what do you do with a homeschooler who wants to study classics at oxford?

I really started to wonder, because she has been sticking to this idea for a long time and I’ve never seen someone her age carry around that many versions of Homeric texts for so long.

But I also know it’s her world more than it is mine. Telling her she “has” to do certain things or go certain places to obtain the future she wants makes me… well, an immediate out-of-touch failure, particularly when “four-year college” is a phrase thrown into the mix — one now as antiquated as “ribbon candy”. She can be taking early placement college-level courses when she is high school aged even if they do not transfer; her work ethic and her breadth of experience are what I care about. And if she’s really being British about it, she’ll take a gap year. (Half her household is eligible for dual citizenship in other parts of the globe, and she has plans to take advantage of it.)

It was me being invited to speak at Oxford that made Claudia fall in love with it. I felt it was my duty to help her find out what she needed to get to the University if she so chose — although I know my kid and the world, and she may be just as happy in the town. But she can pursue anything she believes in right now.

What does an eleven-year old homeschooler do to study the classics at Oxford (After Good King William makes Oxford free, of course? We aren’t fake liberals. We’re actual revolutionaries here.) Well, we asked Oxford, and they were super chill:

Dear Amber,

Thank you for your enquiry.

It’s great that your daughter is interested in Oxford, even though it is a long way off for her to apply! I hope you will find the following information useful.

We are looking for students with high grades and who are

We don’t do any sort of credit transfer; however taking college level courses in future in subjects she’s interested in would certainly be a good way to show her passion for Classics! As part of the application process, candidates submit a personal statement in which they talk about why they want to study their chosen course, and how they would be suited to that course of study – any relevant courses she has taken would be a good thing for her to consider talking about here.

Oxford University welcomes applications from students from any background, including those who have been home educated

Really, at this stage, the best way for her to prepare is simply to explore her interest in classical topics as much as she can and discover what she is most interested in. As Classics is such a wide-ranging degree, and one of our most inter-disciplinary courses, covering

She might like to have a look at BBC Radio 4’s archives, for example for the programme In Our Time which covers material from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. There is also some good introductory material on a variety of topics on sites such as Classics Confidential and Classics Outreach, which might inspire an interest in topics she may not previously have learned about.

I hope this is useful to you and wish

Kind regards

Looks like WE are on the right track!

Levin Dorko Collins Learning Ltd

what do you do with a homeschooler who wants to study classics at oxford?

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