Classics at Oxbridge?

I assume you mean if you have done neither language! You can also pick up the other, and many people do, it’s just not compulsory.


I am not super familiar with the current format of the cambridge course - again definitely recommend having a close look at the current modules and course pages to get an idea. Should be under the page for current students. There are some topics not covered at cambridge such as Achaemenid History, but likewise Oxford lacks the more interdisciplinary Paper X offered at Cam, so.

It depends what you mean by this. As mentioned, Oxford does place a lot of emphasis on reading and translating texts in the original language, but, at least for the second part of the course (Greats), it’s also a broader, more general humanities course than Cambridge’s. For instance, at Greats you can focus on ancient history or philosophy (including modern philosophy), and there are also options in art and archaeology. You don’t actually have to take any literature papers at Greats if you don’t want to, whereas Cambridge seems to place a greater emphasis on literature throughout the course.

Can you really just scrap literature papers at Oxford for Classics for Finals/Greats? I'm more linguistically-inclined so would want to take more philology papers. I would be applying for Classics and Modern Languages joint, however, so I don't know how this might change things – there seems to be little information on papers for the joint course online.