The normal requirements for admission are grades AAA at A Level or equivalent. However, there are occasions when this requirement may be modified. Increasingly we receive applications from students with a wide variety of educational backgrounds; this includes mature students, students who have taken Access courses, overseas students, and those who have some previous knowledge of the language they wish to study, either in the home environment or through residence in a relevant region. The University Admissions Office maintains an up-to-date register of school qualifications in many countries and advice is always available to us when we are assessing applications from abroad.

We judge whether you should be offered a place to study an Oriental subject at Oxford according to the evidence presented to us in your admissions documents: your UCAS form and the written work which you submit, plus our assessment of your potential during your interview. (Some subjects may also set an informal test during the interview.) We would expect successful candidates to demonstrate the following: high academic achievement, great potential for the intended course of study, good work habits, international outlook and strong motivation. Oriental Studies courses require a) a capacity for hard and well-organised work; b) the motivation to tackle languages which in most cases will be radically different from languages learnt previously and c) skills of analysis, argument and description for essay writing on an unfamiliar culture.

Applications for deferred entry are welcomed by Oriental Studies. However, candidates for deferred entry should consult the admissions information on the website(s) of the college(s) to which they are also applying.

These selection criteria relate specifically to candidates applying to Oxford for a first undergraduate degree. Second undergraduate degree candidates are considered on the basis of their submitted application, and are unlikely to be interviewed, except if resident in North America, South East Asia, or the Indian Subcontinent. Entry is very competitive. For more information on second undergraduate degree applications, please see www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/grad/

All undergraduate degrees in Oriental Studies involve the teaching of difficult languages from scratch, since only in exceptional cases will students have studied the languages before coming to Oxford. Our experience has been that an A level in an Oriental language does not give significant advantage to a student, since the Oxford courses involve such a broad range of cultural elements in addition to language study. The progress of language learning from the start of the B.A. course is so intensive that the majority of students beginning from scratch find that they quickly catch up with those who may have some knowledge of the languages from school or family background.

Interviews

Once we have received your application and accompanying written work, and if we have assessed it favourably, you will be called to Oxford for interview in early December. The Faculty acts in liaison with the colleges to organise interviews with subject specialists of the Faculty, in the Oriental Institute or the Institute for Chinese Studies. You will almost certainly be interviewed by one or more of the colleges too. If you are living outside Europe at the time of the interview, it may be possible to make alternative arrangements; in a few such cases a decision may be made without an interview.

Most candidates have no background in the subject they wish to study. Therefore one of the important functions of the interview is to ensure that you have a full understanding of what the course involves, the skills you will be required to develop, and the way in which the course is taught. However intelligent you may be, we still need to make sure that this is the course for you. As well as your general ability and motivation, we will also be interested in gauging your potential for learning one or more difficult Oriental languages. The interview is thus one part of an extensive process which enables the various subject representatives to make informed assessments of students from a wide range of backgrounds.

The following links and downloads will help you with your application.

• University Undergraduate Admission Homepage
• Download University Undergraduate Prospectus