Oxford funding: I got in, now what?

[Alterman]

Hi everyone,

 

Is anyone familiar with the British system, and Oxford in particular?

I recently found out I got accepted to the Anthropology Department at Oxford and I'm wondering what to do about funding. 

• How is the process organized? Do I wait until I get an email from the department/university saying "you will be receiving X number of scholarships for the total sum of Y..." Or is it all done individually? 
• I know many colleges offer scholarships. I didn't pick a college but left it open for their decision. Should I apply for colleges' scholarships or should I wait until I'm placed in one college and then apply only to those scholarships which are relevant?
• The acceptance letter mentions that- 'Wherever possible, the University tries to link scholarships with additional funds from a specific college, in order to maximise the total number of scholarships awarded'. What exactly does that mean?

Thanks!

 

 

 

[moderatedbliss]

Hey, I've been waiting to hear back from Oxford, and I've been admitted to a number of different UK universities... I'll try to help where I can. 

From what I've seen on the results page, specific departments were told that funding information would come on a later date. For the Clarendon they automatically consider you, I would check back on the Clarendon page frequently. Did you apply for the Ertegun? I saw that somebody was already notified for an Ertegun interview, so they may already be in the process of notifying people. 
I was admitted to Cambridge, and thy said that funding decisions would be made by the end of April, and if I didn't hear back before then, I would assume that my application was unsuccessful. 
Sorry if that wasn't very helpful, I suppose it seems like it's department specific. 

As for your second question, I'm really not sure. I guess it relates to my answer for your third question.

As for the third part: Let's say you opted for College A, but they found you were eligible for a scholarship in College B, this would mean that they would override your decision for College A in order to give you funding associated with College B, unless you specifically designated that you didn't want them to do that on your app. As you left it blank, I would imagine you'll get matched with any possible funding they would have for you. 

Sorry I couldn't be more specific! 

[Alterman]

Thanks!

It was most helpful. So the acceptance letter is just a foot in the door...

 

Let's hope for some good news in the following weeks.

[InGaussweTrust]

As we all wait impatiently to hear word about Oxford funding, I thought it might be helpful to share.

 

I was accepted last week to the Mphil Econ program. I got a personalized email of acceptance but a vague "you'll receive a separate email about funding". A day went by and then I got another email from the dept saying they were going to nominate me for a Clarendon and ESRC, but needed a research proposal within 24 hours for the submission deadline. My guess is this: the mphil application didn't require a research proposal, whereas ESRC/Clarendons are usually given out for promising researchers, and thus require some kind of proposal for consideration (so it can be easily stacked up against Dphil candidates which make up most of the awards).

 

My word is NOT to be taken as law, but my guess would be that if you applied for an mphil, *didn't* submit a research proposal with your application, and were not contacted by now to submit one---the likelihood that it will come through is slim.

 

Please don't take this to sound too grim however...there are plenty of other funding sources, both from the University and colleges, and I've read that some students have waited as long as MAY to hear back about college placement (ugh). The annoyance with the Oxford system is that they won't just send you a standard "we are unable to offer you anything"...you only get contacted for positive news, which makes decisions very difficult (esp for us US students, who have to make decisions by april, before all the Clarendons are even awarded).

 

If anyone else has information they have gathered via contact with a dept or the university, please share. Even if it isn't all that helpful, it gives us something better to do than hit "refresh" on the clarendon website obsessively.