Hi everyone,
Will appreciate if anyone can share of his/her experience:
(1) What kind of a written work is expected to submit, for someone who does not have any published essay yet? Should it be a paper I've written during my undergrad studies or something else? What are the topics you wrote about?
(2) Does it matter at what time during the application submission period one sends his application (September until January)?
(3) When in January admission closes (I assume it might vary from year to year)?
Thanks in advance!

[Edited by Matthew_S on Jul 24, 2019]

(1) The website explains clearly what is required and expected. Within those confines, it is up to you to decide what to submit. The only thing I would add is that you should put your best foot forward. If you are using something that you have previously written, take the time to try to improve it. Moreover, you do not need to submit a complete work, so consider cutting out purely descriptive elements in order to allow more space for argument/analysis.

(2) No.

(3) The closing date will be posted on the website. The admissions cycle doesn't even start for more than a month so there is no reason to fret about it.

Thank you for your reply.

Another question - the application requirements indicate the graduate degree should be achieved with first class honours. As grading systems differ around the world I was wondering what would be the equivalent for this in numbers. From what I saw, to graduate with first class honours in the UK you need to have a final grade of over 80-85 - that doesn't seem too high. Am I wrong?

And, what is the weight of the grades in comparison to that of work experience when assessing the application? Does anybody have a clue?

Obtaining a First Class degree usually means that you're a top 5% of your class, or better. It's generally very hard to achieve and in the UK the majority graduates with a 2:1 degree.

Re your second question, Oxford values your academic merits only. Unlike the US universities, Oxford is not really interested in your ECs (unless your future degree at Oxford would be very practical, which is quite rare.)

Thanks.
What is considered 2:1 in terms of percentile?
And how does the admission board know whether an int'l student's grade meets the criteria?

A 2:1 degree (B) is between 60% and 70%. It may seem low but this grade is actually considered "very good". 2:1 is the most commonly achieved degree classification and it opens up most of the academic or professional posts in the future.

For international students universities have special conversion tables or use international equivalents of the UK degrees. For example, US students are assessed on their GPA score etc.

[Edited by miki3999 on Sep 06, 2019]