Recent Articles

The moment of truth has arrived: you’ve got your marked essay back and you’re eagerly scanning through it, taking in the amount of red pen, and looking at the grade and hastily scrawled feedback at the end. After deciphering the handwriting, you’re able to see a brief assessment of how you’ve performed in this essay...

If you’re wandering through Oxford on a Sunday afternoon, it’s easy to imagine generations of students walking there before you. Following the narrow twists and turns of Queen’s Lane to New College Lane brings forth a vivid picture of the medieval city, with strong wooden doors, high walls and small windows: you can almost see...

The holidays are here – at last! – and it’s time to have some well-earned rest. Many weeks stretch ahead of you in which you’re free of the tyranny of your normal workload and able to do as you please. There’s just one problem with six or more weeks off from studying though: you start...

The journey of humanity from hunter-gatherers to a species that has the power to shape almost every aspect of its lives and its environment has been marked by great inventions. There are countless inventions that have made humans the world’s dominant species and enabled us to live lives that are different in every way from...

by Emma Bates English, despite not being the most-spoken language in the world by some margin, has become an almost universally accepted lingua franca, and the language of choice for students to learn if they want to get ahead in life. Yet most of the reasons for this don’t have very much to do with...

It’s little wonder that it’s the part of the UCAS form that every student dreads: the personal statement is your chance to explain – in a precious few hundred words – why a university should make you an offer. The pressure is on, and it’s not helped by the fact that there are a few...

Of the top ten universities in the world, all but one are in the USA or UK. Five are in the USA and four are in the UK. For an international student wanting to study in an English-speaking country, there are other options (Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) but by number of places alone ...

If there’s one part of the university application process that most students dread above all others – even more than writing the personal statement – it has to be interviews. Not all universities or courses interview prospective students, but if you’re applying for a selection of top universities, then the chances are you’ll be required...

When you are getting to grips with English, much of your time will be taken up with learning the nitty gritty: grammar and vocabulary. These are clearly fundamental, and it is right that so much of your early focus be dedicated to them; but another important aspect of learning a language that is often neglected...