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Oxford Department For Continuing Education Online Courses

Looking for some advice - I’m a mature student. I want to go to University to study either a Creative Writing or English Literature and Creative Writing degree but my highest qualifications are GCSE level, so I know I need some more qualifications to get into Uni.

I was looking at University of Oxford’s Department For Continuing Education, which have online courses, which seem to offer better direct preparation for University study than access and a levels. The courses are worth 10 CATS points each and are either FHEQ Level 4 or FHEQ Level 5. Each course requires a total of about 100 study hours and as it’s Level 4 and 5, these would seem to be superior to A Levels, but I haven’t heard of anyone applying to Uni in this way.

I was thinking of doing maybe four of these courses in English Literature subjects, such as critical reading and literary theory. Does anyone have any experience applying to University with similar qualifications?
Original post by brave_ulysses
Looking for some advice - I’m a mature student. I want to go to University to study either a Creative Writing or English Literature and Creative Writing degree but my highest qualifications are GCSE level, so I know I need some more qualifications to get into Uni.

I was looking at University of Oxford’s Department For Continuing Education, which have online courses, which seem to offer better direct preparation for University study than access and a levels. The courses are worth 10 CATS points each and are either FHEQ Level 4 or FHEQ Level 5. Each course requires a total of about 100 study hours and as it’s Level 4 and 5, these would seem to be superior to A Levels, but I haven’t heard of anyone applying to Uni in this way.

I was thinking of doing maybe four of these courses in English Literature subjects, such as critical reading and literary theory. Does anyone have any experience applying to University with similar qualifications?

Difficult to say without knowing more about your profile, like have you had anything published or do you have a portfolio of work already? Where are you thinking of applying, and have you looked at or asked them how they would view the Ox course.

I think there is less scepticism about these short courses/ICE courses providing quality in their residential format, but I think there is still scepticism about things that are entirely online as quality control of hte learning side is very difficult. Oxford would certainly entertain the qualifications, as would Camrbdige for their equivalent, but you'd have to ask Bath, UEA etc directly if they would.
On the creative writing side, I have a portfolio of short fiction already. Writing has always been my one talent really and I've been at it a long time, so I'm fairly confident if asked to send in a portfolio of creative work, it would be received well.

I don't have a specific Uni in mind just yet, but the sort of places that I'm looking at and that have courses that appeal to me are Northumbria, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Winchester. My hope would be to get into a mid level University and then on completion apply for the UEA Creative Writing Prose Fiction MA.

I haven't contacted any of these Universities yet but will definitely do that to see how they feel about it, but in the meantime, I'm just curious whether anyone has had experiences with these types of courses and using them as a route to Uni.
(edited 5 years ago)

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