Wadham’s Summer Schools

Date Published: 28.03.2023

An Academic Success Story

Summer School students in 2022

We are delighted that 11 of the 32 of the participants in our 2022 academic summer schools received offers to study for undergraduate degrees at Oxford University. Applications are now open for the 2023 summer schools and we look forward to welcoming the next cohort to Wadham.

Our 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. The week-long programme is intended to replicate the structure of a typical academic week as closely as possible.

Applications for the 2023 summer schools are open until 5 May 2023. They are free to attend and accommodation and meals are provided by the College. We also cover all pupils’ travel costs. Find out more about the 2023 Summer Schools.

Our academic summer schools programme began in 2013 with a pilot Classics week. Since then we have added summer schools in Biology/Human Sciences and, in 2021, Modern Languages. Wadham has also funded the expansion of the University’s UNIQ summer school in Engineering for many years.

We could not run our summer schools without our student ambassadors, many of whom came to Wadham through the University’s outreach programmes. The support from our alumni has been invaluable too in enabling us to expand our work with schools. Many of the summer school activities take place in the Locke Access Centre, the first dedicated Access Centre in Oxford, named after our alumnus, Alasdair Locke. With the support of our alumni and friends, we hope to add more subject courses to our summer schools programme in the future.

The feedback from last year’s Summer Schools was hugely positive and the number of summer school students applying for and receiving offers increases each year. We are very proud of all the summer school participants, including those who we will see back at Oxford as undergraduates. You can learn more here about the summer school experience from attendees and our student ambassadors.

‘It’s been an amazing week and you learn so much in such a short timeframe, it’s actually remarkable.’

Patrick, Summer School student, 2022