Oxford PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) Students and Applicants

That's not quite right - the first cohort sat QE last year (and, to be really pedantic, we sat it last week )

Hey all, I do Maths,Further Maths,Economics and Physics , Im expected all As/A*s.

Ive spent year 12 deciding what I really want to study, and I want to do PPE at Oxford, but I dont know if my subjects are suitable for the course, I know they dont have requirements , but would my application be weaker due to my subjects; Ive read the introduction to Philosophy and Politics books Oxford recommends, but will that be enough?

Also, regarding my PS, I plan to apply for Economics in other Unis, but PPE at Oxford, so how should I go about writing my PS? Because the Politics/Philosophy parts would be virtually useless for the Economics Unis, no?

Thanks

Why do you want to do PPE at Oxford but not elsewhere? If it's for the prestige factor, why not do straight economics at Cambridge?

Why are you applying for PPE only at Oxford? Are you actually passionate about philosophy? Your subjects are fine, they want you to be good at maths and writing essays, you have the maths base covered but not the essay writing, see if you can show them you are good at essays in another way? The personal statement is hard to get around, you will probably end up reducing your chances for both courses unless you are very clever about it.

Honestly speaking, I wouldnt say Im passionate about it, but I do really enjoy it, as well as the way of thinking involved with Philosophy.

As suggested earlier, I guess my essay writing skills can be shown in the TSA?

and yeah the personal statement is my main problem, but thanks for the advice everyone, appreciate it!

Straight Economics seems a little boring, Ill find out more about it next week at the openday, but Ive always enjoyed Philosophy and Politics in their societies at school, and just reading about issues related ot them, so I want to incorporate them with Economics for a somewhat joint degree.

Hey guys I also wanted to interject here because as well as I want to study PPE at Oxford, I'm applying for LSE's Government and Economics, UCL's Philosophy and Economics and PPE at Bristol and Warwick. How do I go about writing my PS for these courses? Am I able to tailor them to fit the needs of each course I apply towards?

I wrote mine basically for PPE at Oxford. So about all 3 subjects - perhaps more emphasis on Econ/Pol than Phil. Plus some stuff linking it all together.

I applied for PPE at Oxford, Durham and Warwick, Economics and Politics at Bath, and Economics and Philosophy at St Andrews.

I got offers from all bar Warwick.

So I just sort of thought the unis are going to know I'm applying to Oxford for PPE - from the date of my application and PS. It was up to them as to whether they ignored the subject not relevant to them, or whether they rejected me because I wasn't committed to their course.

In the end the only rejection I had was for a PPE course, so make of that what you will!

Which are your priorities? For me it was Oxford, Durham and St Andrews. If I didn't get into any of them, I was probably going to take a gap year. Since 2 out of 3 were PPE courses, I focused on that and assumed St Andrews knew what I was up to!

Also, I didn't know Bristol offered PPE. Are you sure about that? I thought they did all combinations bar all 3.

x

I wrote mine basically for PPE at Oxford. So about all 3 subjects - perhaps more emphasis on Econ/Pol than Phil. Plus some stuff linking it all together.

I applied for PPE at Oxford, Durham and Warwick, Economics and Politics at Bath, and Economics and Philosophy at St Andrews.

I got offers from all bar Warwick.

So I just sort of thought the unis are going to know I'm applying to Oxford for PPE - from the date of my application and PS. It was up to them as to whether they ignored the subject not relevant to them, or whether they rejected me because I wasn't committed to their course.

In the end the only rejection I had was for a PPE course, so make of that what you will!

Which are your priorities? For me it was Oxford, Durham and St Andrews. If I didn't get into any of them, I was probably going to take a gap year. Since 2 out of 3 were PPE courses, I focused on that and assumed St Andrews knew what I was up to!

Also, I didn't know Bristol offered PPE. Are you sure about that? I thought they did all combinations bar all 3.

x

Hey! Can I just ask what A level subjects you do and like academic curricular things like debating/sports/politics society etc.

Thanks!

Erm I heard they did but I could be wrong...

Do you think taking a gap year to work before applying would be ok?

I did Economics, History, German and Maths.

I debated, did MUN, Politics discussion society, played first team netball and hockey, was a school prefect, chaired a charity fashion show committee, managing director of a Young Enterprise type group, social committee secretary, was a welfare team student supporter...

All that was condensed into about 3 lines on my personal statement




Nope definitely no PPE at Bristol - I just checked UCAS and their website for you.

Well out of the 7 PPEists at my college, 3 took a gap year. All did a mixture of work and travel. No idea how they wrote their PS or what they said about their gap year. Don't even know if it came up at interview. Oxford definitely don't look down on gap years, providing something productive is done in them. But then again I haven't met anyone at Oxford who didn't only work. I do remember one of my Econ tutors saying he'd rather meet someone who'd spent 9 months travelling than 9 months on a Deloitte/IBM sort of gap year scheme. But that could just be him.

Can I ask what GCSEs you got? I have a mixture of A*s/As and some Bs but I'm worried that you might need all A*'s because its so competitive.

I got 10 A*s

But that is by no means a requirement.

I believe there is a sticky thread somewhere on this board about whether your grades are good enough for Oxford.