About the Economics and Management course
It’s important to understand what the course entails. You are contemplating spending a significant investment in time and money to take this course, so you should be well-informed about what you will learn. Furthermore, doing your research into these modules can help your application stand out as well-researched. Many applicants rush into economics and management degree as they see it as a stepping stone to a prestigious career through the most competitive course at a reputable university. It’s true, but you want to show that you know well what you are signing up for.
For the first year, you will take General Management, Financial Management and Economics. This gives you a good grounding in these domains before you go into your specialisations. I would recommend taking a look at the reading lists for both management as well as economics.
In second and third year, you will have to take at least two economics and two management courses, out of a total eight papers.
- Economics of Industry
- Money and Banking
- Development Economics
- Game Theory
- Econometrics
- Strategic Management
- AI in Management
- Climate Leadership
- Finance
- Organisational Behaviour and Analysis
- Marketing
- Technology and Operations Management
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- Accounting
- Thesis – this will replace one of your papers.
Preparation before the admissions process begins
You can certainly prepare for the admissions process before the application season starts. Ideally, you should begin in March of the year you plan to apply.
I suggest you spend some time to choose your college in advance too: I always recommend selecting a specific college rather than submitting an open application. It was very motivating to crystalise what life would be like in my dream college – strolling around a deer park and going for punts – which allowed me to keep up the application grind. However, you don’t have to do so, since you can submit an open application.
The Personal Statement
Try and give yourself more time to craft this. You should be collating relevant experiences (both those in the past, and starting as soon as you can) and reading books. These will form the bedrock of your content for the personal statement.
Try to give yourself about two months for the personal statement. It seems a little excessive but 1) You’ll probably write better without the stress of an impending deadline and 2) You should never underestimate the time it takes for others to help you to review your personal statement.
Back when I applied, the personal statement was just a free-flowing essay that you submitted. However, UCAS has made a change since, where you are given three questions to answer (with a combined 4,000 character limit across the three questions):
- Why do you want to study this course or subject?
- How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?
- What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?
It’s a great change, since the recommended personal statements were always these three distinct sections anyway. Still, I think the framing of how you write this remains the same: You want to demonstrate 1) Strong work ethic 2) Academic curiosity 3) high career trajectory and a go-getter and 4) a few words to show that you are a decent human being.
As a rough guide, you might aim to spend about 40% of your characters on why you want to study the subject, 20% on your studies, and 40% on what you’ve done outside formal education
Why do you want to study this course or subject?
This is your way of highlighting your own personal conviction that this course is the right one for you. You will probably be applying to other economics/management courses at other universities, so do not be afraid to cover just one of these subjects in your statement. Otherwise, you may compromise the chances of admission at other institutions. Anecdotally, this does not hurt your chances at Oxford E&M.
Remember, the people reading and evaluating your statement are selecting for students that they will later teach. Most tutors want students who are eager to learn learn and will be engaged in small group tutorials. They want to teach people who are motivated to ask questions and dig deep into the subject.
You should hence highlight why the subject interests you from an academic perspective. Personally, I wanted to dig deeper into the economic lens, which I found helpful in understanding policies like taxes. I also wanted to understand how organisations mobilise
How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?
Add in academic theory here as well as academic achievement. Here, you want to convey that you have a solid base for studies. In addition, you can also demonstrate that you have the aptitude and attitude to thrive in intensive studies. If you have taken economics or mathematics at A-levels, highlight these. You should frame your studies as a stepping stone. It is also helpful to describe how you engaged positively with the subject with your teacher, since this is a reflection of your potential future engagement at Oxford. Mathematics is worth bringing up because economics at the university level does draw heavily on calculus.
This is the section I would spend the least amount of characters on, since a large number of applicants would likely have the same experience and it’s hard to portray yourself as exceptional. However, if you do have some advanced qualification, do spell it out. This might include H3 economics if you are from Singapore, or if you have participated in subject-based Olympiads.
What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?
In this part of the PS, you would ideally want to be showing that you have an interest in higher-level topics.
Perhaps you are reading on material outside of your curriculum. For instance, Keynesian vs Austrian economics, or the resource-based view vs strategic positioning. Look for the Oxford reading list, that should be a helpful gauge, then pop down to your library. Common books are Doughnut Economics (Raworth, 2017), Zombie Economics (Quiggin, 2010), and End This Depression Now! (Krugman, 2012). If you have read anything from the reading lists, you can state them here.
It is far more important to show that you have understood and done some level of synthesis rather than listing the titles of books. For instance, you could contrast different economic theories – why does this reputed economist say X, but the other credible economist say Y? Have you observed such economic phenomena occurring in the news? How does reality challenge what you were taught in school?
Another avenue lie in any entrepreneurial pursuits or participation in organisations aside from the formal curriculum. Perhaps reflect on the times you might have organised events for the school, or handled money for a project. Have you learnt anything about how organisations function, or the role of incentives in the behaviour of consumers?
This section showcases your proactivity in learning – that you are not reliant on being spoon-fed information by the education system. There is much more room here to show that you are different from the other applicants.
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ChatGPT can be instrumental here for doing spell/grammar check, though I would always advocate for building it out completely to the extent that you cannot easily spot any improvements when you look at your statement. Building it from the ground-up with ChatGPT has in my experience tended to hem in my imagination.
Academic Reference
No tips here, hopefully your teachers have a decent impression of you. This will be added by your referee without you taking a peek.
Test-taking
What used to be the TSA is now replaced by the Test of Academic Reasoning (TARA) exam. That said, the advice remains similar.
Practice, practice, practice! Materials can be found here. Work through past papers under timed conditions and review your reasoning for each question.
You have 10 years of TSA to work with, as well as a specimen paper. You may do very well in school, but the TSA is something that is quite unique in its logic testing. After all, it is meant to measure a candidate’s intellectual horsepower, not the amount of time spent studying. Still, you would do well to leverage on past papers in order to be familiar with the format and get an edge to score higher than your peers.
The Interview
As an international student, you can opt for an online interview. I personally did it online, which I credit for helping me to maintain my nerves during the interview – it doesn’t feel as intimidating when I speak to a screen.
The interviewer may refer to your personal statement, so do brush up on any theories you may have mentioned. In addition, they may test you on basic mathematical concepts, such as graph drawing. They may also guide you on developing insights in new areas, such as game theory.
All the best for your admissions! Always remember that Oxford is a bit of a moonshot for most people, and that while you should always shoot every shot, missing the shot doesn’t make you any less worthy than any other candidate.