Please note that all applications require
supporting materials to be submitted along with the completed
application form. |
Please read this
section of the notes thoroughly and also refer to the Course Guide for programme-specific information.
All supporting materials
must meet the following criteria:
In English (unless stated
otherwise)
Documents you have written yourself - e.g. statement of purpose/research proposal, written work - must be written in English, unless otherwise permitted by the department; an English translation by a third party from your own work in another language is not acceptable unless explicitly permitted by your department.
Official documents – i.e. transcripts – which are not in English should be translated by a professional translator or the relevant issuing body and certified as such on the translation; the official document should be also submitted together with the certified translation.
Easily identifiable
Please clearly indicate your name as well as the type of document, e.g. transcript, on the document if this is not already clearly stated. Please ensure that your name is given on the document in the same format you have given in the application form itself.
Clear and legible
Scanned and digital copies must be accessible and clearly legible; please ensure that scanned files are rotated correctly.-
Submitted at the same time as your application form
Wherever possible you should upload an electronic/scanned version of your document(s)
COMPULSORY
SUPPORTING
MATERIAL
The following materials
are compulsory for all programmes: - Three
academic references
- Transcript(s) of previous higher education
- CV/résumé
- Statement of purpose/research proposal
Applicants may also be required to supply one or more of the following
materials with their application, depending on the requirements of the
course: - Academic written work
- Portfolio (e.g. of artwork, performance recordings)
- GRE results
- Maths admissions exercise
Please see the relevant page of the Course Guide to check which additional supporting materials your department requires. |
On each Supporting Materials page, you can upload electronic or scanned copies of your documents directly to the online application form. Adding a name to the document will save the document for later use.
There is a size limit of 2MB for each document upload; please ensure that documents meet this requirement and are fully legible. If you are unable to produce a legible scan of 2MB or less, please ensure that your document is submitted to us via the online query system by the deadline you are applying to.
It is not necessary to upload a document into every available page on the online form if you are not required to submit the particular type of document requested.
If you are offered a place you may be asked to supply original transcripts and test certificates; please do not send original document(s) unless specifically requested to do so. Materials sent to the Graduate Admissions Office will not be returned.
Please do not send or upload degree certificates or other documents which are not required to support your application.
On each Supporting Materials page, a document
may be uploaded from your computer. Adding a name to the document will save the document
for later use. Documents saved in this way are visible on the ‘previously uploaded document’ pull-down list. If you wish to reuse one of the saved documents to submit another online application from your account then you must use the ‘Attach document’ button, as previously uploaded documents are not automatically attached to applications. Please also note that saved documents are only available for
re-use for a few months and will then be automatically deleted. |
For current Oxford graduate taught students only
Oxford Master's students applying to continue to a research programme must supply the full set of required documents as detailed in this section of the Application Guide. However, some departments will allow you to request that the Graduate Admissions Office re-use documents submitted in support of your previous application to Oxford. Please check the Supporting
Materials for Readmission Candidates page to see whether your department is willing to allow you to re-use materials and then indicate which items you would like to be re-used from your most recent application on the final page of the online readmission form.
For references, please indicate the names of the referee(s) whose document you would like us to re-use - along with details of any new referees - on page 6 of the form. The documents that you specify for re-use will be added to your central application record by the Graduate Admissions Office once your application is received.
All applicants to a research programme should submit a research proposal.
|
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE/RESEARCH PROPOSAL
All applicants must provide a statement regarding their proposed study/research at Oxford.
If you are applying for a taught programme, i.e. any PGDip, PGCert or Master’s (incl. BPhil, BCL and MJur) other than the MSt programmes in Legal Research and Socio-Legal Research, you should submit a brief statement – around one page in length - explaining your motivation for applying to graduate study at Oxford, in which you may wish to consider the following:
- What relevant academic, research, or practical experience do you have?
- Why are you applying to this particular programme of study?
- Which areas of study within the subject interest you?
Your department may provide specific guidance on the length and/or content of this statement; if department- or course-specific guidance is provided on the departmental website, you should follow this carefully.
If you are applying to a research programme, i.e. DPhil, MSc by research or MSt in research methods, including the MSt in Legal Research, you should supply a statement detailing your research plans, often termed a ‘research proposal’. This should be approximately two pages in length, unless the department states otherwise; the level of detail required varies considerably between different subject areas at research level, and you should check the relevant page of the Course Guide and the department’s website for further information.
For example, if you are applying for research programmes in the humanities and social sciences you will usually be expected to submit a comparatively well-developed proposal, giving an outline of how you intend to structure and undertake your research, and where possible, a preliminary title for the thesis. In other subjects you may only need to provide a short statement indicating which existing research groups you would like to join.
If you are applying for a departmental studentship for work on a specific project or research topic, you will only need to indicate this fact in your statement and no other details will be required, unless the studentship advertisement specifies otherwise.
There is no specific word limit for these statements, unless otherwise stated by the department, and there are no restrictions on font size or line spacing, although the document should be clearly legible.
The statement must be entirely your own original work except where clearly indicated, i.e. fully-referenced supporting quotations from academic works.
Please note that your statement does not count towards any written work that you may have to submit for the purposes of your application.
CV/RÉSUMÉ
This should include a summary of your recent achievements, including details of qualifications, publications and any experience relevant to your application.
TRANSCRIPT
You should submit a detailed record of your higher education up to the present, including programmes of study taken and grades achieved. This should be produced for you as an official document by the institution where you studied, and then visibly and indelibly certified by the issuing institution.
If you have not yet completed your undergraduate degree, you should provide an interim transcript detailing grades achieved to date. If you have not yet completed a graduate programme for which you have not undertaken any assessment, you do not need to provide a transcript for that particular qualification.
Your institution may require several months to produce this document for you and you should check your institution’s policies and procedures well in advance of the Oxford application deadline you are applying to.
Documents which are not appropriately certified cannot be accepted as a transcript. Please also note that a degree certificate is not considered a transcript for the purpose of applying to Oxford, as it does not comprise detailed information on your grades.
When applying online, you should scan and upload your official paper transcript in the first instance, or an official, visibly certified electronic transcript if this is available to you. Unofficial and/or self-certified transcripts, including printouts/screenshots from student self-service websites, are not acceptable.
If your institution offers an official, secure transcript sharing service such as Digitary, you will need to register the Graduate Admissions Office as an authorised recipient with the e-mail address ‘graduate.admissions@admin.ox.ac.uk’. The transcript needs to be shared with our office in a manner which allows us to retrieve and verify the full document by the deadline you are applying to.
If you are offered a place, you will be asked to send the original document(s) of any scanned or electronic official transcripts you have uploaded.
If your official transcript is not in English, you must submit both (i) the original official document issued by the your institution, and (ii) a translation into English certified by a professional translator or by the issuing body of the original transcript.
Current and former Oxford students are not exempted from submitting a valid official transcript. Please see the Student Gateway for details of where to obtain your transcript.
WRITTEN WORK
Written work is a piece of academic writing, usually an academic essay, which should include referencing and/or a bibliography where appropriate.
A single piece of written work should be 2,000 words in length (not including bibliographic references) unless stated otherwise in the Course Guide. Please do not supply documents longer or considerably shorter than the stated requirement as they may not be considered. You may wish to submit a clearly defined extract from a longer piece of work in order to meet the word limit.
Applicants to courses in English Literature, History and/or Women's Studies may choose to submit one longer piece of 4,000 words rather than two 2,000-word pieces. Applicants to these courses who would prefer to submit one longer work should upload their 4,000-word essay in the first Written Work page of the form, and on the second Written Work page should type or upload the statement:
"I have included one long essay in lieu of the two short essays as permitted by the department."
The topic of the written work should relate as closely as possible to the course you are applying to, and where two pieces of written work are required, they should usually be on separate topics.
Written work must enable the assessors to make a judgement about your suitability for your chosen programme of study, and it is your responsibility to supply written work of the appropriate type and length.
Written work must be entirely your own original work except where clearly indicated, i.e. fully-referenced supporting quotations from academic works.
ENGLISH PROFICIENCY SCORE TEST CERTIFICATE
You should upload a scanned copy of the original English language test certificate to your online application. If you do not have test results at the time of applying, you should send them on as soon as these are available to you. If you are applying for a waiver of the proficiency requirement instead of supplying test results, please use the next page – ‘ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEST WAIVER REQUEST’ – to upload the relevant document.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEST WAIVER REQUEST
The requirement to provide proof of English language proficiency may be waived, at the discretion of the University, in cases where you have successfully completed, or are currently completing, a full-time degree-level course of a minimum of nine months at a recognised institution where the medium of instruction and assessment is entirely in English.
Full details of the circumstances in which you may be able to successfully apply for a waiver are available via our Guidance for international students.
If you wish to apply for a waiver of the English test requirement, please write a letter outlining the reasons why you should be exempted from the requirement and upload it. You must do this at the time of your application.
ADMISSIONS TESTS (GRE, MATHS ADMISSIONS EXERCISE)
GRE results are not required to support your application unless specified in the Course Guide, though some departmental websites may request you to supply these results if you do have them.
Applicants to the MSc in Mathematical Finance and the MSc in Mathematical and Computational Finance must submit the results of a self-administered Maths Admissions Exercise. There is a separate Admissions Exercise for each of these courses; this exercise must be entirely your own original and unaided work, and you must include the signed declaration. For full details and to download a copy of the relevant test, please see the Mathematical Finance website.
