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Applying to English Masters in Oxbridge

Hello,
I'm looking for some advice as regards applications for English Masters programmes in the UK. I have decided to head down the academic career route, and hope to be accepted either into Oxford's MSt (1900 - present) course or Cambridge's MPhil (Culture and Criticism), as a foundation for PhD study. However, I have a few queries that I hope people here may be able to help me answer.

(i) How specific does my suggested area of research need to be?
(ii) How open are these English departments to studies of genre fiction, such as science-fiction, or visual mediums such as comic books?
(iii) I do not have an overall first in my primary degree, although I do have a first in the English literature component, should I even bother with Oxbridge?
(iv) Just how hard is to get into Oxbridge?! My preference is for the course in Cambridge, as it seems to provide a very comprehensive grounding in critical theory, but I'm not sure whether I should get my hopes up at all. Is a first class degree a prerequisite for entry?
(v) How important is college choice?

Obviously I am not going to limit myself to these two universities, and plan to apply to Edinburgh, Durham and UCL as well.

Many thanks, in advance, for any advice or information you can share!

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Reply 1
"The normal minimum qualification to be eligible for admission as a student for a postgraduate programme of study is the completion of a Bachelor's degree with a first or upper second-class honours or the international equivalent. An applicant with less is very unlikely to be accepted."

From Oxford website. It also lists the individual numbers of students accepted for each course if you look.
Thanks for the prompt response.

However, while I am aware that they stipulate a minimum of a high 2.i for entry, I was wondering whether, in practice, the sheer number of applicants means that only those with first class honours are considered.
Reply 3
ba_mhaith_liom
Thanks for the prompt response.

However, while I am aware that they stipulate a minimum of a high 2.i for entry, I was wondering whether, in practice, the sheer number of applicants means that only those with first class honours are considered.

Well, as the_alba will tell you, the Oxford MSt is indeed ridiculously competitive, and normally people on the programme will have firsts, but this might not apply to you to the same extent if you did a joint course. If I were you, though, I wouldn't go to Oxford for 1900-present. It's just not the period they're strongest on.
Thanks for the advice on Oxford's MSt. (I did a joint honours degree, English and Philosophy.) I'm disappointed to hear that the MSt would not cater to my interest in modernist and contemporary literature. I have to say that what I read of the course, on the website, was not particularly enticing while the Cambridge MPhil seems really exciting.
Reply 5
Having done the Oxford MSt in a different period I can probably offer a bit of advice about the Ox part of Oxbridge...

1) not very specific, although a rough idea of what you want to study, from what perspective, and why would look impressive. If you want to stay and do a DPhil then you will need a developed proposal by the end of the third term, or by the start of the second if you are applying for research council funding. I think a personal statement which gives your broad areas of interest and a short history of the development of your academic interests so far, with reference to some specific works, would work quite well.
2) Plenty of Master's and DPhil theses are ordered by genre. I know one current DPhil student who is working on comic books, and I read a thesis on science fiction completed in the last few years. So yes.
3) It is competitive to get on the course, but I don't think the assessors are overly dogmatic about having a first and you can certainly make up for that with strong essays, personal statement, reference.
4) How hard to get in? Maybe five to ten applicants a place? Most people have firsts, but not all, and a significant chunk went to Oxbridge as undergrads. As far as critical theory goes, Oxford has a very historicist English department. That ain't bad if you like the challenge of trying to combine theory with contextual rigour, but the Cambridge Culture & Criticism masters sounds quite different in emphasis.
5) College choice makes no difference to your prospects of getting in (in contrast to undergrad applications) but all the difference once you are here. Think about location, aesthetics, peer groups, funding available, accommodation. Don't bother about where the supervisor you want works as you can pick someone from any college.
ba_mhaith_liom
Thanks for the advice on Oxford's MSt. (I did a joint honours degree, English and Philosophy.) I'm disappointed to hear that the MSt would not cater to my interest in modernist and contemporary literature. I have to say that what I read of the course, on the website, was not particularly enticing while the Cambridge MPhil seems really exciting.


Do a search for posts by the_alba. She's had a very bad experience on the MSt 1900-present and has explained her reasons at length on TSR.
Reply 7
Yeah, I can't really be arsed to repeat all the reasons why the MSt 1900 - Present was so ****e, but it was. Oxford is not the place for most modern / contemporary literature, at least not at Master's level. Also the course is ridiculously competitive, for absolutely no reason other than that it's Oxford.
Reply 8
Perhaps not very helpful, but occasionally exceptions are made - one of my friends is going to Brasenose @ Ox for her English MA (don't know which strand though) and all she has to do is pass her degree, so maybe it depends how much they like you or something.

College choice, I gather, is not so important for postgrad as it is for undergrad.

I can't really answer your other questions more specifically as I've applied to Oxbridge for Linguistics rather than English Masters courses, but the other thing I would recommend is to get all the paperwork done early - there is a ton of it and if your deadline for Oxbridge is early January (as mine was) then you'll want to beat the Christmas post as well.
Thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge and experiences, there is so much hype surrounding Oxford and Cambridge, and their entry standards, that I have found it difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Teabag: Thank you for answering my queries in detail, especially your suggestions as to how to organise a research proposal, as well as the info regarding students doing theses on genre fiction. I have skimmed through the research interests of the respective faculties, and was not sure whether there would be anyone there whose interests overlapped with mine, so it's very reassuring to know that it's possible!

shady lane: I have indeed seen some of the alba's comments on previous threads, so I'll try to find those related to Oxford.

the alba: I'm tempted to ask you how exactly it was awful, but I'll just have a look through your previous posts and save you the hassle of repeating yourself! If the course in Oxford isn't that great, I may not bother applying as there are a few other options in the UK.

Angelil: The deadline for Oxbridge courses is quite early in the year, isn't it? I've started to work on my applications, and have lined up my references. I'd like to send them off as soon as possible, although the application forms for 08/09 aren't up yet as far as I can see. Hopefully they will not dismiss my little 2.i degree out of hand!

Thanks again!
Reply 10
I doubt they will dismiss your 2.1, given my friend's offer from Oxford and the offer of a high 2.1 that I also received from them.

My deadline was January 12, and I think I had all the paperwork sent off at the end of November.
I should probably aim for a similar deadline, especially if I'm looking for funding as well.

*sigh of long penniless suffering* :wink:
Reply 12
ba_mhaith_liom
I should probably aim for a similar deadline, especially if I'm looking for funding as well.

*sigh of long penniless suffering* :wink:

There's only one gathered field for English applications, so you'll have to aim for that one, actually.
Reply 13
Unless they've changed the system recently, the Ox MSt administrators wait until the final deadline in early January before looking at the applications, so it doesn't matter when you apply.

I read through some of the_alba's posts. Like I said, I didn't do the 1900-present day MSt, so I was interested to see her experiences. As far as competitiveness goes - that probably depends a lot on the character of the group you find yourself in. Getting in is especially hard for the modern period as I gather that about half of MSt applications are in that area.

A few things to bear in mind about the Ox MSt:

1. It's short - 9 months, over by the end of May. Good for having a summer off and obviously cheaper than having to sustain yourself studying for another 3 months.
2. It's intensive, especially in the second term where you currently have two assessed essays to complete in the final four weeks.
3. There are no exams - it's assessed by four extended essays and a couple of other hoops to jump through, like a 30 min palaeography test (which everyone passes).
4. Most people take two taught classes and write a paper on each of those, plus one bibliography paper and one dissertation. Options for the taught classes are quite limited - you may well only have two or three courses to choose from. For the other two papers you can write on pretty much anything you like - but, if you want to do a DPhil, there is a lot of pressure to make them both related to your eventual proposal. This can make the course feel quite narrow and specialised around your particular interests, which could be an advantage if you are sure about what you want to do a PhD on.
5. I don't know about how difficult it is to come into the Oxford DPhil without having done a MSt, but most people who do the MSt and want to do a DPhil are allowed to stay on - you don't need a brilliant mark in every essay. Oxford is also a idiosyncratic place and, if you do want to do a DPhil here, it does help to have had an extra year to build up contacts among the tutors (and very importantly, to identify a supervisor), understand the Bodleian, and work out the bureaucracy.
6. It's a huge English faculty, which means there are a lot of research / skills seminars and there are guaranteed to be potential supervisors and research students with similar interests to yours. Unfortunately that makes it less intimate than a smaller faculty. Supervisors have heavy undergraduate teaching and administrative workloads, so you often have to book appointments with them some time in advance. Having most of what you need in the Bodleian is a big luxury, especially for people studying earlier periods.
7. There are a number of compulsory, non-assessed MSt courses, a couple of which are not particularly well structured and can be tedious. The tutors responsible for each course vary a lot from year to year, so it is luck of the draw. There's a lot of focus on more 'dry' research skills that may come in useful later. The most popular optional classes may be oversubscribed and there is a small chance that you might not get on to one. There are a number of administrative irritations which I gather they are trying to address - the most annoying one saw my feedback for my dissertation never released to me so all I got was the mark. Essay titles had to be submitted a long time in advance and couldn't even be tweaked, which was frustrating.
8. I don't know how this compares to other Master's courses, but there is not a great deal of personal contact or feedback and you are expected to be quite self-reliant. You will be allocated a college advisor who may take a great deal of interest in your progress, or may just see you for five mins a term. You are expected to have an idea of what you want to study for the bibliography/dissertation essays from quite early on in the course, which is disconcerting if you were hoping to broaden your mind during a Master's course rather than specialise.
9. Oxford Uni computing services deserve a special mention for being highly efficient and useful.

Overall, I thought that my academic writing improved substantially during the course. The bibliographical knowledge and research skills are a good preparation for research. I also found the course stressful, the workload high, and wasn't able to read as widely as I'd hoped. It could be argued that the specialisation is a necessary evil; if you plan to continue to a DPhil/PhD, then you are more or less guaranteed to finish the nine months with a feasible proposal and a large amount of research and writing already completed on it.
Teabag and Alba, have you written for the TSR Wiki? You ought to.

It would certainly help people who want to apply for the MSt.
Reply 15
Pernell Whitaker
Teabag and Alba, have you written for the TSR Wiki? You ought to.

It would certainly help people who want to apply for the MSt.

:ditto:
Here's the link. I already created the headlines - just scroll down and skip all my undergraduate gibberish.
hobnob
There's only one gathered field for English applications, so you'll have to aim for that one, actually.


Yes, I realise that but I was referring to the time that Angelil had submitted her applications, i.e. November, to be my personal deadline.

Teabag
You will be allocated a college advisor who may take a great deal of interest in your progress, or may just see you for five mins a term. You are expected to have an idea of what you want to study for the bibliography/dissertation essays from quite early on in the course, which is disconcerting if you were hoping to broaden your mind during a Master's course rather than specialise.


Hmm. I would hope to hope to broaden my knowledge during the course, although I do view it as a foundation for a DPhil/PhD (depending on where I end up) and thus I can see the benefit of laying the groundwork for doctorate study. I do want an intensive year of study, I haven't felt under pressure - academically - since my Leaving Cert (Irish equivalent of A levels) and would look forward to a course that pushed me. However, I do think I need to weight up the benefits of specialising early and losing out on, what could be, a year to develop my understanding of English literature. I may e-mail some course co-ordinators and put my research ideas before them, and see what they think.

Thanks for all these details, Teabag. You've definitely given me some material to mull over. What you said about the size of the faculty gives me pause, I came from a degree where the staff: student ratio was such that you were lucky if a lecturer recognised your face, let alone knew your name. How big are the taught classes? Were you happy with your supervisor? I realise you were in a different MSt to the one I'm aiming for, but was there any kind of consensus from your classmates on the education they received? Did you do your undergrad elsewhere? If so, did you find there to be a significant step-up in terms of workload?

(I think those are all my questions for now.)

I just need some insider info on the other English Masters I'm interested in - Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, UCL - to be able to compare them more effectively. Any takers?

Pernell Whitaker
Teabag and Alba, have you written for the TSR Wiki? You ought to.

It would certainly help people who want to apply for the MSt.


I agree; the experiences and knowledge shared in TSR are invaluable and would benefit many others.
Reply 17
As far as I can see, the system at Oxford uses the undergraduate degree as a time to read broadly across different genres and periods, while the master's degree revolves around focusing on a couple of areas in depth and starting to tease out the historical / bibliographical / religious / archival (etc!) strands which critics draw on. In large part, the Master's is about learning how other critics construct literary arguments (and how you can create a meaningful original contribution yourself), both through studying their work and looking in detail at the texts and sources they've used. You are also taught about how the profession works - how and why journals select articles; the politics and practice of scholarly editions; the way that different critics can form a body of scholarly thought. Once you've practised reading at that level of detail, the DPhil is then a time to broaden out again and master/contribute to a wider field. You could think of the MSt as a sort of scholarly apprenticeship, and that's why, although it is quite dry at points, I'm not sure you could get rid of most of the dryness without omitting some important skills too. It's also not a bad way to find out whether you would like to go into the academic profession (as opposed to just liking books and talking / thinking about them).

Anyway I will answer your questions as far as I can -

How big are the taught classes?

The compulsory non-assessed ones (bibliography, palaeography, Course A) will involve everyone in your MSt period (maybe 10-20 people?). Elective courses should have less, from a handful to ten. Again, the course changes from year to year as the faculty is still trying to get the balance right, so check the website and email the faculty MSt administrator to ask about possible numbers.

Were you happy with your supervisor?

Yes, very, but it is a crucial decision so you need to ask around as soon as you know what you want to write the dissertation on to find out who would be a good choice. The MSt convenor will probably ask you what you want to study and suggest some names.

was there any kind of consensus from your classmates on the education they received?

About half stayed on for the DPhil, so they were presumably happy enough with the faculty. Many were pleased to get the taught classes over with, seeing them as an ordeal, and some people complained they weren't useful. A large number liked their elective courses, and I didn't meet anyone who wished they hadn't done the MSt overall.

Did you do your undergrad elsewhere? If so, did you find there to be a significant step-up in terms of workload?

No, I did it at Oxford too. Everyone I spoke to found the MSt a big step-up from undergraduate.
Reply 18
Teabag

The compulsory non-assessed ones (bibliography, palaeography, Course A) will involve everyone in your MSt period (maybe 10-20 people?). Elective courses should have less, from a handful to ten. Again, the course changes from year to year as the faculty is still trying to get the balance right, so check the website and email the faculty MSt administrator to ask about possible numbers.


I'd just like to add here that the compulsory, unassessed course for the 1900 - present MSt constisted of about 40 people, and our core knowledge differed widely, which made it difficult to have in depth discussions and for tutors to pitch at the right level. We shared the A course with the American MSt, and the B course with the Victorian MSt. The former was unbearably patchy, and the latter very Victorian-biased: our teacher was a Victorianist and knew almost nothing about 20th century scholarship and writers.

Teabag
Were you happy with your supervisor?

Yes, very, but it is a crucial decision so you need to ask around as soon as you know what you want to write the dissertation on to find out who would be a good choice. The MSt convenor will probably ask you what you want to study and suggest some names.


Almost everyone on my course was disappointed with their supervisors, for similar sorts of reasons. Mine was a lovely, lovely person, but rather inept. All he did was catch a few typos. He could offer no criticism of content or structure, knew little (again!) about my subject, had no idea when the deadline was and took forever to contact me whenever I sent him anything. We didn't meet up once in the third term.

Teabag
was there any kind of consensus from your classmates on the education they received?

About half stayed on for the DPhil, so they were presumably happy enough with the faculty. Many were pleased to get the taught classes over with, seeing them as an ordeal, and some people complained they weren't useful. A large number liked their elective courses, and I didn't meet anyone who wished they hadn't done the MSt overall.


Nobody in my cohort has chosen to stay on for a DPhil with the department. Those of us who want to do more research are going to York, Cambridge, UCD, London - anywhere but Oxford is the general consensus. The one girl who is staying is switching departments and going into Modern Languages. We all universally hated the classes, the teaching, and the way we were treated. We felt swindled.

Teabag
Did you do your undergrad elsewhere? If so, did you find there to be a significant step-up in terms of workload?

No, I did it at Oxford too. Everyone I spoke to found the MSt a big step-up from undergraduate.


I did my undergrad in Hull. Honestly, the MSt felt like a step down. The work was more intense, probably - certainly the deadlines in the second term, and the regular, albeit useless classes. But the standard was terrible. This is not a criticism of my fellow students - most of whom were very clever, some positively brilliant - but the teaching. Tutors assumed very little knowledge on our part. We were patronised. In Hull I was encouraged and challenged intellectually by many of my tutors (though not by my fellow students); at Oxford, I was challenged by my fellow students, and certainly not by my tutors.

We were all thinking of writing a group letter of complaint to the head of Graduate Studies or the convenor, but now we've all left and I think we just want to leave it behind and forget. I believe other groups have complained in the past, fruitlessly. Oxford knows it will always get the best students, who will turn down other offers to come here. It feels like a big scam. The course is a mess.

EDIT: Teabag's course seems much better, and people I know on it are generally very satisfied. The 1900 - Present course is the problem. So Teabag, I'm not disagreeing with you - just so you know!
the_alba
at Oxford, I was challenged by my fellow students, and certainly not by my tutors. .


This, I think, is a big part of what Oxford is all about. It's not necessarily a negative thing.