University of Oxford

Oxford is in the city of Oxford, England, one of the longest continuously teaching universities in the English-speaking world. It is not one main building but a federation of thirty-nine colleges. A student belongs to both the university and a college: meals, lodging and most weekly small-group tutorials happen in college, while lectures, laboratories and final examinations are organised by the departments. Applications go through UCAS; most undergraduate subjects also involve a written test and interviews, with the details set by the official website each year.

What is truly distinctive is the tutorial system. There are usually one or two tutorials a week, in which two or three students go through problem sets or essays with a tutor. You read and write everything beforehand, and in the tutorial you are asked 'why do you think that?'. Engineering Science is a four-year master's degree (MEng): the first two years cover the core shared by all branches, and in years three and four you choose a direction such as biomedical, civil, electrical, information or mechanical. Physics and chemistry are also commonly four-year master's courses, with experiment and theory advancing together.

For families in China, Oxford suits a child who can already explain a subject problem clearly and is willing to live at the pace of a college. However thick the file, if the child cannot explain what they are thinking in the interview, it will not carry them through. Where the direction has already narrowed to engineering, computing or medicine, and college life matters little, Imperial often fits the timetable more closely.