#my friend comma cesar

[fictionkinfessions]

yknow what FUCK alex kister actually

-your friend, cesar torres

[historyy]

The Oxbridge Applications Masterlist✨✨✨

I’ve had a ton of people both online and irl ask me for this, so here it is. I’m sorry its a month or so later than I initially promised but I’ve been pretty busy. This is basically a breakdown of the application process, some advice, and my experiences as an applicant for History and Politics to Oxford in 2018-19; because of that its pretty Oxford / humanities specific. I was lucky enough to have some great resources available at school but applying for Oxford was still daunting, so I wanted to demystify it and give some advice. Hopefully you find it helpful!

Personal Statement

How you write it: 

My main advice with the PS is to get started early, because Oxbridge is early entry so you’ll have months less time than your friends. Do a first draft of your personal statement in summer Y12. Mine was pretty much done by September and it made that early deadline much easier to reach.

Keeping a list of everything relevant you’re doing will be useful when you come to write the PS, as well as for developing your ideas for interview. My list was split into Books, Academic Papers, Extracts, Documentaries, Podcasts, Lectures / Online Lectures, Other Publications, Courses, Newspapers, and Extracurriculars. I also had a list of my particular interests related to my subject. 

It will need lots of editing, but thats what teachers, friends, and former applicants are for! I edited so many personal statements for people in my year, because they knew I was a writer and thus good at cutting words and finding shorter ways to express.

With your first draft, write big. Go way over the character count and put everything you want to in it, then cut. A few tips for cutting: 

Don’t waffle on about irrelevant anecdotes 

‘Such as’ ‘like’ ‘indeed’ ‘including’ are useful but overused 

Rearranging sentence structure can cut lots of characters and make your syntax snappier. E.g I interviewed a civil servant which showed me… versus Interviewing a civil servant showed me…  

Semicolons will save your life.

It will hurt, but kill your Oxford commas 

You don’t need to give each author / source a bio, assume the reader knows their stuff, and you don’t need to use full names / titles 

What you write in it:

With the PS, a catchy opening is vital; you need to show why you’re interested in your subject and why you’re the right choice. Mine was:

The 2015 Leaders’ Debate sparked my interest in politics and the language surrounding it, when I realised I was focussed both on what the debaters were saying and how they were saying it.

The best advice I got is to treat your PS like you’re narrating your journey with your subject. Start with why you got into your subject, show what you did following on from that sparked interest, then how you built on that action, and so forth. You might want to map this out before you start writing. An example might look like this (this isn’t mine, but assume its for HistPol):

Saw an exhibition on Renaissance artists - interested in social and political context of the art - researched Italian city states focussing in on famed patrons of the arts who were politically eminent  - read Machiavelli’s The Prince as is based on Cesare Borgia - interested in other theories of rule and governed/govt relations - read Locke and Hobbes to compare later theories and the development of these ideas - entered an essay competition about the development of the state citing Locke’s ideas on the social contract

Then you build on this journey, talking about your reading and research. Cite specific papers / books / articles you’ve read, and engage with them. Did you agree with everything they said? Or not? How do they link to other things you’ve read? For example, I wrote:

D’Ancona’s ‘Post-Truth’ with its discussion of disinformation and the collapse in trust also influenced me, though I disagreed with his assertion that the post-truth era only began five years ago (Orwell springs to mind).

Don’t just name drop books etc, actually engage with them, or you might as well not have read them.

In terms of what to include, Oxbridge don’t give a damn if you do Grade 5 piano or were the lead on your ballet show; you should focus your PS on the subject you’re applying for. When I mentioned extracurriculars it was in relation to the subject; I was editor of the school magazine, and I interviewed a senior civil servant on Brexit’s impact for it, increasing my understanding of current affairs and I gave a presentation on sexuality in the Weimar Republic at our LGBT society, exploring oft forgotten facets of history.  

I would suggest that only 10% of your PS should be about extracurriculars, and even those should be related to your subject, or linked to transferable skills.

You should end your PS with a brief concluding statement or paragraph which summarises why you want to study your subject.

Aptitude Tests 

I did the HAT so this is skewed towards that, but other tests are similar.

The aptitude tests are stressful but formulaic, so once you’ve worked out the formula and done as many practices as you can, you should be fine. You don’t need to get a high mark, only pass the benchmark to secure an interview, so it won’t be perfect. No one gets full marks; I think the benchmark for the HAT was 60% last year. 

My main advice on the tests is to go to all the sessions on them with your teachers that you can, and if your teachers don’t offer sessions ask them to hold some, or find a former applicant. Do lots of practices, starting not in timed conditions and work up doing them in time. Talk through your completed papers in detail with your teachers. If there are other applicants doing the same test, talk with them — orally write the essay together and bounce ideas off one another. 

Learn how to pull together an argument in a way which will grab the reader’s attention and show that you’re interested and engaged, and that you think outside the box and are different to the other candidates. For example in our HAT, the source was on a 16C woman’s relations with her servants, and I talked about her household as a microcosm of a class stratified and hierarchical society with moral expectations of servitude.

Basically, its an exam paper, treat it as such! 

Interview

The interview is, on the whole, more important than the PS. If you’re lucky enough to get one it means you’ve already done better than most people. I found the experience to be a mix of absolutely terrifying and weirdly enjoyable. 

I had two interviews, one for History and one for Politics, but you can be called to interview at other colleges. I know someone who had six…

The interview is basically like a tutorial will be if you get in, and there are different types (this is a bit humanities specific, sorry). You can get asked about your PS and reference, though this is rare. Extract interviews are common, for my Politics I was given an extract about citizenship. You can also get asked about your submitted work, as I was for History. 

In terms of prep, make sure you’re familiar with your submitted work and PS, as well as all the stuff you say you’ve done in your PS and your reference. You can get asked about any of it. Bring copies of these and your reading notes with you to interview so you’re familiar with them. Also look into some other key concepts of your subject, for example I looked at a lot of historiography, and in the interview talked about the concept of history as teleology and how I disagree with it. I think I was actually asked if I agreed with the Idea of Progress, having read on that a lot I felt equipped to answer it. 

Do as many practice interviews as you can. I got lucky as we had teachers who could do these, and I also did one at my sister’s school. However even if you don’t have that access, ask a friend, parent, teacher, a previous applicant, or even someone online. Even just talking about your subject helps. On the flip side of all this, don’t do so much prep your answers are stale and formulaic, you need to show you’re thinking on your feet. 

Both my interviews were only 20-25 minutes. My Politics interview was really chill, I had an hour reading time before in which I made notes on an extract and basically wrote a script for myself. The questions I was asked were actually given to me in this time so I had lots of material to work with. The man was really nice as well, and I enjoyed the experience. In contrast my History one was a disaster and I felt like I was being interrogated by the two women the whole time, though they were nice.

Don’t be scared if you screw up, in my History interview on my Tudors essay on Tudor parliamentary changes (which I’d been studying only 2 months), my interviewer was an expert on Tudor parliament, writing a book on the subject. This one question about groups of people represented strongly in parliament really threw me, and I went through three answers before I found the right one (lawyers). At another question I blanked for thirty seconds before speaking. I came out in tears and was certain I’d failed, but clearly I did okay…

General advice

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Go chat to that scary teacher who told you your essay was too journalistic and not historical enough and just because you want to be a journalist you can’t write like one in academia (personal experience? me?). Ask them for advice and just talk to them about the subject! 

Leading on to: JUST TALK ABOUT THE SUBJECT. Talking nonstop about History and Politics helped me know my interests inside out and it gave me a way to develop my speaking skills as well as my love for my subject.

Also, read. JSTOR is your bff for academic articles and Niche Stuff here, but you can find plenty of good books at libraries and shops. The A Very Short Introduction series is amazing for this, as they’re all really short and written by Oxbridge academics, I read tons of them. You can even just dip into longer books or collections of articles. 

Keep asking yourself And so? — take your ideas further. This was my History teacher’s advice for essays, but it works for PS, tests, interviews, and general critical thinking. 

For example in the HAT (I’m making up this example, it might have asked you what you could learn about social norms of a time from a source): You could say: The woman bosses her servants around but is subordinate to her husband so we can learn about gender and social roles. Or you could say: The woman commands her servants, yet remains servile to her husband, indicating the prevalence of hierarchical gender and class relations in the society of the time; her role as wife is clearly interlinked with her position as ‘head of the household’, which she is unpaid for. Viewing this through the lens of feminist theory, one can infer that an unequal sexual division of labour exists in this society, and women’s contributions to society are not appreciated, as when the husband ‘dismisses’ his wife. While her command of the servants shows she is elevated by her ‘great wealth’, her subordination to her husband suggests that a woman in this society was unable to further her position as easily as a man could. 

Don’t fret about choosing a college on the form, 1/3 of people (including me) get pooled. 

And finally, don’t set your heart on Oxbridge. They’re by no means the only good universities out there, and they’re not for everyone. If you’re not enjoying the research for the PS, or are finding the aptitude tests unbearable and the interview style uncomfortable, it might not be for you. But if you do decide to apply, good luck!✨