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Case Studies and Testimonials

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Premier Service Case Studies

Over the past 25 years. we are proud to have worked with over 100,000 applicants from over 120 different countries; but what exactly does these students' journeys look like? Here we present some example case studies from past Premier Service applicants to give prospective clients a better idea of just what it entails to be part of the OA Premier Service.

Abs: Cambridge AMES (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies)

Read about how Abs, who was originally considering History at Oxford, discovered his love for Arabic and Persian and, through consistent OA mentoring, nurtured his interest into a Cambridge offer-winning application.

Abs came into his initial consultation set on studying History at Oxford. However, through discussion with his consultant, Abs came to realise that his academic interests were more suited to deep dives into more focused topics. His consultant encouraged him to explore two options offered by Cambridge: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) and Anglo- Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNAC).

After his welcome call, Abs’ Study Director Theo set up taster sessions with tutors in History, AMES and ASNAC, so that he could learn a bit more about each subject. While Abs found the History and ASNAC courses interesting, he fell in love with AMES in his taster session and resolved to do a little more research into the languages and cultures offered by the course.

On the recommendation of his AMES tutor Lucille, Abs read books including Frankopan’s ‘The Silk Roads: A New History of the World’, which gave him a taste of the rich history and culture of Asia and the Middle East, deepening his desire to study it. When catching up with Theo over February half term, Abs confirmed his decision to pursue AMES, specifically the Arabic and Persian track.

Abs was re- introduced to Lucille as his long-term AMES mentor. Together, they decided on a regular schedule for sessions, and through these Abs learned more about Arabian and Persian history and culture, memorised the alphabet and began to study major texts.

Over the first half of August, Abs took a break from his mentoring sessions to go on a family holiday. Upon his return, he felt rested and began working on his personal statement, so he spent his next mentoring session brainstorming content to include with Lucille. Together, they identified some of the most impactful supercurriculars that Abs had undertaken, and he began his drafting process.

Once Abs had written a few drafts and worked with Lucille to refine them, he sent his personal statement to Theo, who reviewed it and also shared it with a former admissions tutor to provide final feedback. As his other university course choices were Middle Eastern Studies with Arabic, he did not include much mention of his developing skills in Persian in his statement, so Abs was able to showcase this in his My Cambridge Application form, submitted the week after his UCAS application.

On the Oxbridge Residential Course, Abs had a crash course in interview technique, taking five interviews with different tutors and receiving tips from a former Cambridge admissions tutor. After this course, he was set up to receive more interviews online, with Oxbridge- graduate tutors and former admissions tutors.

Abs went into his Cambridge interviews with his nerves mostly under control. The interviews themselves reminded him with his sessions with Lucille, and he found the conversations equally enjoyable, as the chance to have a discussion with an extremely knowledgeable academic.

In mid-January, Abs received his Cambridge offer, delighted that he would get to study the subject that he loved!

Charlotte joins the Premier Service. She knows she’d like to study Economics at university but is unsure about whether the Oxford or Cambridge course would be a better fit for her. After taster sessions arranged by her Study Director, Tom, she comes to realise how much more mathematically demanding the ‘pure’ economics of the Cambridge course is. Despite, this she resolves to explore this further.

Charlotte is introduced to Arthur, a Cambridge Economics graduate mentor, to begin mentoring sessions. They begin studying regressions and other statistical modelling techniques. Charlotte enjoys the sessions, but it quickly becomes clear that even Higher IB Mathematics hasn’t begun to prepare her for the demands of the Cambridge course.

Charlotte arranges a session with Tom to discuss the situation. The breadth of the IB curriculum means that Charlotte spends a fraction of the lesson time studying maths that her A- Level competitors do. Tom sketches out two pathways: additional, specialist mathematics development and support, or a re-exploration of the Economics & Management course at Oxford.

Charlotte is re-introduced to Soraya, who met her for an Economics & Management taster session in February. After further discussion with Soraya and Tom, Charlotte decides that Economics & Management is likely the better path for her. She begins mentoring sessions with Soraya, but remains with Arthur for focused mathematical development to extend beyond the IB syllabus.

After enjoying some work experience at a management consultancy, Charlotte comes to realise that the breadth of the Oxford course is well-suited to the career path she thinks she might like to pursue. Over the summer, in consultation with Soraya, she begins drafting her IB Extended Essay on the potential mortgage crisis in China.

In August, Tom recommends a national essay competition to Charlotte and suggests she might like to submit a revised version of her Extended Essay to it as the competition brief dovetails neatly with the subject of her existing research. Towards the end of the summer, Charlotte pulls together the first draft of her personal statement. Before term begins, she also sits a full mock ‘TSA’ paper (the entry test for the Oxford E&M course) to get an idea of the structure and timings.

The most intense period of the whole process. Charlotte is juggling schoolwork, the finalisation of her personal statement, and intensive preparation for the TSA with her specialist tutor (the most important part of the whole process). She joins us for the ‘Premier Day’ in London in September and gets to meet other applicants to her course in a group setting.

On October 15th, Charlotte submits her application to Oxford, as well as UCL, KCL, Durham and Bristol. Having been informed that Durham allows her to submit a separate personal statement, she uses this opportunity to apply to their pure economics course and calibrates a version of her main statement that removes the discussion of management.

Later in the month, Charlotte joins us for the Oxbridge Residential Course in Windsor at the end of the month, and has a chance to sit a full, new TSA paper under exam conditions a week before the real thing. A face-to-face review session the following day with a specialist tutor allows her to target the last couple of areas of slight uncertainty about the paper.

Charlotte sits the TSA at her school on November 3rd and comes out feeling confident. As Oxford’s Economics & Management course removes candidates from consideration pre- interview largely on the basis of their TSA score, she understands that this might end up being the single most important exam of her school career. In Mid-November, Charlotte is invited to interview. Knowing that this has already made her one of the top 20% of applicants to the course, and that she has by this point done more than a dozen mock interview sessions, she approaches this confidently.

Charlotte has two interviews with Balliol, the college she initially applied to, and is subsequently invited to another set of interviews at St Catherine’s. Tom reassures her that this is often part of Oxford’s process.

Charlotte receives an offer of a place to study Economics and Management at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and is delighted to begin studying on what is, statistically, the single most competitive undergraduate course in the UK.

Charlotte: Oxford Economics and Management

Learn how Charlotte, with help from her OA mentors, selected the right course for her interests and expertise, ultimately perfecting her application and winning a place on the UK's single most oversubscribed undergraduate course.

Client Testimonials

We welcome our current and former clients to leave reviews on their experience undertaking various Oxbridge Applications packages. We are proud to say that we receive an average of 4.9 stars across our tutor reviews, which pays testament to the dedication, knowledge, and teaching skills of our expert Oxbridge-graduate tutors.

Annabel has been incredibly helpful for me. She continues to push my knowledge of Geography to new heights, encouraging me to interact with academic material in innovative ways, and holds me to the high standards of a Cambridge undergraduate in order to really unlock my potential. Although I thoroughly enjoy the supervision-style meetings, I would also like to have some more interview-style sessions. Instead of explaining the concept of material to me, perhaps Annabel could allow me to read it first and see what conclusions I can reach independently/ from her questions. I am also keen to focus on the application/interview process itself, looking at how I could work new concepts into interviews and my personal statement, and focussing on reading material that tutors would want to see on an application (if academic essays remain the best source for this then I'm happy not to change anything). Overall, I am very happy with my progress and the growing depth and variety of my subject knowledge. I now feel as though I have a much wider academic base to draw from during the interview, and am very grateful for all Annabel's help!

★★★★★

Maddie T.

Ella was extremely helpful during my two mock interviews with her. She challenged me and and the end of each session she took her time in giving me detailed, thorough feedback which was of great help and I was able to apply it to my real interview last Monday. Thank you very much Ella! I really enjoyed our sessions together.

Theo was at the core of helping me throughout my Cambridge application. Although I came to him towards the end of September (quite late,) he aided me with my personal statement, my extra Cambridge statement and my two pieces of written work. He talked me through each piece of advice and change which were of great use. The mock interviews were also extremely helpful as he introduced me to new theories and basic qualitative and quantitative measures which I hadn’t covered in schools. Whenever I emailed him with any queries he would reply almost instantly and he was always kind and compassionate! Thank you so much Theo.

★★★★★

Ellie W.

Robert was incredibly helpful in assisting my composition of my personal statement. He was incredibly encouraging during our tutorial sessions and provided me with helpful constructive criticisms that helped me improve my drafts. He was attentive and gave me insightful feedback for each of the drafts submitted to him, allowing me to perfect my personal statement in the end.
Overall, Robert was a highly helpful tutor for my personal statement and I am glad to have met him.
★★★★★
Henning T.

Owen always answers any questions I have elaborately and I love the discussions we have around different conceptual issues, going into more depth in areas which I find inherently interesting and building knowledge and critical thinking skills.
The way we're going through different concepts and types of history is definitely a great approach and I feel as if I have a much more holistic understanding around the subject.
Also, it's worth adding that during my taster sessions I was definitely most impressed and intrigued by how he described the course, and my general questions regarding the university.
★★★★★
Ioaniss S.

Klara is a great tutor. She is highly engaging and discursive. Her lessons are interesting and relaxed, creating an enjoyable environment. She is always on time and very well organised, sending me notes on the lesson as well as reading material, both in preparation for the next session and for general interest on topics we have discussed. As well as discussing philosophy, she is also a great mentor in general, giving me helpful advice on the whole process and life at university.

In our sessions we have looked at lots of different unseen content over the past few months which has really helped in my actual interview. I have felt a lot more confident and wouldn’t have been able to develop the lateral thinking skills as much just through school. Through these sessions I also gained a deeper understanding on what interviewers are looking for and the extra practice has made me feel much more confident.

★★★★★

Amber H.

Jake puts so much care and planning into making sessions specific to me. He also uses a lot of time out of sessions to derive and devise problems for me. Jake's feedback is also very useful and he is one of the most organised people I have ever met. I couldn't be more grateful to have him supporting my journey.

★★★★★

Sienna B.

My daughter is flabbergasted by Georgia’s strong techniques teaching her how to structure and build her arguments in essay writing ! Hope she will mirror this and will do her justice come her LNAT results ! Thank you Georgia !

★★★★★

Corine G.

I am absolutely enthusiastic about Miruna's sessions. She is knowledgeable, organised and helped me immensily with my application. Regardless of the outcome, I am extremely happy that I decided to ask for help and that I found Miruna as a tutor. All feedback I received was constructive and I have also been given useful insight and instructions on how to practically improve the documents for my application. She has been flexible, she has a positive approach, plus she is lovely to work with. 100% happy.

★★★★★

Beatrice C.

Lucy is an amazing tutor who is always willing to help and offer me honest advice. She is also very passionate and caring, and gave me a lot recommendations of what I can be doing when I’m stuck or confused. I feel very lucky to meet her.

★★★★★

Eva Z.

We love to hear from our clients and parents; if you have any comments or feedback you would like to share, please get in touch with our consultants via email at [email protected] or write us a review on google.com.

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