University

22 May 09

Prospective applicants can now take self-guided audio tours of the University and colleges

Oxford University is today launching self-guided audio tours of the University and colleges, ready for prospective applicants to start using over the weekend and next week's half term break.

Free to download from the University website, the tours will give students a chance to be guided round the city, with colleges, departments and museums highlighted alongside information about the admissions process, the history of the University, and what it’s like to be a student at Oxford.

The admissions team realise not all students who are thinking of applying will be able to make it to one of the organised tours taking place next week and throughout the summer, so have designed the audio tours to give students, parents and teachers the opportunity to tailor their own trip around Oxford at a time that suits them.

The tours can be downloaded from the University’s admissions webpages and Oxford’s iTunes U site. Along with an accompanying map and directions, students will be able to choose to take the full walking tour and listen to all of the individual tracks along a route, which will take about one hour, or they can pick and choose the order of the tracks they listen to and effectively create their own tour of Oxford

The tour guides are all recent graduates of Oxford University who now work in the Undergraduate Admissions Office. Prospective applicants can find out more about the subjects the guides studied, and the colleges they went to, at the start of the tour.

If they’re able to drop in to the Admissions Information Centre during their walk around the city, students and parents could meet a tour guide face-to-face or ask any questions of other members of the admissions team.

Felicity Long, who works in the Admissions Information Centre, is a tour guide for both the audio tours and the guided tours. ‘The audio tours should help people get a good sense of the colleges and departments all around the city that make up the University, even if they can’t make it to a guided tour or open day.

'There are also some historical facts and useful information for applicants – from how to make an application to hearing about a day in the life of a student. I would have liked to have had the chance to listen to a tour when I applied 7 years ago, so I hope prospective students and their families find them useful.’

Two routes are available to download from today – one with a Life Sciences theme and the other a Physical Sciences theme. However, the tours will give students interested in any subject the chance to explore the colleges and find out more about the admissions process.

Over the next year, another four audio admissions tours will be developed so that eventually six different themed tours will be available, which between them will visit all undergraduate colleges, departments, museums and other points of interest around the University.

For more information and to download a tour please visit: www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/tours/