History at Oxford - colleges help!

The colleges aren't going to necessarily make or break your experience there, and none will be "better" or "worse" academically than any other; in order to be a college (or PPH) at Oxford they all need to meet the same academic requirements. Also some of the teaching may be arranged by the department anyway. The only course-related aspect which may be worth considering is some colleges insist on having all their undergraduates taught in-college for the first year, and so that may constrain your range of options from the first year course in some cases. Usually for the final honour school you can take any papers I gather, and if necessary you will have tutorials arranged at other colleges as I understand.

Otherwise you are probably best focusing on practical aspects of life and living in college. So for example, facilities available, rent/food costs, location, architectural style (if that's important to you), what societies/clubs the college has, college bar (if that's important to you), storage space availability, ensuite availability, living in college out of term, library hours, etc, etc. Bear in mind also normally applicants get interviewed at two colleges I believe, and you may be made an offer by either (or by a third college you weren't interviewed at) so you may well end up at another college than the one you applied to anyway (not sure of the numbers at Oxford for this, at Cambridge I think its about a quarter to a third of applicants get pooled but the system is slightly different there I think).

@The_Lonely_Goatherd might know of some other things to consider when applying to a college?

Thanks for the tag, @artful_lounger : you've provided a very comprehensive list of things to consider! The only extra thing I'd add is that some colleges have random bursaries for certain students within their college (e.g. at my college, Worcester, there's one that is for children of ordained priests in the Church of England, or something). So it could be worth doing a little digging around

Otherwise I completely agree with what's written above. Think of your college as somewhere you're gonna eat, sleep and do some of your socialising. Think about what you'd want from that live-in experience in first year at least

that's interesting - i'll definitely have a look - how do you think i could find out about the random bursaries?

t


thanks so much - do you think some are much easier to get into than others? i go to a private school - will that affect how likely i am to get into some colleges?