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Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics at university

I'm planning on applying to University of Oxford and St Andrews for PPL with Russian, French, Maths, English lit and Philosophy A levels.
Does anyone have any tips on reading I can do to get a head start for the course?

Reply 1

If this is a serious post and not one of those "I only have four Nobel Prizes, will Cambridge even look at me?" posts, then I suggest that you focus on your A levels for now. You might unwittingly have placed a needless obstacle in your path by taking five subjects.
Original post
by academicweaponry
I'm planning on applying to University of Oxford and St Andrews for PPL with Russian, French, Maths, English lit and Philosophy A levels.
Does anyone have any tips on reading I can do to get a head start for the course?


I'd suggest just taking three A-levels, as that's all that is required and doing extra A-levels won't give you "bonus points".

As for exploring the subject, just read around the areas of your interest in those fields. Bear in mind typically you will just study two of the three of those subjects at Oxford as I understand (some do take up the third in second and third years). I'd suggest reading around some linguistic theory to get a feel for what that is - Oxford linguistics is pretty strongly seated in the generative linguistics theory tradition as I understand and doesn't include as much "applied" linguistics (I think their sociolinguist actually left recently), aside from the philology/historical linguistics set there. Syntactic theory and such is pretty abstract and may not always be the first thing people think about when applying to a linguistics course (but it's a pretty central feature of the field)!

You may want to also consider e.g. Edinburgh's cognitive science degree which covers those three fields plus CS (the MA version puts less emphasis on the CS side I believe).

Reply 3

Original post
by Stiffy Byng
If this is a serious post and not one of those "I only have four Nobel Prizes, will Cambridge even look at me?" posts, then I suggest that you focus on your A levels for now. You might unwittingly have placed a needless obstacle in your path by taking five subjects.

I'm not talking about acceptance, I'm talking about what kind of textbooks and background knowledge of the course will help me educate myself more on their curriculum for my personal interest.
Also my school requires 4 a level subjects and I'm doing russian out of school because I'm a native speaker so it's not really an 'obstacle' as you have inaccurately put it.

Reply 4

Original post
by artful_lounger
I'd suggest just taking three A-levels, as that's all that is required and doing extra A-levels won't give you "bonus points".
As for exploring the subject, just read around the areas of your interest in those fields. Bear in mind typically you will just study two of the three of those subjects at Oxford as I understand (some do take up the third in second and third years). I'd suggest reading around some linguistic theory to get a feel for what that is - Oxford linguistics is pretty strongly seated in the generative linguistics theory tradition as I understand and doesn't include as much "applied" linguistics (I think their sociolinguist actually left recently), aside from the philology/historical linguistics set there. Syntactic theory and such is pretty abstract and may not always be the first thing people think about when applying to a linguistics course (but it's a pretty central feature of the field)!
You may want to also consider e.g. Edinburgh's cognitive science degree which covers those three fields plus CS (the MA version puts less emphasis on the CS side I believe).

Thank you, this is very helpful!

Reply 5

Original post
by academicweaponry
I'm not talking about acceptance, I'm talking about what kind of textbooks and background knowledge of the course will help me educate myself more on their curriculum for my personal interest.
Also my school requires 4 a level subjects and I'm doing russian out of school because I'm a native speaker so it's not really an 'obstacle' as you have inaccurately put it.

You asked about "getting ahead for the course". Perhaps you assume that you will be accepted, and perhaps you will. The potential obstacle in your path is that the additional workload of five A levels may reduce your overall performance. Schools which push pupils to take four A levels may not be acting in the pupil's best interests. Being a Russian speaker doesn't change this. English speakers taking English A level still have to work on the subject.

Reply 6

English a level is different to a language a level... I assure you that any fluent english speaker would be able to complete the a level if it was on the same level as russian or any other language for that matter with little preparation which is why I did it a couple years early. I apologise for any confusion!

Reply 7

Original post
by academicweaponry
English a level is different to a language a level... I assure you that any fluent english speaker would be able to complete the a level if it was on the same level as russian or any other language for that matter with little preparation which is why I did it a couple years early. I apologise for any confusion!

You said "I'm doing [russian] out of school". Now you say that you did an A Level in Russian a couple of years early.


A top tip: Oxford Dons all have Military Grade BS Detectors.
(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 8

Original post
by Stiffy Byng
You said "I'm doing [russian] out of school". Now you say that you did an A Level in Russian a couple of years early.
A top tip: Oxford Dons all have Military Grade BS Detectors.
This is not a courtroom Stiffy?! 😀 lol

Reply 9

Original post
by thegeek888
This is not a courtroom Stiffy?! 😀 lol

True, but those pesky Dons are sniffy about inconsistency as well as blather.

Reply 10

Original post
by academicweaponry
I'm not talking about acceptance, I'm talking about what kind of textbooks and background knowledge of the course will help me educate myself more on their curriculum for my personal interest.
Also my school requires 4 a level subjects and I'm doing russian out of school because I'm a native speaker so it's not really an 'obstacle' as you have inaccurately put it.


I understand what you mean! I’m a Chinese and the alevel Chinese is quite simple(i guess even some primary students can do it)but from what i know is that top unis like Oxbridge would not consider your alevel Russian as an subject since u r a native speaker. So i think maybe it is not that necessary to take the alevel Russian exam even though it costs u little time to prepare. And to answer ur question—there is booklist on the ox web for PPL. Not sure if you are aware at this stage—Applicants applying to ppl only choose 2 subjects among the 3, so u could just focus on the 2 that attract you the most

Reply 11

Original post
by Stiffy Byng
True, but those pesky Dons are sniffy about inconsistency as well as blather.

I didn't come here to get attacked... and I am not 'blathering' as you say, plus I have evidence of when I did my A levels so I doubt a miniscule mistake in syntax will be catastrophic

Reply 12

Original post
by Anonymous
I understand what you mean! I’m a Chinese and the alevel Chinese is quite simple(i guess even some primary students can do it)but from what i know is that top unis like Oxbridge would not consider your alevel Russian as an subject since u r a native speaker. So i think maybe it is not that necessary to take the alevel Russian exam even though it costs u little time to prepare. And to answer ur question—there is booklist on the ox web for PPL. Not sure if you are aware at this stage—Applicants applying to ppl only choose 2 subjects among the 3, so u could just focus on the 2 that attract you the most

Thank you very much! This is very helpful

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