Can anyone recommend me any summer schools for PPE applicants? I heard about John Locke Institute Summer School and King’s. Do you know how good they actually are??
I want to go to a summer school for the learning experience rather but I don’t know which one is the best. Can you help?
Hi, I went on JLI this summer. First off, it is hella expensive - £3k is a lot of money for anyone to spend on a fortnight. There's someone who's posted a big lambasting of the course somewhere else on the board and, to be fair to them, I do kind of get what they mean. Basically, John Locke Institute CAN be of great use. The effect it will have on your application does, though, probably depend on your age and stage of development. If you're a beginner looking for a good introduction to basics of PPE (and really you want to be at this stage at 16 or 17 at the latest), it can be a good starting point - it covers the material and can be a really good way to ignite an interest. The tutors they get in for Philosophy and Political Philosophy (at least, this year) were Oxford and Cambridge professors - really approachable and knowledgable people when it came to their respective fields.
I went on JLI to prep for my, ultimately unsuccessful, Oxford reapplication (for History rather than PPE) and it wasn't too helpful for history to be honest. I can see how a committed PPEist would find it more useful than I did in that regard. Then again, I'm now off to King's College London to do Political Economy, and I wouldn't have felt like I was in a position to do that and make the change without Political Philosophy I learned on JLI.
Don't be afraid to get in touch if you want to know more!