Summer School Students' Success

Wadham runs Summer Schools for Year 12 students in UK state schools or sixth form colleges each August. We have been proud to see the number of attendees applying for and receiving offers increase each year. This year, we received glowing feedback from the pupils about their experience and looked forward to hearing about their next steps.

We are delighted that more than three quarters of the attendees applied to Oxford University. Of the 49 participants in the Summer Schools, 39 applied to Oxford, and 23 (or 59%) received an offer to study here, 47% of the whole group. We are very proud of all the Summer School participants, including those we hope to see again at Wadham as undergraduates.

Wadham offers the most extensive summer school programme of any Oxford college, thanks to the generous support of our donors and alumni. Our academic summer schools programme began in 2013 with a pilot Classics week. A decade later in 2023, for the first time, we added a new summer school on Climate Change thanks to the support of our alumnus, John Howie (Botany, 1990). The Climate Change school ran alongside our established summer schools in Classics and on Modern Languages, which is funded by Foundation Fellow John McCall MacBain (Jurisprudence, 1980) and the McCall McBain Foundation. Many of the summer school activities take place in the Locke Access Centre, the first dedicated Access Centre in Oxford, named after Foundation Fellow, Alasdair Locke (Modern History and Economics, 1971).

These residential summer schools give Year 12 pupils in the UK a taste of what it’s like to be an undergraduate studying at Oxford. The groups experience an academically-rigorous programme of lectures, classes, and tutorials. They live in College, meet student ambassadors who are studying at Oxford, and receive information, advice and guidance on applying to university. The summer schools are designed for students from groups that are historically under-represented at Oxford. We could not run our summer schools without our student ambassadors, many of whom came to Wadham through the University’s outreach programmes. Applications for the 2024 Summer Schools will open in mid-February and further information will be added to our website soon.

The summer schools are part of the Access to Excellence programme, which aims to support every step of the educational journey – from pre-16 outreach to increased support for our students and graduates. With the support of our donors, Wadham is breaking new ground with our access programme, raising aspirations, and attracting talent through summer schools, school visits, and online support. Find out more about how you can support our extensive access work.