Chances of being accepted at Oxford? Is it worth applying?

Firstly, apologies if I have posted this in the wrong place!

I would like to apply for the M.St in British and European History.
Could anyone please give me any advice whether or not it is worth applying? Below is some information about my first degree.

+ I graduated from the University of Glasgow this year with a joint honours degree in History and German of the first class.
+ I spent my junior honours at a university in Germany where most of my courses were in German and my average grade was A-.
+ I got an A3 for my dissertation and I have 4 history courses at an A grade and 2 courses at a B grade.
+ My German results are not as good as the history ones.
+ I have mainly C's for my first two years of university (I know they don't count but they may come into consideration
+ I speak fluent German and as I am spending this year in Spain, will also have intermediate Spanish by the time I would start.

Any advice would be helpful! Thank you in advance

Reply 1

Klix88

Postgrad entrance is a lot less competitive than undergrad and your academic background sounds absolutely fine. If you can afford it, you seem to have as good a chance as any.

Be aware that you'll probably need to provide proof that you can fund yourself through the course, in advance. It seems to be one of the conditions for entry for many postgrad courses at Oxford these days.

University of Oxford

Oxford

Reply 2

RLJ1874

Original post by Klix88

Thanks for your reply! So I need to prove I can fund myself at time of application? Unfortunately this wouldn't be the case for me. However, I have already seen there are many fully funded scholarships for my course which I can apply for. It is not possible to apply and wait to see if I am awarded a scholarship?

Reply 3

sj27

You don't need to prove you can fund yourself at the time of application, but showing you have funding in place for the fees would be one of the conditions of an offer.

Reply 4

Tcannon

'many fully funded scholarships for my course'

That is interesting, I heard opposite complaints that there are only are few scholarships with demand >>> supply. In some old thread, some accepted applicants had to decline due to funding problems.

Reply 5

sj27

Original post by Tcannon

This is a good point. I wonder if they are specifically for his course or if they are actually to be spread across all masters courses at the uni and/or faculty. Plenty, plenty people have to decline offers every year because they can't get funding.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 6

polscistudent88

To be honest I heard the same: scholarships for Masters are rare, very rare. However I guess it depends on the specific Master's degree and on other elements (citizenship, and alike)... So it is always a good idea to apply (the worst you might encounter is not to get into the MSt). Also make sure you have a great reference letter, they do count! And stress your international experience (for history, the Germany experience and German proficiency should sound really interesting)!

A good advice (I think) is also to look at other possible Masters you like, just in case... There are many universities in the UK that have internationally top depts for history!

Reply 7

sj27

I just skimmed the Oxford pages - they say they can currently fund "up to ten percent" of students on their masters programmes in the history department. This is probably better than many other unis but it's still far from a slam-dunk. Of course this is not to put the OP off applying - if you don't apply you certainly have no chance of being accepted or getting funding - but you should probably be exploring other funding options as well.

Reply 8

ZakV

Original post by sj27

they say they can currently fund "up to ten percent" of students on their masters programmes in the history department.

This is likely to include partial funding and may make reference to university wide scholarships alongside college grants. I really would avoid banking on this route.

Reply 9

sj27

Original post by ZakV

This is likely to include partial funding and may make reference to university wide scholarships alongside college grants. I really would avoid banking on this route.