From the Mongols to neuroscience, translating children’s fiction into French and getting to the heart of cardiac disease, the College held a series of taster academic sessions on Saturday to introduce prospective applicants to life at Oxford.
Somerville hosted around 100 state school pupils for the Study Day, which is intended to give Year 12 students a flavour of university life and encourage them to consider an application to Oxford or another highly selective university.
As well as the academic sessions, the pupils also got the chance to ask questions of current undergraduates. As well as asking several questions about the Oxbridge interview process, the teenagers were keen to know what else there was to do at Somerville besides study, and a few asked about Oxford’s nightlife too.
The unexpectedly sunny weather was perfect for tours led by current undergraduates of both the college and the main university. This gave the teenagers a better sense of where the teaching takes place, and was also an opportunity to see what else university life involves.
If students from these or other state schools do end up making Somerville their first choice of college when applying to Oxford, Somerville will send them an invitation to Demystifying Oxford, a day involving demonstration mock interviews to ‘demystify’ this central part of the admissions process. Our first Demystifying Oxford day took place in November 2018 and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Somerville’s Study Days are advertised by email every year to the state schools in our link regions of Buckinghamshire, Hounslow, Kingston-upon-Thames and the Forest of Dean. If you are a student or teacher at a state school in one of these regions, please do get in touch with us at access@some.ox.ac.uk so that we can keep you informed about all the opportunities we offer.
An Open Day at Somerville