Trinity's Student

Competitive universities and student life

This session focuses on what life is like practically at competitive universities with a particular focus on Oxford. It covers choosing your course, teaching, careers, university societies, accommodation, support and finance.

The application process and how to apply

This session focuses on the application process for competitive universities and how to prepare. It includes specific advice about the Oxbridge application process and how the college system fits into this.

Personal statements and getting started with your applications

This workshop, aimed at students applying to a broad range of universities, focuses more particularly on putting the first draft of a personal statement together, whilst also explaining how and why engaging in and reflecting on super-curricular activity supports a strong application.

What next?

This session gets students thinking about what it’s like to go to university. It highlights the benefits of higher education and asks students to think ahead to subject choices at age 16.

Introduction to HE

This session focuses on what university is like and why people go there. It prompts students to think about career paths, exploring what subjects they enjoy and where these might lead.

These are for students applying for courses/ universities that require an admissions test. This primarily includes those applying to Oxbridge and for Medicine courses. The session explores what these tests are for, what they are testing and how to prepare effectively for them.

These are for students who have applied for Oxford or Cambridge and may be called for an interview. This session focuses on what to expect, what they are for and how to prepare. It’s important for students to understand that Oxbridge interviews are not like normal job interviews, they are essentially an academic conversation. In the interview, students will be stretched and challenged; tutors are interested in how the student thinks in their subject and are less interested in them finding the ‘correct’ answer. We hope that this workshop will provide the information needed for students to feel reassured about this part of the application process. Oxford interviews will be held online this year so this online workshop will give students an insight into what this might be like.

If you are interested in the possibility of delivering any of our skill-building ‘Oxplore’ sessions live, please get in touch. We’d be very happy to explore this with you!

From February 2021, in partnership with academic staff we will deliver subject-specific enrichment sessions which each offer a taste of university learning in a subject, aimed at students in Years 10 to 12. Accessible, digestible and brief, they will take place online to enable students from the NE and Oxfordshire to attend. Each session will include a workshop run by the Access & Outreach team aiming to set out the university context, and encourage further super-curricular investigations by students. 

Following a very successful pilot, we are also looking forward to working more with parents, and would welcome conversations about how we could work with the parent community in your school or college.