Student with a guitar case looking at rooftops at sunset
Sunset from the Information Engineering Building (IEB)
(Image credit: Zhoudan Pan / Graduate Photography Competition)

Your details

This section of the Application Guide covers how to fill out the Contact Details and About You sections of the application form

For more information about how we hold and process the personal data you provide to us, please refer to our Postgraduate Applicant Privacy Policy

Contact details

On this tab of the application form, you are asked to provide some personal information, including your full name, date of birth, email address and telephone number, and your home and correspondence address.

Personal details

Your name will form the basis of your applicant record, so make sure it is full, accurate and in the correct order. If you hold a passport, birth certificate or other official document, you should state your name exactly as it appears there.

If you have only one name, please enter your given name (first name) as ‘ - ’ (a single dash) and enter your name in the ‘Family name (Surname)’ field.

Please check that your browser does not incorrectly autocomplete any of these fields.

If you contact Graduate Admissions regarding your application, please provide your name in the same format as it appears in your application, so that we can match all enquiries and materials to the correct record.

You should also enter your date of birth and sex as they appear on any legal/official documents you hold.

Requesting a change to your name or date of birth

  • For applications not yet submitted, you can amend your name or date of birth in the 'Personal Details' section of the application form. This will also change the date of birth associated with your graduate applicant account.
  • If your application has already been submitted, you can request a change to your name or date of birth through Graduate Applicant Self Service by uploading proof of identity.

Email and telephone numbers

You are asked to provide a contact email address and telephone number.

The primary email address that appears here is the one associated with your graduate applicant account. If you change this address, you will also change the email address you must use to log into your account.

If you contact Graduate Admissions regarding your application using our online query form, your contact email address must be the email address in which your application account is registered. We will not be able to respond to enquiries about your application if you use a different email address.  

Home and correspondence address

In this section, enter your 'Home address' as the address at which you are currently resident. If written correspondence should be sent to a different address, you should provide this in 'Correspondence address'.

If you are entering a UK address, you can type in your postcode and use the search function to find and complete the remaining lines of your address. Otherwise, you will need to enter your address manually. 

Nominated third party

Your application will be handled in accordance with our Postgraduate Applicant Privacy Policy. We will only discuss your application with you, unless you provide the details of a 'third party', such as a relative.

If you choose to nominate a third party in this section of the application form, we will be able to discuss your application with them and accept instructions from them on its handling. You should be aware that any third party you nominate will be able to make changes to your application or withdraw it on your behalf.

Read the directions on the application form carefully before completing this part of the form.

The information you enter in the 'Nationality' and 'Country of ordinary residence' sections will be used to assess your fee status (Home/Republic of Ireland (Home/ROI)/Islands/Overseas), your eligibility for scholarships, your English language proficiency requirements and your visa requirements.

The information you provide will not affect the academic assessment of your application. 

Nationality

In this section we ask you to state:

  • your country of birth
  • details of the country or countries of which you have nationality.

This information should be correct as of the date that you will submit your application form.

For each nationality, you must enter a start date. If you have been a national of a country since birth, click the 'Use date of birth' button and the form will fill this field with the date of birth you have already provided. 

If you hold dual nationality, you should enter details for both nationalities. You should only include details of nationalities that are current.

You are also asked whether you expect to need a visa to enter the UK for study. If you are not sure whether you will need a visa to take up a place at Oxford, visit the Before you arrive page. 

Passport details

This section of the application form will only appear if you are not a UK or Irish national. You may use this section to provide details of the passport you intend to use to enter the UK.

You are not required to provide your passport details at the point of application, and the academic assessment of your application will not be affected if you do not provide them.

If you do not currently have a valid passport, leave this section blank. If you are offered a place at Oxford and you require a visa to study in the UK, contact Graduate Admissions with the relevant details (ie passport number, country of issue, issue and expiry date) once you have a valid passport and we will add this information to your application.

For more information about student visas and immigration, visit the University's Visa and Immigration pages or contact the Student Immigration team directly.

Ordinary residence

The application form includes guidance for completing the questions in this section. Please read this carefully as your responses will affect your eligibility for some scholarship schemes.

Current country of ordinary residence 

Your country of ordinary residence is the country in which you are normally resident, out of choice and for a settled purpose, except for any temporary or occasional absences. It is not a country in which you are studying, working or living on a temporary basis. 

If you are currently resident in the UK, you should select either England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland as your country of ordinary residence. This also applies to EU nationals resident in the UK for the purpose of full-time education (see below).

  • If you have been ordinarily resident in more than one country, give details for your current period of residence and the most recent previous period of residence – but only if that period of residence was during the last six years. Please note that the application form won't allow you to indicate that you have been resident in two countries at the same time.

Troubleshooting

If the application form indicates that there is an error in the ‘Ordinary residence’ section (ie the relevant fields are highlighted in yellow), check the following:

  • If you have only been resident in one country since birth, make sure that the ‘Previous country of residence’ field is set to the default value (‘- - - Please select - - -’), and that you have not selected a second country. The 'From' date cannot be earlier than your date of birth. 
  • If you have been ordinarily resident in more than one country during the last six years, make sure that the dates you provide for these two residencies do not overlap, as this will cause an error. Your current period of residence must begin at least one day after the end of your previous period of residence. 
  • Where applicable, you should select dates using the calendar tool, as dates entered manually may be incorrectly formatted.

Settled/Pre-settled status

Please indicate whether you hold either settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme and the date when this was granted.

Equality, diversity and access

We recognise that the questions in this section of the application form are sensitive. We hope you'll feel able to provide this information in confidence to support our efforts to create a more inclusive, diverse and equitable Oxford. More information about University and College initiatives to increase the number of promising postgraduate students from under-represented groups at Oxford can be found on the Graduate Access pages.

The information you provide in this section will not form part of the course selection process unless this is specifically stated on the course page and will not be seen by anyone involved in assessing your application for the course. Your personal information will be treated in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and related UK data protection legislation. Full details are set out in the University's Postgraduate Applicant Privacy Policy.

The application form provides additional guidance to help you answer these questions in this section.

You must provide an answer to the question ‘With which ethnic group do you most identify?’ By law, the University is required to request and return information about the ethnic background of all its students to the UK Government’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

You must respond to the mandatory questions about ethnicity, religion, gender identity and socio-economic background, but all questions offer a ‘prefer not to say’ option. You are also asked whether you have any day-to-day caring responsibilities for another adult, and/or a dependent child or children under the age of 18. You can find out more about the services available to parents on the University's student parents page. 

Socio-economic background

The information given in this section of the form is optional (please select ‘Prefer not to say’ in the response options if you do not wish to provide this information). Note that where this information has been provided in the form, it will be used to contextualise applications at the different stages of the selection process for a number of courses and scholarships which use socio-economic contextual data. More information on the use of socio-economic data in selection process is available from the Initiatives to improve access to graduate study page. Consult your course page to check whether your course uses socio-economic data for assessment and/or scholarship purposes.

This information will also be used for research purposes, to help us understand the impact of our access and diversity initiatives on the rate of applications and success rate for people with different socio-economic backgrounds. Please do not request amendments to the socio-economic details provided in submitted applications after the course funding deadline has passed.

Secondary education

You are asked whether you were educated in the UK for your secondary education. You should answer ‘Yes’ to this question if you were educated in the UK for all/majority of your secondary education.

If you indicate that your secondary education was in the UK, you’ll be asked a series of further questions about the institutions you attended and your living situation while you were in full-time education. You’ll be asked to give: 

  • the name and full postcode of the school or college you attended during the last year of your GCSEs (or equivalent, if you studied for an alternative qualification); and
  • the name and full postcode of the school or college you attended during the last year of your A-levels (or equivalent, if you studied for an alternative qualification).

For each institution, you’ll also be asked to say whether it was a fee-paying school or not. You’ll also be asked to give your home postcode in the final year of your secondary education. If you prefer not to give an answer, you can leave this field blank.

Free school meals

For this question, answer ‘Yes’ if any of your secondary education was in the UK and you were entitled to free school meals at any point during that time.

Education and employment of parents or guardians

For these questions, you are asked to provide some basic information about whether your parents or guardians completed any higher education qualifications, and their jobs. Examples of each job type are listed in the dropdown menu to help you choose the best fit.

Higher education

You’ll be asked whether you undertook your undergraduate degree in the UK. You should only answer ‘Yes’ to this question if you were based at a UK institution throughout your undergraduate degree, excluding any study abroad.

If you answer ‘Yes’ to this question, you’ll be asked further questions about how you funded your undergraduate study in the UK, including whether you received income-assessed support from the UK government.

  • If you began university before August 2016, answer ‘Yes’ if you received a maintenance grant rather than a maintenance loan. Otherwise, answer ‘No’. 
  • If you began university after August 2016, answer ‘Yes’ if you received more than the minimum amount of maintenance loan (England), maintenance grant (Wales/Northern Ireland), or Young Student’s Bursary/Independent Bursary (Scotland) available in your region. Otherwise, answer ‘No’.

You can then indicate the main (over £1,000) sources of financial support (if any) for your living costs you received for your undergraduate study. For any sources not covered by the categories given, you can choose ‘Other’ and type the name of the funding source into the field to the right.

Other indicators of disadvantage

You will be asked a series of questions covering other possible indicators of disadvantage. You'll see a question mark symbol question mark symbol beside these questions on the application form. Hover your mouse cursor over this symbol for additional information.

Declaring a disability or long-term health condition

If you have a disability, long-term health condition or specific learning difficulty (SpLD) for which you usually need adjustments or support, we'd strongly encourage you to disclose it when you apply, or as soon as possible after you've applied. This information will be dealt with confidentially and sensitively, and will not affect the assessment of your application.

Over 7,000 students at Oxford have declared a disability. The University is committed to making reasonable adjustments to enable students with disabilities or long-term health conditions to apply for study and participate fully in student life. Our Disability Advisory Service (DAS) has more information about what we can offer, and what it is like to study at Oxford with a disability. 

If you have a disability or long-term health condition and are thinking about applying to Oxford, our guide for disabled applicants provides more information about how the University can support you during the application process.

Filling out the application form

If you answer ‘Yes’ to ‘Do you have any disabilities or long-term health conditions?', you'll see an additional question asking for further information. Please tick all of the boxes that apply to you.

If you don't see an appropriate category in the list on the form, tick the box for ‘A disability, impairment or medical condition that is not listed'. An additional answer field will appear, and you can use this to enter more information.

Depending on the information you provide in this section, you may see an additional section of the application form, 'Additional support or access requirements', where you can provide information about any additional support needs you may have.

If you would like to discuss this section of the application form, or how the University can support your specific needs, please contact the Disability Advisory Service.

Accommodation

This section of the application form contains questions about your intentions for accommodation during your studies at Oxford. Your answers in this section are purely indicative and they will not affect the assessment of your application. For more information about your options, visit our Accommodation page.

If you answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Do you intend to apply for accommodation owned by the college?’, you'll be shown additional questions about any adults and/or the children who will be accompanying you. Some of the accommodation offered by Oxford's colleges or managed by the University's Graduate Accommodation Office is specifically suited to couples and/or families.

While the majority of Oxford’s graduate students are housed in the wide range of accommodation provided by colleges and the Graduate Accommodation Office, no applicant can be guaranteed accommodation.

You can find out more information about childcare options and provision for families on the Student parents page. If you'd like to bring family with you to the UK, information about visas for your family is available on the University's Visa and Immigration pages.

Residence requirements

If you are applying for a full-time graduate course, you should be aware of the University's residence requirements. All full-time graduate students must live within twenty-five miles of Carfax Tower for a minimum number of terms in order to enter for examinations and qualify for their degree.

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