choose a specific college when you apply, it's usually a good idea to pick one on the basis of where you would most like to live. Try to visit as many colleges as you can on the Open Days so that you can get a good feel for what each of them is like. To learn more about the Oxford colleges that offer the Earth Sciences course and which academic tutors are based at each, click here.
Open Days
Open Days are typically held in either late June or the beginning of July, as well as around mid-September each year. These provide fantastic opportunities for you to get to meet some of the students and staff in Department, to learn more about the course and to explore all the different colleges you can apply to!
Interviews
Interviews are held sometime between early to mid-December each year and will usually take place over a period of 1 - 3 days, so you will be accommodated in one of the colleges listed above for the duration of your interview period (if you applied to a particular college on your UCAS form this is normally the one you will stay at). You will typically have two interviews. Unlike many other subjects, these will take place within the Department, and each one will usually be led by two interviewers (who are often based at different colleges themselves). Below are some examples of interview experiences written by Earth Sciences students to give you an idea of what the interview process might entail:
Preparing for Your Interviews
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The biggest thing to do if you’re thinking of applying to Oxford, especially for Earth Sciences as there is no admissions test or written work required, is to READ AROUND THE SUBJECT! When you write your personal statement and when in interviews, you’ll need to really express your interest. I found that reading BBC Focus magazines was brilliant for getting a general appreciation for the natural sciences. I also read an autobiography of a volcanologist whose team were caught in an eruption of Mount Galeras in Colombia while conducting fieldwork. (I recommend this book if you like volcanoes! It’s called ‘Surviving The Volcano’ by Stanley Williams.) One thing that you might overlook doing is watching documentaries – as if you didn’t need another excuse to watch David Attenborough’s Planet Earth II again! If you do mention something you’ve read or watched in your personal statement, there’s a good chance it could be brought up during one of your interviews. Just in case, try to remind yourself of the main points of the book/article/documentary before your interviews, so that you would feel comfortable discussing it if it did come up.
I had two interviews. In the first, I was asked about 1) a section of my personal statement where I talked about Iceland, having been there on a Year 10 Geography trip – why is Iceland the way it is? How did it form? What processes shape its surface? Etc. 2) In the same interview, I was asked to provide my interpretations of a strange-looking rock put on the desk in front of me. I had never done geology before, so I was pretty clueless but offered some observations, and subsequently inferences, of the rock’s colour, its stripey patterns (lineations), texture. (Side note: It might be worth checking out Ethan Baxter’s ‘Every Rock Has a Story’ YouTube series to get an idea of what particular features to look out for when describing rocks in case you do get a question like this in your interview.) Thankfully, the tutors guided the discussion with probing questions, so if you can provide an answer (doesn’t have to be right), they have something to work with and steer the conversation to look for the deeper answers.
The second interview was around a larger question: “If you wanted to cause the greatest amount of sea-level change, would you melt the ice at the North or the South Pole?”. The tutors guided me through this too with smaller questions that pulled on my A-Level knowledge from chemistry and maths; I had to make some calculations and explain my understanding of the bonding in water. It’s for this reason that I say you should do your best to understand your A-Level syllabuses and try to read around the subject! But the tutors are not trying to catch you out. If you get stuck, they will give you prompts, so long as you vocalise your thought processes.
For some general advice on preparing for your interviews, as well as helpful tips on writing your personal statement and a range of insights into life at Oxford, it’s definitely worth checking out That Oxford Girl!
I had two interviews. In the first, I was asked about 1) a section of my personal statement where I talked about Iceland, having been there on a Year 10 Geography trip – why is Iceland the way it is? How did it form? What processes shape its surface? Etc. 2) In the same interview, I was asked to provide my interpretations of a strange-looking rock put on the desk in front of me. I had never done geology before, so I was pretty clueless but offered some observations, and subsequently inferences, of the rock’s colour, its stripey patterns (lineations), texture. (Side note: It might be worth checking out Ethan Baxter’s ‘Every Rock Has a Story’ YouTube series to get an idea of what particular features to look out for when describing rocks in case you do get a question like this in your interview.) Thankfully, the tutors guided the discussion with probing questions, so if you can provide an answer (doesn’t have to be right), they have something to work with and steer the conversation to look for the deeper answers.
The second interview was around a larger question: “If you wanted to cause the greatest amount of sea-level change, would you melt the ice at the North or the South Pole?”. The tutors guided me through this too with smaller questions that pulled on my A-Level knowledge from chemistry and maths; I had to make some calculations and explain my understanding of the bonding in water. It’s for this reason that I say you should do your best to understand your A-Level syllabuses and try to read around the subject! But the tutors are not trying to catch you out. If you get stuck, they will give you prompts, so long as you vocalise your thought processes.
For some general advice on preparing for your interviews, as well as helpful tips on writing your personal statement and a range of insights into life at Oxford, it’s definitely worth checking out That Oxford Girl!
What to Expect from the Interview Process
by Katie Bickerton, a past undergraduate student
Oxford interviews are unlike any other university interview, they want you to be a rounded, broad minded individual as well as academically able. Questions at interview are meant to challenge you and you aren't necessarily meant to get them right, they are a test of how you think. All your interviewers want to see is that you have potential and that you really do want to be here. This doesn't mean you shouldn't be nervous, but do not panic, they are not working against you and you are very much entitled to say that you don’t know.
Generally applicants will be interviewed by two academics from a college and each applicant will be interviewed by two colleges. The first interview is held at the college where you are staying, which may be where you applied or may be somewhere you were allocated to, either due to making an open application or being reallocated between colleges to even out numbers of applications. The second interview tends to be in the department, where another 2 academics interview you. Sometimes they can represent 2 colleges or sometimes are both at the same college. The interviews are on separate days and between them you have a chance to get to know other interviewees at your chosen college. The other interviewees will not just be from your department, at my interviews I got to know PPE students (politics, philosophy and economics), mathematicians and computer scientists, some of whom are now close friends. The brilliance of the college system is you know people other than those in your department; most students do not live with people from their department when they live out of college in second or third year.
Interviews are also a great opportunity to live and eat in the college you might be spending the next four years in and can often help decide if it really is the place for you. Evening activities are arranged by student helpers allowing you to meet students and try and relax between interviews.
Although nerve wracking I really enjoyed the interview process as it is a challenge but gave me the opportunity to get a taste of college life and meet fellow students, finding that the Oxford 'stereotype' are most definitely in the minority.
Generally applicants will be interviewed by two academics from a college and each applicant will be interviewed by two colleges. The first interview is held at the college where you are staying, which may be where you applied or may be somewhere you were allocated to, either due to making an open application or being reallocated between colleges to even out numbers of applications. The second interview tends to be in the department, where another 2 academics interview you. Sometimes they can represent 2 colleges or sometimes are both at the same college. The interviews are on separate days and between them you have a chance to get to know other interviewees at your chosen college. The other interviewees will not just be from your department, at my interviews I got to know PPE students (politics, philosophy and economics), mathematicians and computer scientists, some of whom are now close friends. The brilliance of the college system is you know people other than those in your department; most students do not live with people from their department when they live out of college in second or third year.
Interviews are also a great opportunity to live and eat in the college you might be spending the next four years in and can often help decide if it really is the place for you. Evening activities are arranged by student helpers allowing you to meet students and try and relax between interviews.
Although nerve wracking I really enjoyed the interview process as it is a challenge but gave me the opportunity to get a taste of college life and meet fellow students, finding that the Oxford 'stereotype' are most definitely in the minority.
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