Stories to tell

‘It’s impossible to introduce people to all 20,000 students at Oxford. But the “Wall of 100 Faces” aims to show, on one webpage, a mix of people and personalities at Oxford University.’

Who is a typical Oxford student? And what is it really like to study at Oxford? In March, the framework was put in place to help prospective students from around the world answer these questions. The ‘Wall of 100 Faces’ features 100 short videos of students talking about different aspects of studying at Oxford.

The Wall took eight months to create and is designed to support the University’s aim of encouraging, selecting and supporting the very best candidates from any background. It presents a balance of students – male and female, undergraduate and postgraduate, international and home. They come from diverse educational backgrounds, are studying a broad range of different subjects and are based at different colleges.

‘It’s fine for the University to say that it supports diversity,’ explains Mike Nicholson, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, ‘but the statement becomes real if you actually see it. It’s a way of showing, not telling. Hearing someone speak, hearing their accent, is reassuring to the majority of students who don’t live in south-east England, and the project also recognises that significant numbers of Oxford students apply from outside the UK. They can see that the average Oxford student is just like them, so there’s no reason not to apply.

The Wall is made up of 100 ‘bricks’, each one providing a link to a video of a student talking about what they like about their subject or their college, how they spend their free time, or the new things they have tried out at Oxford.

Sanjoy Bhattacharyya, a fourth-year clinical medicine student at St Catherine’s College, is shown riding his motorbike to the John Radcliffe Hospital and talking about his excursions into the Oxfordshire countryside. Caroline Daly, studying law with legal studies in Europe at Pembroke College, explains how she unexpectedly became involved in student politics. And Olivier Jarda from Canada, a graduate student in international relations at Linacre College, relates his surprise at discovering how accessible his lecturers were.

The students are open and honest. Whether discussing their anxieties about playing the guitar in public, explaining what it was like to discover they were no longer top of the class, or talking about messing up in front of their tutor, they challenge some of the myths about Oxford students – for example, that they are highly confident public school boys, that they do nothing but study, that they are so bright they don’t need to study, or that they are all English.

‘There are so many myths about Oxford students, I would have found it really useful to have been able to look at the Wall of 100 Faces when I was thinking of applying’, says Helen McCabe, a graduate student at Somerville College. Visitors to the Wall can see all 100 videos, or filter to see only undergraduate, graduate or international students, or people talking about their studies or their free time.

Christopher Eddie, Web Officer, who managed the project, says: ‘We had to accept that we couldn’t represent all 20,000 students at Oxford; the video producer spent a couple of hours with each interviewee hearing some really lovely stories – from genetics and fruit flies, to filming people doing yoga or boxing, to hearing about treks across China and the intricacies of the Oxford music scene, all in one day. The overriding impression is how welcoming, fun and friendly all the students are.’

Since its launch, the Wall of 100 Faces has had around 10,000 visitors each month, making it one of the top 20 most visited sections on the University’s website, with users spending an average of more than three minutes on the page, much longer than any other page. For the future, the University plans to film around 30 new videos each year to keep the material current. Video interviews with staff at the University are also due to be released soon.

Further online recruitment initiatives designed to give prospective students a flavour of life at Oxford and widen participation include audio tours based around different subject areas for prospective students who are visiting the city, the inclusion of admissions material on the University’s iTunes U channel, which is fast approaching two million downloads, and podcasts focusing on aspects of the admissions process, including writing personal statements, choosing a college and dealing with ‘the dreaded interview’.

Oxford’s efforts to widen participation have resulted in a rise in the proportion of state school applicants. These have risen by 44 per cent in 10 years, rising at around double the rate of applications from independent schools. The most recent figures show that Oxford has received more than 17,000 applications for undergraduate courses, an increase of 12 per cent on 2008, with the vast majority of the increase coming from state school students. ‘We have worked hard to ensure that all students with the potential to succeed at Oxford apply, regardless of their background’, commented Mr Nicholson. ‘I believe we can now say that this work is beginning to bear fruit.’

At the same time, standards remain high. This year, Oxford has come top in all four of the main UK university league tables, with criteria including student satisfaction, the ratio of staff to students, spending on services and facilities, entry standards and graduate prospects.