Information for Current Offer-Holders 2025

Most students will move into their accommodation on Monday 6th of October. However, for international students there is a bit of wiggle room. If you wish to arrive on the weekend of the 4th/5th October, please contact our  accommodation manager Nicky Charles (nicky.charles@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk) who will look at arranging this for you.

All first years are guaranteed College accommodation. You do not need to apply for a room for your first year. Students do not share rooms; each student has a room to themselves. For more details about accommodation, please visit our undergraduate accommodation webpage. For more information about St Hilda's and living here, please visit our dedicated webpages about living in College that cover topics from food and drink to health and welfare.

If you would like to bring electrical equipment, please read page 41 of the Student Handbook which details what equipment is allowed and not allowed in bedrooms due to fire safety regulations. (Please note this is the 2024 entry Student Handbook; this will be updated to the 2025 entry Handbook in due course. We are not expecting significant changes).

Your offer letter may include the following:

Since you have already met part or all of these conditions, you must provide original certificates or legally certified copies to the College by 1 April for any requirements already met.

This may be because you have completed all of the qualifications outlined in the offer, or just some of them. For example you may have taken an A-level in Year 12, but are taking more in Year 13. In this case we would need to see evidence of the completed qualification. This also commonly applies to students taking American APs. If you need to provide us with evidence of your exam results, please read the following guidance carefully.

This section also applies to those of you sitting qualifications other than A Levels, the summer sitting of the IB, and Scottish Highers; who achieve their results between offer letters going out in January and A Level results day in mid-August.

At St Hilda's, we ask that you submit certified copies, not original certificates. Your school or teacher can legally certify a copy of your certificate. To do this, the copy of your certificate must be:

• in colour (black and white will not be accepted), and
• signed with the phrase "I verify that this is a true copy of the original" by your school exam office, UCAS referee, or teacher, and
• dated by your school exam office, UCAS referee, or teacher, and
• stamped by your school exam office, UCAS referee, or teacher with your school's official stamp

Once this has been done, please ask your school or teacher to email us the certified copies from their work email address with you (the offer-holder) copied into the email (i.e. you must also be sent the email at the same time as it is sent to us. You can be included in the 'to' field OR the 'cc' field.). Emails that do not have offer-holders copied in will not be accepted. Legally certified copies sent from private email addresses (e.g. from a gmail, hotmail, yahoo account) will not be accepted.

If it is not possible for your school or college to certify your certificates, please follow the UK Government's guidance on how to certify a document. Certificates that have not been certified will not be accepted.

If your certificate is not in English, you will need to provide a translation of the certificate(s) into English which is either:

• issued and stamped by the institution that issued your transcript, or
• translated by a professional translator and visibly certified – ie signed and stamped – by the professional translator or an authorised notary.

If you are taking American qualifications such as APs, please see the section on this page titled 'College Board'.

If you have questions about certifying your certificates, please contact us by email.

If you have taken SATs or AP tests, please send your results via CollegeBoard to the University of Oxford. The University will then distribute this to us. Please also tell us that you've done this.

In August, once we have the results of all candidates, we will email you confirming whether you have fulfilled the conditions of your offer or not. This usually happens the same day that the UK A-level results are released. More information about confirmation can be found here.

Each year, UCAS and universities and colleges are given early access to results under strict embargo arrangements with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). An embargo period covers the defined period of time where early access to embargoed examination results is given. This allows universities and colleges to prepare and make decisions by the official publication dates of exam results in August. During the embargo periods universities and colleges cannot discuss an applicant’s individual status with them, or their schools. The main embargo period normally lasts about a week and ends on A-level results day.  There is an earlier embargo period around the release of Scottish qualifications. If you contact us during these periods, we will not be able to reply to you. Both of these embargoes apply to all offer-holders, even those who already have their exam results.  This year's dates are:

18:00 on Monday 28 July until 09:00 on Tuesday 5 August
08:00 on Friday 8 August until 08:00 on Thursday 14 August

If you are a post-qualification offer-holder (i.e. you completed all relevant qualifications before you applied and already have the certificates/results), we will process your documents after the April deadline; if there are any problems, we will contact you. You will not receive an "official" email confirmation from us until August, as described above. However, your UCAS page will update soon after your documents have been processed. You will need to confirm your offer from Oxford as your Firm choice on UCAS before we can process your documents, and this can only happen once you have received notifications from all the other institutions you applied to.

If you are an open offer holder, this is when we will confirm which college you will be going to.

If you are an offer-holder, who has missed the grades outlined in the conditional offer, we will email you on the morning of A Level results day with information on the outcome of your application. Please bear with us - it normally takes a good hour or more after the embargo ends to get all of the emails out to all of our offer holders. Phoning us during this period will only slow things down.

Oxford's year is divided into three terms and three vacations. The three terms are:

• Michaelmas Term (October - December)
• Hilary Term (January - March)
• Trinity Term (April - June)

The dates for each term can be found here. Within each term, a "Full Term" of eight weeks is the main teaching period. New students are required to arrive for Michaelmas Term by the Monday before Full Term. More details about arriving at College will be sent to you nearer the time.

Below is a quick reference of the upcoming deadlines (not all deadlines apply to every offer-holder):

Timeline for Undergraduate Offer Holders

Task	Deadline
For post-qualification offer holders, send certificates to the Undergraduate Admissions Office	1 April
You may receive a Criminal Declaration form from the Undergraduate Admissions Office - one of the University's central teams.	End of March normally; see instructions on email.
Reply to your offer on UCAS	4 June for most students
Financial Declaration Form completed and returned	30 June
Receive your reading list	By the end of June
English language qualifications completed and certificates sent to the Undergraduate Admissions Office	31 July
All qualifications completed	Mid-August (when A-level results are released)
Visas - we will contact offer-holders requiring a visa	Mid-August (shortly after A-level results are released)

If you decide that you do not wish to take up your place at St Hilda's College, please email us once you have declined your place on UCAS.

If you have been offered a place to study at St Hilda's College, the course and start date cannot be changed, unless there are serious exceptional circumstances. If you wish to discuss this further, please email us.

If you have a disability that you have not already disclosed on your UCAS application, or during the admissions process, please let us know. Whether you have disclosed your disability on UCAS or not, please let us know if there are any special arrangements or support that would help you, so that we can make any appropriate, reasonable arrangements for you in good time for your arrival. Mentioning your disability or Specific Learning Difficulty will not affect your application, as admissions decisions are made solely on the grounds of academic merit. Please contact Bekcy Unwin: rebekah.unwin@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

If you are taking A-levels, our offer will be for 3 A-levels. If you are taking 4 A-levels or an EPQ and would like to drop a subject after receiving an offer from us, the College will not give you direct advice about this. We highly recommend that you discuss this further with your teachers/school as they will be able to advise you and they will also know about the other offers you have received. For offers here at St Hilda’s, it is your decision how to fulfil the requirements of your offer (including the English language requirements) but you must achieve the requirements of your offer to gain a place here.

If you decide to drop a subject, please email us.

If you have a school email address registered on UCAS, we ask that you change this to a personal one as your school email address will stop working after you have sat your exams and we will not be able to contact you. First, change your email address on UCAS. When you update it on UAS it's best to replace the old email address, rather than adding an extra one. Then please also email us from your old account to confirm this change. Please copy in your new email address into the email. It is helpful if you can include your UCAS number when you contact us.

 

You may find that your offer letter states:

You are also required to meet the English language requirement as detailed online by 31 July.

Some offer-holders may be considered for an exemption from sitting the English Language requirement. Exemptions from this English Language requirement will be considered for those who:

• are studying (or have completed) the International Baccalaureate programme, if it is taught in English or  the Singapore Integrated Programme (SIPCAL)
• have been educated full-time in English for at least the two most recent years before applying and who remain in full-time education in this language until completion of their schooling. This means that a minimum of three years of your most recent education must have been in English before the start of your Oxford course

Please note, this is for consideration only and is not automatic. If you think you might be exempt from these requirements, please read the guidance and then fill out the waiver form and email it to us.

If you have taken IELTS, TOEFL, or Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English (CAE), please send a PDF certificate of these directly to us via email. It's helpful if file name is in the format LASTNAME Firstname - QUALIFICATION ACRONYM.   All other certificates will need to be legally certified copies.

If you have problems fulfilling this requirement or if you have any questions, please email us well before the deadline.

Please note, we do not provide feedback to successful candidates. However, if you would like to find out more about how test scores are released, and a summary of the admissions round for your subject, please see our feedback page.

Course fees must be taken into consideration by all candidates, as well as the living costs of going to University. You can find the Undergraduate Fees and Funding Guide 2025 entry here. All offer-holders should read this document very carefully.

If you are interested in undergraduate scholarships, please make sure you visit the Oxford bursaries and scholarships for 2025 entry webpage for more information, including closing dates and eligibility criteria. You may also find the Fees, Funding and Scholarship Search helpful.

Oxford offers one of the most generous financial support packages available for UK students, providing around £8 million of financial support to undergraduates from lower-income households. Around 1 in 4 UK students currently receives an annual, non-repayable bursary from Oxford. If you are UK student, you may be eligible for a non-repayable bursary.

For 2025-entry, UK resident students commencing their first undergraduate degree with a household income of £32,500 or less will be invited to become Crankstart Scholars. This not only provides enhanced funding but other opportunities such as volunteering and summer internships. You do not need to apply to the Crankstart Scholarship.  From mid-September, all students who have been resident in the UK for a period of at least three years (not for the purposes of education), commencing their first undergraduate degree and with a household income of £32,500 or less will be offered a Crankstart Scholarship. The household income assessment used will be that carried out by your regional funding agency, eg Student Finance England.

The following undergraduate scholarships are available; for further information, please click on the scholarship name below to be taken to the relevant page of the website.

• Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Scholarship
• Palgrave Brown Scholarship (non-UK)
• Palgrave Brown Scholarship (UK)
• Reach Oxford Scholarship
• Hill Foundation Scholarship
• Bright Oceans

Candidates can apply for the undergraduate scholarships listed above using the registration form, providing they are eligible.  Applicants who wish to be considered for more than one of the above scholarships only need to submit one form to be considered and do not need to submit separate applications for each scholarship.  The deadline of Wednesday 12th February 2025 at 12 noon (UK time) to submit applications has now closed.

There is also information available on ideas for external scholarship opportunities.  There are some further St Hilda's-specific funding opportunities, but these are mostly applied for once you are on course.

See also the Financial Declaration Form section below.

By the end of March, we will email all offer-holders a Financial Declaration Form (FDF). This form asks you for details on how your studies will be funded and must be returned to us by 30 June. Detailed instructions will be sent along with the form.  Please make sure you complete all of the questions: note there are tick boxes at the top of page 3 that are often missed. It must be returned as a PDF; not a photo or screen shot, with the file titled unchanged.

Mid-April Update: We have now sent FDF forms to all St Hilda's offer-holders. Please do check your spam folder if you haven't received it.

If you are applying for a loan via the Student Loans Company (SLC) or other funding sources, the application process can take a while, so please start the application process as soon as possible. Once you have received confirmation from the SLC, please email us with your completed FDF and your two SLC documents. One is a letter and the other one is normally titled 'University or College Payment Advice.' If you can't find the document, and you are with Student Finance England, try logging in using a desktop computer, and under the ‘Your inbox’ tab, look for something titled 'Online Notification of Entitlement Letter'. You can send photos or scans of the documents, but they should be submitted as a PDF. Don't forget to send both the front and back. (If the FDF deadline is imminent, but you haven't yet received the documents from the Student Loan Company, please submit the completed FDF form, let us know how far through the Student Loan Company application process you have got, and provide evidence that you've applied for a student loan. We will then advise you on how to proceed.)

FDFs must be signed by offer holders, not by teachers/parents/guardians.

If you are using private funds to pay for your tuition, accommodation etc, rather than governmental student loans, once you have arrived and enrolled, the St Hila's finance team will send you an invoice which has all the details of how and when to pay.

Information on how fee status is determined is available on the main university website.

Our FDF forms don't handle first names with a space in them very well. If you first name is something like 'Emily Rose' only 'Emily' will appear. This won't cause any problems in the processing of the FDF forms and is nothing to worry about. But, you're welcome to just amend the form when you fill it out if you wish to.

Please double-check that your name appears on UCAS exactly as it appears on your passport. If they don't match this can throw up problems later down the line, including with visas. The earlier we can get it fixed, the better.

Your preferred name is how we will normally address you in an email. For example, if your name is 'Jennifer Jane Jones', but you would like to be called 'Jenny' then put 'Jenny' in the preferred name box. Please don't pop your middle name or last name in the preferred name field.

If you do update your name on UCAS please do drop us an email so we can make sure all the records are updated properly.

This year's St Hilda's offer-holders' day was held in person on Saturday 1st March 2025. We very much hope that those of you who joined us enjoyed the event.

The RSVP form, and further information has now been email to our offer-holders.

We don't plan to offer an alternative on-line event. Please see the information below about visiting the college if you can't attend the offer-holder day.

St Hilda's offer-holders' newsletters will be circulated periodically by email. Find a new edition of the newsletter here.

The first newsletter can be found here.

Please also refer to this guidance for new students

By completing all relevant tasks in the checklist given on the ‘before you arrive’ page, you can ensure your arrival at the University goes smoothly. Note, you won't be able to do this until August/September!

If you accept the University’s offer of a place you will enter into a contract with the University. Once you have met the conditions of your offer, you will be sent a University card form to sign and return together with a passport photograph. You may also receive college contractual documents and arrival information at this time.

Once you have signed and returned your University card form, and in advance of the start of term, you will be sent your University of Oxford Single Sign On IT account details, giving you access to central IT services.

Once you have your Single Sign on details, you should complete the first step of your University registration by verifying your details online using Student Self Service before you arrive. Details of each of these steps are given on the above webpage.

Please also see the guidance on Visas, Financial Declaration Forms and Deadlines & Timelines sections of this page.

Most tutors will set their incoming freshers some pre-reading to do over the summer.

Reading lists have now been emailed to offer-holders, where they are available. The reading lists are also available on our website.

Both the College Student Handbook and the University Student Handbook are updated each summer and are required reading for all students. They contain important information to help guide you through your time here. You will be sent the 2025 entry versions in August; in the meantime, the 2024 entry version of the College Student Handbook can be found here: Student Handbook. It contains lots of really useful information that will help make your transition to Oxford a lot smoother and easier. Please do read through it carefully.

We make different types of offers. If you have any questions about your offer or what certain terms mean (e.g. an Open Offer, Opportunity Oxford Offer etc.) please visit the University's Decisions webpage. You might also find the guidance from UCAS on 'understanding your application status' useful.

If you require a student visa, please read through the following University webpages:

• Visa and Immigration
• Before you arrive
• CAS numbers
• Applying for your Student visa from outside the UK

Please note, CAS numbers can only be processed once you have completed all parts of your offer (including your Financial Declaration Form and English Language requirements). This is normally in August.

If we have contacted you about needing a visa, but you don't believe you need one, please provide evidence of your visa status, via email, so that your records can be corrected.

Some students may be required to complete an ATAS certificate; the Undergraduate Admissions Office will contact you if you need to do this. [April update: The students this applies to, have now heard from us.]

If you need a Visa, and you've changed your passport since you made your UCAS application, please send over a scan/photo of your new passport. This will speed up the process of getting your CAS generated for you. Please email,the front (outside) page AND the page(s) which have your personal details on them.

If you are unable to join us for the the Offer-Holders Day, and you would like a tour or to visit St Hilda's College during weekdays, please email us. Where staff are available, we will offer a guided tour.

To visit the college, please head to the Lodge entrance which is on Cowley Place. There is an intercom where you can speak to the Lodge staff and they will open the gate. We are unable to offer parking for tours.

When emailing us, please include your full name and UCAS number. It is helpful if you also mention your course. A standard format for an email is as follows:

UCAS ID:

Dear/Hello/Good morning/Good afternoon,

[Email message here]

Kind regards/Best wishes/Yours sincerely,

Your name

We are a very small team who monitor this email address. You will normally receive a response from Suzanna or Sophie.