You can upload electronic or scanned copies of your documents directly to the online application form, on pages 7 to 19 (8 to 19 in the readmission form). 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.
Adding a name to the document as you upload it will save the document in the online system for later use; if you start a new application, you will need to use the ‘Attach document’ button on each page to select the correct file. Please note that saved documents are automatically deleted after a few months.
There is a size limit of 2MB for each document upload, so 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 date.
If you are offered a place you will be asked to supply original transcripts and test certificates; please do not send original document(s) until specifically requested. 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.
Statement of purpose/research proposal
All applicants must provide a statement regarding their proposed study/research at Oxford. The statement must be entirely your own original work except where clearly indicated, with supporting quotations from any work authored by others clearly indicated and fully referenced.
Please note that your statement does not count towards any written work that you may have to submit for the purposes of your application.
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.
If you are applying for a taught programme, i.e. any PGDip, PGCert or Master’s (including the 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 for 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 for this particular programme of study?
- Which areas of study within the subject especially 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 for 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.
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. Documents which are not appropriately certified cannot be accepted as a transcript.
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 for the longest possible timeframe permitted by your system, in a manner which allows us to retrieve and verify the full document by the deadline date.
If you have not yet completed your undergraduate degree, you should provide an official 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, but you will still need to provide your undergraduate transcript.
Your institution may require several months to produce an official transcript and you should check your institution’s policies and procedures well in advance of the Oxford application deadline.
Please 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.
If your official transcript is not in English, you must submit both (i) the original official document issued by your institution, and (ii) a translation into English certified by a professional translator, the issuing body of the original transcript or an authorised notary.
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.
Written work
Written work is a piece of academic writing, usually an academic essay, which should include referencing and/or a bibliography where appropriate. Written work must be entirely your own original work, except where clearly indicated, with any supporting quotations from any work authored by others clearly indicated and fully referenced.
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 for, 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.
English language test score certificate
You should upload a scanned copy of the original English language test certificate to your online application. The English language test must have been taken within two years of the date your programme will commence.
If you are later offered a place, you may not need to supply an original as the University will verify all IELTS and TOEFL results directly with the test provider; if you have uploaded a CPE or CAE, you will be asked to supply the original document. Please do not post your certificate to the University unless this is specifically requested from you.
If you do not have test results at the time of applying, you should submit your application without these scores and send them to us separately via our upload form once available.
English language test waiver request
If you wish to apply for a waiver of the English test requirement, as per the guidance on English language requirements, you should write a brief letter outlining the reasons why you should be exempted from the requirement and upload it to the form on this page. 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.
