University of Oxford UNIQ Summer Schools Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Residential Course

You have to meet all four of UNIQ's minimum rules on school, year, age and residency, and beyond those UNIQ favors good grades and backgrounds that are underrepresented at Oxford. It works with over a thousand students a year across all its subjects but doesn't say how many places this course has or how many people apply for it.

• School and year

  You must be at a UK or Islands state school or college (grammar schools count) in your first year of further education, which means Year 12 in England or Wales, Year 13 in Northern Ireland, S5 in Scotland or the first year of the IB Diploma. Home-educated students can apply too.

• Residency and age

  You need to expect home fee status when you apply to university, and you must be under 18 at the residential, normally 16 or 17. The exceptions are narrow and allow some Northern Ireland students, and students in an offset year because of serious extenuating circumstances, to be 18.

• Grades

  UNIQ normally expects at least six GCSEs with one or more at grade 7 or A, or six National 5s with at least one A. You can't apply if you already hold more than one completed A level or have been on UNIQ before.

• Background

  Care experience is strongly prioritized, and UNIQ also takes into account whether you've ever had free school meals and your wider socioeconomic background, for example by checking your home postcode against a deprivation index.

• For this course

  A language at A level, Advanced Higher, IB Higher Level or an equivalent can help, although UNIQ doesn't require one.

UNIQ doesn't publish class times, but the week follows a fixed pattern. You arrive on Monday and the faculty teaches you on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. At the end of the week, a mini conference brings together everyone on UNIQ that week before you head home on Friday.

The teaching days mix language classes with close work on texts, including poetry, folk tales, liturgies, hymns, legal documents and letters, which the faculty uses to open up topics from social structure and economy to religion and ideologies. Some of it comes as interactive talks and study sessions and some as traditional lectures, and the course now also looks at the faculty's links with historically marginalized communities.

Evenings are more relaxed, with optional social activities with your college group, tours of Oxford and other colleges, and time in the common room with current Oxford students.

Yes. The course costs nothing for you or your school, and UNIQ pays for your travel to and from Oxford, your college room, your meals and the teaching.

The only costs that can fall on you are small ones. If you miss UNIQ's travel deadlines or lose your ticket, you may have to buy your own, and if you come by car, UNIQ doesn't refund fuel. Snacks, souvenirs and anything you forget to pack are on you, and UNIQ asks families who are worried about paying for anything during the visit to get in touch.

Current Oxford undergraduates, called ambassadors, take you to your lectures and seminars and stay with you in college, and each college is run for the week by a Site Manager, a senior ambassador responsible for making it a welcoming place. UNIQ assigns your college, and you only find out which one when you arrive.

You get your own lockable bedroom. Some rooms are ensuite, but many college bathrooms are shared with a few other participants on gender-segregated corridors.

Every college offers a vegetarian option at meals. Halal, kosher and other religious diets can't be guaranteed because each college runs its own catering, so tell UNIQ about your needs as soon as you're offered a place, and it will make other arrangements if the college can't provide something suitable. There are chances to pray during the day, and UNIQ asks anyone who'll be fasting to get in touch beforehand.

UNIQ takes applications only online through its own website, and every complete application that arrives before the deadline is considered equally, so there's nothing to gain by rushing on the first day.

1. 1

   From 15 December 2026, fill in the online application, choosing a subject that runs in a week you can attend in full, because UNIQ can't change your subject once places are allocated.

2. 2

   Add your GCSE or National 5 grades, nominate a teacher at your school, and use the extenuating circumstances section to tell UNIQ about anything that affected your results.

3. 3

   Submit the finished form by 13:00 on 19 January 2027, because UNIQ won't consider an application that was started but never submitted, and it takes no late applications.

4. 4

   Watch your email for UNIQ's decision by early March 2027, and if you're offered a place, accept it within one week.