Official OXFORD 2020 Postgraduate Applicants thread

Unfortunately no experience on that point. However, why are you applying for a second Master's? If you were shortlisted for the DPhil, your standard is obviously good enough to be competitive. I'd recommend learning from your past applications and trying again, assuming that is what you want to do.

- Current University: QUB
- Achieved (Expected) Grade: UG: 1st, Master's: PD
- Prospective Course: DPhil in History (Medieval)
- Prospective College: Exeter
- Fun fact/extracurricular activities: I enjoy reading and writing. But let's face it, who doesn't on the PG forums?


I attempted an application for Oxford last year, but am confident my current application is much stronger.

However, I was wondering if anyone knew the timeline for funding? I haven't heard back from all my referees yet, and my research proposal is still being developed so I don't want to email my potential supervisor at Oxford just yet.

Unfortunately no experience on that point. However, why are you applying for a second Master's? If you were shortlisted for the DPhil, your standard is obviously good enough to be competitive. I'd recommend learning from your past applications and trying again, assuming that is what you want to do.

- Current University: QUB
- Achieved (Expected) Grade: UG: 1st, Master's: PD
- Prospective Course: DPhil in History (Medieval)
- Prospective College: Exeter
- Fun fact/extracurricular activities: I enjoy reading and writing. But let's face it, who doesn't on the PG forums?


I attempted an application for Oxford last year, but am confident my current application is much stronger.

However, I was wondering if anyone knew the timeline for funding? I haven't heard back from all my referees yet, and my research proposal is still being developed so I don't want to email my potential supervisor at Oxford just yet.

I'm strongly considering applying for DPhil Politics. The entry requirements state that the threshold is a high upper-second class degree for undergraduate. I received 67% in Ancient History for my undergraduate degree from the University of Bristol. I achieved a first-class mark in my undergraduate dissertation (2nd year grades dragged my overall classification down, and my transcript demonstrates year-on-year improvement). I also hold a distinction in MSc Political Theory from LSE, with a distinction in the dissertation. I also achieved 43 IB points in 6th form, for what that's worth at this stage of my academic career.

I was wondering whether, even though my undergraduate degree grade is at the lowest possible end of the admissions spectrum, my more relevant masters degree would count for more.

Essentially, I'm wondering whether I would still stand a good chance of DPhil Politics admissions success for Oxford with my academic record.

OK guys, what do you do if you reach out to a potential supervisor and they just don't respond?!! It's frustrating because they instruct you to reach out but the supervisors just don't answer emails!!!!!

Any thoughts, experiences or advice?

The master's degree will certainly count, and you have a very positive trajectory. (The IB marks are unlikely to interest anyone, and you need not include them on your CV unless one or more involve relevant skills (e.g. a language?).) My guess is that you would make a competitive application. I'm not sure, however, that you're going to get any more useful or precise answers than that.

Doctoral applications involve thinking about the specific project you're going to tackle, your fit with the institution, the timeliness of your ideas, &c, so there're quite a lot of unquantifiable factors. Then there are outright unknowable factors, such as the general strength of the field of applications that year. It's natural to want to know whether it will be worth the trouble & expense of applying, but there is only one system which can accurately work that out for you, and that's the application process itself. Now would be a good time to start getting used to dealing with unknowns, which you'll have to do plenty of if you do a doctorate in politics anyway.



If it's been a decent interval (ten days, say), then one polite followup email will do you no harm. Some people will just be very busy at present because of the short, intense teaching term, and they might not be dealing rapidly with emails which don't relate directly to immediate teaching deadlines.

If you wait again and don't get a response within a decent interval after chasing them up once, then perhaps that's an indication that they might not be a terribly engaged supervisor anyway.

I just fail to see the point of advertising positions/projects and encouraging applicants to contact the supervisor before submitting an application if they are just not going to respond! If they are not engaged supervisors why advertise?!!!!!

Hi everyone!

I'm also applying for a graduate course in archaeology but for a different one

Current University: University of Barcelona
- Achieved (Expected) Grade: Equivalent of a First
- Prospective Course: MSc Archaeological Science
- Prospective College: Kellogg College
- Fun fact/extracurricular activities: two fellowships and one internship related to my field. I've dug in multiple sites both in Spain and in Italy and last year I was a volunteer at the EAA 2019 held in Barcelona.
I enjoy learning new languages as well and I would like to take up Arabic and Hebrew lessons in the future.

Best of luck with your applications!

Applied to the MSc in Modern South Asian Studies. Good luck everyone!