Admissions
Application Procedure
All applications for the MPhil can be found on the Board of Graduate Studies (BGS) website
Applications should be submitted to the Board of Graduate Studies (BGS), which is the university's central administrative office for graduate students. Applications can be made either on line or in hard copy. The Board of Graduate Studies co-ordinates all admissions, sets the minimum entrance requirements and ensures that an applicant meets any conditions attached to his or her offer. Find information about entrance requirements here, (including entry requirements and competence in English).
Once you have submitted your application, it is possible to track its progress through the BGS website.
The Faculty is asked by BGS to make recommendations on applications for the full time MPhil and PhD (full and part time) but all final decisions on admissions to these routes are made centrally by BGS.
The University Graduate Studies Prospectus is a general graduate prospectus for the university as a whole. It contains a detailed explanation of the admissions process and includes the application pack and useful information about scholarships and colleges.
If you wish to submit any supplementary documentation with your application, such as a curriculum vitae, please enclose this with your application to the Board of Graduate Studies.
Please do not submit any documents directly to the Faculty of Education unless specifically requested to do so.
The Board of Graduate Studies cannot give reasons for not offering admission, nor advise you how to improve your application. However, if you believe that there has been an administrative error, or if you believe you have been treated unfairly because of bias or prejudice, or if there are circumstances unknown to the University that might have affected the decision, you should write to the Secretary of the Board of Graduate Studies within three weeks of obtaining the letter notifying you of the outcome, setting out your reasons. Please note, however, that there is no appeal against the academic judgements made by the University.
Application Deadlines
The Faculty's deadline for applications for the MPhil is 30 June 2008. However, the optimum time for full time applicants to get in applications is between October and March. It is in your interests to apply as soon as possible, some courses fill up quickly. Please note that if you are an overseas applicant you need to ensure that your application is in as early as possible in order to enable you to apply for a student visa if necessary.
Also, please note that applications for funding will have their own deadlines that must be adhered to. As some of these deadlines are very early, you should take care to ensure you submit your application in good time.
Interviews
Once the Faculty has received your application we will contact you via email if we require any further documentation or examples of written work. If you are living in the UK, you will be called for an interview, if you are overseas you will be asked for a sample of written work.
Applicants with Disabilities & Equal Opportunities Policy
The Faculty welcomes applications from students with disabilities or chronic illnesses and treats them on the same academic grounds as those from other candidates. The Faculty is committed to equal opportunities for all. It aims to ensure that no present or prospective student receives less favourable treatment than another on grounds of any condition or status not directly affecting study or work.
Failure to meet conditions and deferring entry
It is not technically possible to defer automatically an offer of a place to the following year within the university. If you fail to meet the conditions of your offer, you will receive a letter from BGS confirming that your offer has been withdrawn. However, if you wish to reapply the following year, you will not need to make a fresh application. You simply need to inform BGS that you wish to reapply. BGS will retain your application materials and will return them to the Faculty for consideration with a new start date. The Faculty will then make a decision on whether to make a new offer for the next academic year. There will be no guarantee that you will receive a new offer as your application will be considered in competition with new applications.
Availability of courses
The Faculty of Education intends to offer all of the courses on the graduate programme as advertised in this prospectus and will make conditional offers on this basis. In the light of unforeseen circumstances where recruitment levels make the course non-viable the Faculty reserves the right to withdraw courses and offers.
The role of the Colleges for Graduate Students
In addition to being admitted to the Faculty of Education every student must also be accepted for admission to a College.
For graduates, the main role of a College is to look after their general welfare, including the provision of accommodation (for full time students), meals and other social amenities. College facilities vary, but typically include a bar, student common rooms (known as Combination Rooms), library, laundry and computing facilities. Sports facilities, such as rowing, rugby, football, cricket, athletics, squash, tennis and badminton, are usually available at little or no cost. You will be assigned a College graduate tutor, whose role is to help you with any problems outside the responsibility of your academic supervisor, such as personal, welfare or finance problems. Graduate tutors have particular experience in dealing with the concerns of home and overseas graduate students.
As a member of a College each student will become part of a community which may have up to 250 graduate students engaged in study and research in a wide range of disciplines. They provide one another with the opportunity for informal discussion and learning. Here are details of all the colleges.
In the case of full time MPhil and PhD (full and part time) students, it is the Board of Graduate Studies and not the Faculty who arrange college places for students. If you have queries relating to colleges, please contact BGS. There is further information on how college places are allocated on its website.