Successful Application To Oxford

Hello everyone,

I am Shivanki Sahay from Biomedicine Tumor Biology Class of 2020. I am extremely humbled and delighted to share that I have been accepted by Oxford University for the MSc Radiation Biology program starting in 2021.

I will be sharing with you all my experience of making a successful application to Oxford University with hopes that it could inspire and help out some of you!

The procedure was rather straightforward and similar to the application procedures for most other universities. I began by visiting the website of Oxford University and navigating through courses of my interest and taking note of the application procedures, requirements and deadlines. This helped me narrow down on MSc Radiation Biology. I have done a fully funded internship at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, where I worked with the Radiation Biology group and so I was very confident of my interest in research in Radiation Biology.

For MSc Radiation Biology, there are two main steps of the application procedure: documents screening, and interview. So you begin by lodging an application together with submission of the required documents and referrals. After this, your application is assessed by the team at Oxford University. Following this stage, if your application is unsuccessful, you will be notified about this and your application procedure ends here. Conversely, if you are successful, you will be called for an interview. Only those applicants who clear the first stage of document screening and are successful in the interview are admitted into MSc Radiation Biology at Oxford University. 

For the first step, I was required to submit documents such as my bachelor’s degree certificates, transcripts, CV, motivation letter and IELTS test result. Application for MSc Radiation Biology also requires 3 academic referrals so I arranged for them accordingly.

Applicants must provide a first-class or strong second-class undergraduate for the MSc Radiation Biology. In my case, I satisfied this grade requirement from both of my undergraduate degrees (I am a double graduate in Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences from i3L and Deakin University, Australia with Distinction). The minimum grade requirement for IELTS was an overall band score of 7.5 out of 9.0. I satisfied this requirement by providing an overall band score of 8.5 out of 9.0. For my motivation letter, I simply followed the requirements and completed it within the required word count of 1,000 words. Sometime after submission of my documents and referrals, I was informed that my application was shortlisted for the interview. I faced a panel of 3 assessors from the department of Radiation Biology, Oxford University for my interview. The interviewers assessed my knowledge of radiation biology, laboratory skills and research skills. I strongly recommend interested students to maintain their calm during the interview and read up on radiation biology. Prior experience in radiation biology provides a huge advantage to your application.

I would like to conclude by reaffirming to interested students to understand the application procedure very well for their course of interest. If you have any more questions regarding admission into Oxford University, please feel free to reach out to me on Shivanki.Sahay@Alumni.i3L.ac.id I will be very happy to help out