University of Oxford UNIQ Summer Schools Chemistry Residential Course

You arrive on Monday, spend Tuesday to Thursday on chemistry and leave on Friday after a mini conference with everyone else on your UNIQ week. In 2026 the Department of Chemistry taught its sessions from 14 to 16 July.

The lectures cover topics from across the degree, and afterwards you join small-group tutorials in physical, inorganic and organic chemistry. These build on work you do before arriving and involve group discussion and problem-solving that goes beyond the school curriculum. Practical sessions with the Chemistry Teaching Laboratory team teach new lab skills, and an Ashmolean Guided Trail looks at how chemistry helps explain heritage through museum artifacts. UNIQ pitches the material at first-year Oxford undergraduate level, with academic and graduate teaching staff and student ambassadors on hand to help.

Evenings are for optional social activities, exploring Oxford and other colleges, or relaxing in the common room and quizzing your ambassadors.

For this course you have to be studying Mathematics and Chemistry at A level or an equivalent. Further Mathematics, Physics or Biology help, but they aren't required. 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 in Scotland, and it says its grade bar may be lower than you'd expect. You also need to be under 18 at the time of the residential, with two exceptions UNIQ sets out for some Northern Ireland students and for students in an offset year.

Beyond grades, UNIQ prioritizes students from backgrounds that are under-represented at Oxford. Care experience is strongly prioritized, and UNIQ also considers free school meals (now or in the past) and may check your home postcode against the Index of Multiple Deprivation, a UK measure of how deprived an area is. The form has a section for extenuating circumstances that affected your results. UNIQ verifies what you tell it, for example with your school, and it can withdraw a place it can't verify. Every application submitted by the deadline counts equally, so there's no benefit in rushing.

You choose a first and second course. If both are full, UNIQ may put you on a reserve list. You can't apply if you've already been on UNIQ or already have more than one completed A level. Home-educated students can apply with a referee for their GCSEs.

Yes. UNIQ charges you and your school nothing, and it covers travel, accommodation, meals, staffing and tuition. There are a few catches, though. If you miss UNIQ's travel deadlines or lose your ticket, you may have to pay for your own travel, and fuel isn't reimbursed if someone drives you. Snacks, souvenirs and anything you forget to pack are your own cost, and UNIQ asks families to get in touch if any expense is a worry.

You get a single, lockable bedroom in an Oxford college that UNIQ assigns, and you only find out which college when you arrive. Many college buildings are historic, so you may share a bathroom with a few other participants on a gender-segregated corridor. Students with ensuite rooms may be on mixed corridors.

Each college is run for the week by a Site Manager, a senior student ambassador who organizes drop-ins, tours and evening activities. Ambassadors are current Oxford undergraduates who take you to sessions and stay in college with you.

Every college serves a vegetarian option, but UNIQ can't guarantee halal, kosher or other religious diets because each college runs its own catering. Tell UNIQ about dietary, fasting, accommodation or access needs once you're offered a place.

Applications go through the UNIQ website only, and the form needs JavaScript, so a locked-down school laptop may not work.

1. 1

   The form opens on 15 December 2026, and UNIQ plans to confirm which week each subject runs by then.

2. 2

   Choose a first and second course, add your GCSE results and background details, and nominate a teacher at your school.

3. 3

   Submit the fully completed form by 13:00 on 19 January 2027. No confirmation email is sent, so make sure you reach the application submitted screen.

4. 4

   Watch your email for a decision by early March 2027, and accept an offer within one week.

5. 5

   If you get a place, you'll attend a spring regional launch event and an online briefing in May or June before the residential in late June or July 2027.

You come away with a firsthand sense of how Oxford teaches chemistry, along with practical skills and techniques UNIQ says you can use in your A-level studies. From August to December, UNIQ also offers online support at each stage of an Oxford application, covering UCAS, admissions tests and interviews.

It won't help your application directly, though. UNIQ states that participants who later apply to Oxford get no preferential treatment, so the benefit is in being better prepared, not in the decision itself.