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Oxford Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics (PPL) Students and Applicants

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Original post by paradoxicalme
That's awesome! It's good to know my A-levels are good for the course :smile: what grades did you get? Since I want to be a journalist, I'd probably apply for Philosophy and Linguistics too and then maybe switch to a tripartite degree, though I thought you could do tripartite from the start so thanks for telling me :smile: Thanks for the link, congratulations on getting in! :biggrin: and sorry if I didn't make it clear, I've just finished my GCSEs :smile:


I got A*A*A*A, but my offer was A*AA. I think I'd probably be interested in switching to all three subjects too, but I guess I'll have to to wait and see if my college allows it! And thank you. :smile:

Oh, I see! Sorry, I didn't realise your post was from before results day so because you'd mentioned predicted rather than actual GCSE grades I assumed you hadn't done them yet. How did your results go?
Original post by OwlPatronus
I got A*A*A*A, but my offer was A*AA. I think I'd probably be interested in switching to all three subjects too, but I guess I'll have to to wait and see if my college allows it! And thank you. :smile:

Oh, I see! Sorry, I didn't realise your post was from before results day so because you'd mentioned predicted rather than actual GCSE grades I assumed you hadn't done them yet. How did your results go?


:eek: Congratu-freaking-lations! Those are the same grades as the one person who got into Oxbridge from our sixth form this year :smile: Which college are you going to?

Don't worry, I didn't make it clear :smile: They went really well, I got 9A*! Though I'm taking 5 AS levels (my sixth form is getting pissy this year because normally they get about 5 people into Oxbridge and this year only one did and she was originally pooled, even a girl who got 4A* at A level was rejected - so now if you want to apply to Oxbridge you have to do EPQ, Crit Thinking or an extra AS, and I figured Psychology AS was infinitely preferable to either of those) so I'm just hoping I don't crash and burn :s-smilie:
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by paradoxicalme
:eek: Congratu-freaking-lations! Those are the same grades as the one person who got into Oxbridge from our sixth form this year :smile: Which college are you going to?

Don't worry, I didn't make it clear :smile: They went really well, I got 9A*! Though I'm taking 5 AS levels (my sixth form is getting pissy this year because normally they get about 5 people into Oxbridge and this year only one did and she was originally pooled, even a girl who got 4A* at A level was rejected - so now if you want to apply to Oxbridge you have to do EPQ, Crit Thinking or an extra AS, and I figured Psychology AS was infinitely preferable to either of those) so I'm just hoping I don't crash and burn :s-smilie:


Thank you! I'm going to Balliol. :smile:

That's brilliant, well done! That seems like a slightly strange decision on their part, but having said that AS Psychology is a really interesting course, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It should be doable, as long as you're pretty good at time management - 5 ASes isn't common but it's not unheard of either, so people must manage it! What are your other AS subjects?
Original post by OwlPatronus
Thank you! I'm going to Balliol. :smile:

That's brilliant, well done! That seems like a slightly strange decision on their part, but having said that AS Psychology is a really interesting course, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It should be doable, as long as you're pretty good at time management - 5 ASes isn't common but it's not unheard of either, so people must manage it! What are your other AS subjects?


Awesome! That's one of the more popular colleges, isn't it? Just because I saw someone in the Oxford offers thread jumping around ecstatically because they'd made an open application and been given a Balliol offer. :smile:

Thank you :biggrin: if only I can get anything like your results in two years! I'm really looking forward to psychology, I've had people tell me it's a soft subject but I've researched it and the AS course looks beyond awesome, our first unit is on autism :smile: we have quite a few people doing 5 AS at my sixth form but it's usually further maths as their fifth. I'm just annoyed with my complete lack of frees...I'm doing Biology, Maths, Philosophy and English Lit alongside Psychology :smile:
Original post by paradoxicalme
Awesome! That's one of the more popular colleges, isn't it? Just because I saw someone in the Oxford offers thread jumping around ecstatically because they'd made an open application and been given a Balliol offer. :smile:

Thank you :biggrin: if only I can get anything like your results in two years! I'm really looking forward to psychology, I've had people tell me it's a soft subject but I've researched it and the AS course looks beyond awesome, our first unit is on autism :smile: we have quite a few people doing 5 AS at my sixth form but it's usually further maths as their fifth. I'm just annoyed with my complete lack of frees...I'm doing Biology, Maths, Philosophy and English Lit alongside Psychology :smile:


Funnily enough, I didn't originally apply there! I actually applied to Worcester, but they like to give everybody an extra interview at a second college and mine was at Balliol. I was so so glad when I found out they'd made me an offer, because I left my interviews actually thinking I'd rather go there than Worcester!

Well if your GCSEs are anything to go by, I'm sure you'll do great. :h: That does sound interesting, which exam board are you on? Those sound like a pretty spot on set of subjects for the course!
Original post by OwlPatronus
Funnily enough, I didn't originally apply there! I actually applied to Worcester, but they like to give everybody an extra interview at a second college and mine was at Balliol. I was so so glad when I found out they'd made me an offer, because I left my interviews actually thinking I'd rather go there than Worcester!

Well if your GCSEs are anything to go by, I'm sure you'll do great. :h: That does sound interesting, which exam board are you on? Those sound like a pretty spot on set of subjects for the course!


That was a spot of good luck! :biggrin:

Thank you :smile: I think AQA, but it might be OCR. And I hope so! I'm choosing between Philosophy, PPL and English for degrees, and I'm worried my choices are too sciency for English, but I've got 2/3 essay subjects so hopefully I should be okay...
Original post by paradoxicalme
That was a spot of good luck! :biggrin:

Thank you :smile: I think AQA, but it might be OCR. And I hope so! I'm choosing between Philosophy, PPL and English for degrees, and I'm worried my choices are too sciency for English, but I've got 2/3 essay subjects so hopefully I should be okay...


Funnily enough, those are exactly the degree choices I considered! I was really set on English until around the end of year 12 when I started toying with the idea of Philosophy, or an English and Philosophy joint degree. Then I found the PPL course in the Oxford prospectus and fell in love. :tongue: Your options sound great to me, whichever of the three you choice, so don't worry!
Original post by OwlPatronus
Funnily enough, those are exactly the degree choices I considered! I was really set on English until around the end of year 12 when I started toying with the idea of Philosophy, or an English and Philosophy joint degree. Then I found the PPL course in the Oxford prospectus and fell in love. :tongue: Your options sound great to me, whichever of the three you choice, so don't worry!


You sound a lot like me! :biggrin: Guess it'll take Year 12 for me to see where I want to go. What do you want to do after you've finished uni?
Reply 48
Hey! I'm in year 12, just done my GCSEs (I got 8 A*s, 4 As and a B), and I'm now doing History, English Literature, Spanish, and Philosophy and Ethics (RS) as well as an EPQ (on 'Should the English Language undergo a spelling reform to lessen the class divide?'), and I'm really interested in doing Linguistics at uni. I really like Oxfords PPL course (I would apply for Philosophy and Linguistics), but I was wondering if applying would be hard without science or maths at A level? I'm also looking at Edinburgh, York, and Sheffield (for Philosophy and Linguistics). Many thanks if you have any advice!
Original post by elaras
Hey! I'm in year 12, just done my GCSEs (I got 8 A*s, 4 As and a B), and I'm now doing History, English Literature, Spanish, and Philosophy and Ethics (RS) as well as an EPQ (on 'Should the English Language undergo a spelling reform to lessen the class divide?'), and I'm really interested in doing Linguistics at uni. I really like Oxfords PPL course (I would apply for Philosophy and Linguistics), but I was wondering if applying would be hard without science or maths at A level? I'm also looking at Edinburgh, York, and Sheffield (for Philosophy and Linguistics). Many thanks if you have any advice!


Hey! I am a (soon to be) fresher studying Philosophy and Linguistics at Balliol, so hopefully I can be of some help! (I also had offers from York and Sheffield - both really nice courses, especially Sheffield which was actually my insurance.)

Firstly, congratulations on your GCSE results - they're better than mine were, so you're certainly on the right track. :smile:

My A-levels were English Literature, English Language, Philosophy & Ethics and Psychology, and I also did an EPQ about the relationship between language and thought, using Orwell's 1984 as a stimulus. So the only one of my subjects which was remotely scientific was Psychology, and I'm not sure how far they'd consider that a science anyway. Your subject combination sounds great to me - they like you to have a language and/or English Lang for Linguistics, so you're sorted there, and although maths and sciences certainly wouldn't hurt your application, they evidently aren't essential. I imagine lots of the applicants for PPL have more of an arts/humanities background, so don't worry! Your EPQ title sounds really interesting, too.

Best of luck with your AS year and let me know if you have any other questions - I'll be better equipped to answer them once I start in 9 days' time. :biggrin: The trouble with the newness of this course is that there isn't that much information available yet, so I'm happy to help in any way I can. :smile:
Original post by paradoxicalme
You sound a lot like me! :biggrin: Guess it'll take Year 12 for me to see where I want to go. What do you want to do after you've finished uni?


Sorry for the horrendously late response - I've only just seen this! I honestly haven't a clue what I want to do; I'm just going to see how my degree goes and hope that somewhere along the line I develop a burning passion to pursue a particular career. :biggrin: How are your ASes going?
Reply 51
Original post by OwlPatronus
Hey! I am a (soon to be) fresher studying Philosophy and Linguistics at Balliol, so hopefully I can be of some help! (I also had offers from York and Sheffield - both really nice courses, especially Sheffield which was actually my insurance.)

Firstly, congratulations on your GCSE results - they're better than mine were, so you're certainly on the right track. :smile:

My A-levels were English Literature, English Language, Philosophy & Ethics and Psychology, and I also did an EPQ about the relationship between language and thought, using Orwell's 1984 as a stimulus. So the only one of my subjects which was remotely scientific was Psychology, and I'm not sure how far they'd consider that a science anyway. Your subject combination sounds great to me - they like you to have a language and/or English Lang for Linguistics, so you're sorted there, and although maths and sciences certainly wouldn't hurt your application, they evidently aren't essential. I imagine lots of the applicants for PPL have more of an arts/humanities background, so don't worry! Your EPQ title sounds really interesting, too.

Best of luck with your AS year and let me know if you have any other questions - I'll be better equipped to answer them once I start in 9 days' time. :biggrin: The trouble with the newness of this course is that there isn't that much information available yet, so I'm happy to help in any way I can. :smile:

Hey! I was just wondering how your interviews worked? Did you have separate ones for ling and phil?
Original post by elaras
Hey! I was just wondering how your interviews worked? Did you have separate ones for ling and phil?


I did, yes. I had three interviews in total:
one philosophy interview and one linguistics interview with tutors from Worcester (the college I applied to), and then one philosophy interview with tutors from Balliol.
All the PPL applicants at Worcester had one interview per subject in the college, and then one extra at a random second college. The extra interview could be for either subject, I think it was fairly random.
My interviews at Worcester were horrendous, but I fared slightly better in the Balliol philosophy interview and they made me an offer, which I was ecstatic about because I'd liked the tutors there more. :tongue:

Hope that makes sense!
Reply 53
Original post by OwlPatronus
I did, yes. I had three interviews in total:
one philosophy interview and one linguistics interview with tutors from Worcester (the college I applied to), and then one philosophy interview with tutors from Balliol.
All the PPL applicants at Worcester had one interview per subject in the college, and then one extra at a random second college. The extra interview could be for either subject, I think it was fairly random.
My interviews at Worcester were horrendous, but I fared slightly better in the Balliol philosophy interview and they made me an offer, which I was ecstatic about because I'd liked the tutors there more. :tongue:

Hope that makes sense!


Aha it's me again!! I just found out there are only three people in your year doing Phil + Ling so go you!! I'm going to be really annoying now that you've offered even a little bit of help. What sort of stuff did they ask you at your Linguistics interview? As you can imagine there's not that many example questions out there (compared to say, History).
Original post by elaras
Aha it's me again!! I just found out there are only three people in your year doing Phil + Ling so go you!! I'm going to be really annoying now that you've offered even a little bit of help. What sort of stuff did they ask you at your Linguistics interview? As you can imagine there's not that many example questions out there (compared to say, History).


Seriously?!? Where did you find that information? I've been looking for some statistics about numbers for ages!

Before I went into the interview I was given a sheet of paper with a list of sentences on, and was asked to consider interesting things about them. They were all sentences using the verb 'go' in different ways. Some of the interview was spent discussing those - I remember talking about tense, and about the different meanings the verb could have. (I think it's quite common for them to do things like this where you're given something to look at beforehand.)

They had my personal statement in front of them and asked some questions about that: I was asked to elaborate on a comment I'd made about a lecture I went to, and to talk about a book I'd mentioned. We also spent some time talking about my Extended Project, which I'd mentioned in the PS. (They basically just asked what my conclusions had been.)

There were also a couple of slightly weirder questions: whether I thought maths was a language, and then the same for music.

I'm afraid my memory of it isn't brilliant! They definitely vary a lot depending on your interviewers: over half the content of that interview arose from stuff on my UCAS form, whereas none of the others used my PS at all. In my experience, there's a limit to how much you can prepare (aside from knowing any books you've mentioned, etc.).

And don't worry, it's not annoying! :smile:
Reply 55
Original post by OwlPatronus
Seriously?!? Where did you find that information? I've been looking for some statistics about numbers for ages!

Before I went into the interview I was given a sheet of paper with a list of sentences on, and was asked to consider interesting things about them. They were all sentences using the verb 'go' in different ways. Some of the interview was spent discussing those - I remember talking about tense, and about the different meanings the verb could have. (I think it's quite common for them to do things like this where you're given something to look at beforehand.)

They had my personal statement in front of them and asked some questions about that: I was asked to elaborate on a comment I'd made about a lecture I went to, and to talk about a book I'd mentioned. We also spent some time talking about my Extended Project, which I'd mentioned in the PS. (They basically just asked what my conclusions had been.)

There were also a couple of slightly weirder questions: whether I thought maths was a language, and then the same for music.

I'm afraid my memory of it isn't brilliant! They definitely vary a lot depending on your interviewers: over half the content of that interview arose from stuff on my UCAS form, whereas none of the others used my PS at all. In my experience, there's a limit to how much you can prepare (aside from knowing any books you've mentioned, etc.).

And don't worry, it's not annoying! :smile:


Ooooh, thank you so much!!
I emailed the admissions - on the website it says its 15 for psyc and phil, and i figured phil and ling would probably be the smallest, but not that small!
Original post by elaras
Ooooh, thank you so much!!
I emailed the admissions - on the website it says its 15 for psyc and phil, and i figured phil and ling would probably be the smallest, but not that small!


No problem, let me know if you have any other questions. :smile:

Yeah, I didn't think there would be loads more but that really is tiny!
Hey! I'm a phil and ling applicant for balliol, haven't heard back yet about interviews. Got AAAB at AS, predicted A*AA, gcses weren't great with 3A* 5A 1B 1C.
Does anyone know how many applicants get interviews for Phil and lang? Admissions didn't give me any stats when I called!
Studying eng lang, lit, rs (philosophy and ethics) at A2, did critical thinking and biology a at AS :smile:
Reply 58
Original post by darcyramsden
Hey! I'm a phil and ling applicant for balliol, haven't heard back yet about interviews. Got AAAB at AS, predicted A*AA, gcses weren't great with 3A* 5A 1B 1C.
Does anyone know how many applicants get interviews for Phil and lang? Admissions didn't give me any stats when I called!
Studying eng lang, lit, rs (philosophy and ethics) at A2, did critical thinking and biology a at AS :smile:


Admissions weren't very helpful when I emailed either! You've shown a lot of improvement from GCSEs to AS though, and that's good!! A lot of people (for a range of subjects) haven't heard back about interviews yet at my school, so I wouldn't worry too much!
Original post by darcyramsden
Hey! I'm a phil and ling applicant for balliol, haven't heard back yet about interviews. Got AAAB at AS, predicted A*AA, gcses weren't great with 3A* 5A 1B 1C.
Does anyone know how many applicants get interviews for Phil and lang? Admissions didn't give me any stats when I called!
Studying eng lang, lit, rs (philosophy and ethics) at A2, did critical thinking and biology a at AS :smile:


HELLO! This is terribly exciting; I am a current (and the only) philosophy and linguistics student at Balliol - excellent choice! :biggrin: (I also did the same subjects to A2, plus psychology.)

There are four of us doing the course (originally three but one girl changed from Psych/Ling) across the university, but I'm afraid I don't know how many were interviewed.

Anyway, good luck - I really hope you get an interview (and not just because I want to be a mother next year...) If you want, I can give you my college email address for you to send any questions re: interviews and such. :smile: How did your admissions tests go?
(edited 10 years ago)

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