University of Oxford UNIQ Summer Schools Classical Archaeology & Ancient History Residential Course

Classes take up three full days in the middle of the week, from Tuesday to Thursday, although UNIQ doesn't publish an hour-by-hour timetable. You arrive on Monday and settle into your college, then spend those days on lectures, tutorials, object-handling sessions and visits to the Ashmolean Museum, with topics running from the world of Homer to the later Roman empire.

Evenings are yours to shape. There are optional social activities with your college group, chances to explore Oxford and other colleges, and time in the common room to ask the undergraduate ambassadors anything. On Friday you join everyone else on your week for a closing mini conference with more advice and guidance, then head home.

Places go to UK state school students in their first year of sixth form who have good grades, and among them UNIQ gives priority to students from backgrounds under-represented at Oxford. You have to meet all four minimum criteria, but everything else is read in context, so UNIQ says the only way to know if you'll get in is to apply.

UNIQ checks what you tell it, including with your school, and can withdraw a place it can't verify.

• School year

  Year 12 in England or Wales, Year 13 in Northern Ireland, S5 in Scotland, or the first year of the IB Diploma. You can't already hold more than one completed A level.

• School

  A UK or Islands state school or college, grammar schools included, or home education. Independent and private schools are excluded even if you attend on a bursary or scholarship.

• Residency and age

  You need settled UK or Islands residence or expected home fee status, and you must be under 18 at the residential, normally 16 or 17, with narrow exceptions for some Northern Ireland students and offset years.

• 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.

• Background

  Care experience is strongly prioritized, and UNIQ also weighs free school meal eligibility and checks your home postcode against the Index of Multiple Deprivation. The extenuating circumstances section is where you explain anything that held your results back.

• Once only

  You can attend UNIQ a single time, and anyone who has been before is disqualified.

1. 1

   Applications open on 15 December 2026 and are made online only, through the UNIQ website.

2. 2

   Submit the finished form by 1 pm on 19 January 2027, because drafts that were never submitted and late applications aren't considered at all.

3. 3

   There's no confirmation email, so make sure you reach the "application submitted" screen.

4. 4

   You nominate a teacher at your school, who is usually contacted only after offers have been sent and accepted.

5. 5

   Decisions arrive by email by early March 2027, and you have one week to accept an offer.

6. 6

   Students with places attend a regional launch event in spring and an online briefing in May or June before the residential in late June or July.

Yes. UNIQ charges no fees to students or schools and pays for your travel, college room, meals and teaching. The travel cover depends on you, though: if you miss UNIQ's deadlines or lose your ticket you may have to buy your own, and fuel for a car journey isn't reimbursed.

Snacks, souvenirs and anything you forget to pack are on you, and UNIQ asks families who are worried about any cost of the trip to get in touch.

Each student gets a single, lockable bedroom in accommodation owned by an Oxford college, which UNIQ assigns and only reveals when you arrive. Every college is run by a Site Manager, one of the senior student ambassadors, and current undergraduate ambassadors live in with you and take you to classes, wearing UNIQ t-shirts so they're easy to spot.

• Bathrooms

  Many college buildings are historic, so you may share a bathroom with a few other participants on a gender-segregated corridor. Ensuite rooms can be on mixed corridors.

• Food

  Every college offers a vegetarian option. Halal, kosher and other religious diets can't be guaranteed because each college runs its own catering, so tell UNIQ your needs once you have a place and it will make other arrangements if needed.

• Faith

  There are chances to pray through the day and a limited number of prayer mats to borrow. Students who are fasting should contact UNIQ, which will ask them to break the fast or go home if their health suffers.

• Access needs

  You don't have to declare a disability when you apply, and UNIQ makes reasonable adjustments once you have a place.