Japanese Studies at University

Interesting your point about language levels at Oxford vs SOAS - which way round do you see that working out?

I've been told on good authority from someone who did a Japanese degree at Edinburgh that SOAS students always have the highest JLPT scores and generally all around best language skills going into the year abroad, at least. Oxford focuses a lot on the academic "Japanese studies" side so while reading and writing in Japanese are fairly good (and so good JLPT scores - but not as good as SOAS apparently) they have weaker speaking and listening skills (although are very well prepared for doing research later).

Edinburgh incidentally apparently puts a lot more emphasis on speaking and listening and so their students tend to have a good start for the year abroad in terms of actually communicating practically in the language, and the reading and writing is fairly strong with good JLPT outcomes apparently.

I can't really say a lot about the questions they asked in my interview as I'm fairly certain that's confidential between me and the uni, but I can at least say be ready to expand on anything, and I mean anything you put on the personal statement - they may ask about something you wrote that wasnt the focus of your statement. There are books you can buy full of general oxford interview questions, and interview questions based on linguistics that you will probably need to be comfortable talking about. Finally, for my written work, it had nothing to do with Japanese especially. I submitted English Literature coursework that I had tailored to be an essay on linguistics and the philosophy around language, and then a timed essay I did on Buddhist Meditation, because those were both things I thought would translate well into the course. I'm not too sure how big an effect the written work does have though, to me it felt I received my place mostly off the interviews. I do know that somebody else applying who had studied Chinese and Japanese A levels were advised to not submit written work from either of those two subjects, so that makes me think the written work doesnt need to be anything to do with Japan, but that its something that is interesting to the tutor. I hope that helps a bit.