Oxford graduate students 2008/2009

zacchaeus86

Thanks for the info, IlexAquifolium! I guess I'll just have to wait and hear which college accepts me ... and hope for the best!

No problem. Also, don't sweat it about the college. You can apply to any college for funding, and if you're succesful, Oxford will let you change colleges. Give me a minute, and I'll pull up some links for you.

Edit: Right, here you go. Some reading material:

http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/io/funding/
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/

I don't know what subject you're applying for, but I've pulled up some links to colleges that are regarded as being particularly generous with their international funding, a lot of which have dedicated US funding:

http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/ball.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/chch.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/exet.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/lina.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/linc.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/mert.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/newc.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/quee.shtml
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/colleges/univ.shtml

As you can see, most of the college funds are directed towards international, not home students, which effectively rectifies the research council bias. A lot of other universities have similar systems in place (depending on where you've applied), but you need to check the deadlines.

Reply 142

zacchaeus86

What a great collection of links - thank you so much! I've just been accepted to the MSt in English (1780 - 1900). Magdalen and Balliol are my top choices, so I am glad to see these colleges on your list!

Reply 143

zacchaeus86

What a great collection of links - thank you so much! I've just been accepted to the MSt in English (1780 - 1900). Magdalen and Balliol are my top choices, so I am glad to see these colleges on your list!

Not a problem. I'll have another shufty later this afternoon when I get a chance - there's usually a fair bit of information on the individual college websites, so it might be worth you spending an evening looking over it.

Congratulations on the course offer! Check out those two, but as I say, you're able to apply for college funding elsewhere, too, and be allowed to transfer if you're successful. :smile:

Reply 144

the_alba

12

IlexAquifolium

Not a problem. I'll have another shufty later this afternoon when I get a chance - there's usually a fair bit of information on the individual college websites, so it might be worth you spending an evening looking over it.

Congratulations on the course offer! Check out those two, but as I say, you're able to apply for college funding elsewhere, too, and be allowed to transfer if you're successful. :smile:

Magdalen and Balliol have a habit of taking people from the 1790-1900 cohort, so it's likely you'll be going to one of them. :smile:

I'd prefer Balliol myself - it has a nice old cottagey grad building right next to the English Fac, which is handy; Magdalen can treat their students quite unfairly at times, I feel. Nice arable quadrupeds, though.

Reply 145

Angelil

19

Balliol's more central and less imposing/intimidating than Magdalen IMO.

Reply 146

the_alba

12

Angelil

Balliol's more central and less imposing/intimidating than Magdalen IMO.

A friend of mine on the MSt had to repeat one of his essays in the summer, and Magdalen just refused to let him stay there while he did it (even though he'd been their student as an undergrad too, and he only had two weeks to write it in). It was balls of them, there was a real whiff of 'When you're good, we're very very good, but when you're bad [read: in need], we're horrid.' My college, on the other hand, would have let me stay in my accommodation until the next September if I'd wanted to.

Reply 147

the_alba

A friend of mine on the MSt had to repeat one of his essays in the summer, and Magdalen just refused to let him stay there while he did it (even though he'd been their student as an undergrad too, and he only had two weeks to write it in). It was balls of them, there was a real whiff of 'When you're good, we're very very good, but when you're bad [read: in need], we're horrid.' My college, on the other hand, would have let me stay in my accommodation until the next September if I'd wanted to.

That's interesting to know. Most of my friends are at Magdalene so that automatically disqualified it for me ( :wink:

). I'm a bit clueless about them really - but then again it sort of reminds me of boarding school so I've always been slightly phobic of the colleges. I picked two more or less at random for the MSc application...

Reply 148

zacchaeus86

I fell in love with Magdalen when I visited ... perhaps it's the history, being such a CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien fan, haha. Balliol is lovely, as well ... and I studied in a summer programme at New College in 2005. I think I would be happy anywhere, to tell the truth!

Reply 149

the_alba

12

zacchaeus86

I fell in love with Magdalen when I visited ... perhaps it's the history, being such a CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien fan, haha.

For my MSt at Ox we did a bibliographic / genetic criticism module, and got shown around the Bodleian labs and exposed to a lot of 'rare and secret' manuscripts, one of which was some hand-coloured pages of The Lord of the Rings (which we had to transcribe for a mock exam - god, his writing is tiny and hard to decode). We all felt special, until about a month ago when Oxford announced that the library had been given special funding and was going to exhibit some of the texts, including the Tolkein, to the general public for the first time. When they showed it to us, they said we were the only people to see it aside from chief Bod librarians and a pair of Hollywood producers. Oh well :mad:

Reply 150

zacchaeus86

the_alba, that sounds amazing! And despite the exhibit afterwards, it still makes for a great story. :wink:

I worked with some manuscripts of Jane Austen's letters at the BL this past summer. What an experience that was, especially since those manuscripts are normally reserved for graduate study ... it was so exciting to examine them for my senior thesis!

Reply 151

sana1234

momentsofbeing

have you got the letter?

No i haven't. I dunno whats taking them so long. Its gonna be 2 weeks this friday. I emailed them and they sai dthey'd notify me by email as well but it could take a little bit since there were 300 queries.But even that was 6 days ago :frown:

Reply 152

I've got an offer again! MPhil Economics this time.
But the admissions office asked me to choose which offer I want to keep... And they asked me to make the decision ASAP.
I really wanna keep both offers until the college decisions come out. :frown:

Reply 153

sana1234

alles_nichts

I've got an offer again! MPhil Economics this time.
But the admissions office asked me to choose which offer I want to keep... And they asked me to make the decision ASAP.
I really wanna keep both offers until the college decisions come out. :frown:

when did u hear from them?????? I've actually given up waiting for it.

Reply 154

alles_nichts

I've got an offer again! MPhil Economics this time.
But the admissions office asked me to choose which offer I want to keep... And they asked me to make the decision ASAP.
I really wanna keep both offers until the college decisions come out. :frown:

Did you apply for different colleges as part of the two separate applications? If not, I'd imagine they'd put both applications together when sending them round the colleges. I don't think the college decisions are scheduled until the end of April/May so I suspect that may be too late for you to know in advance :frown:

Reply 155

Angelil

19

I didn't know my college for ages - honestly, just pick the course you like the look of most.

Reply 156

IlexAquifolium

Did you apply for different colleges as part of the two separate applications? If not, I'd imagine they'd put both applications together when sending them round the colleges. I don't think the college decisions are scheduled until the end of April/May so I suspect that may be too late for you to know in advance :frown:

I applied for Keble and St Hilda for Statistics, and Merton and Nuffield for Economics. It's also possible that the colleges I applied for reject me and my applications will be re-allocated and there's a possibility that both coincide at one college... :s-smilie:

Reply 157

sana1234

when did u hear from them?????? I've actually given up waiting for it.

I got it on Tuesday, but the date on letter is much earlier than that, so I guess it's some kind of postal delay.

Reply 158

alles_nichts

I applied for Keble and St Hilda for Statistics, and Merton and Nuffield for Economics. It's also possible that the colleges I applied for reject me and my applications will be re-allocated and there's a possibility that both coincide at one college... :s-smilie:

Well, maybe I'm being simplistic, but a college is just a place to live at the end of the day. If you choose your course - ie. the subject you will be studying for twelve months and which has the capacity to be mind-numbingly boring if you pick the wrong one - on the possibility that you might get to live somewhere slightly nicer than somewhere else, that's just daft.

Pick the course you're more interested in, sod the college.

Reply 159