I have been invited to OppOx Digital

What is OppOx Digital?

Opportunity Oxford is designed to support offer holders in the transition from school or college to Oxford. OppOx Digital is our free online transition course designed to help students develop core academic skills and feel prepared, confident, and ready to succeed at Oxford. 

Throughout the course students will:

• Learn effective study techniques
• Gain insights from current students
• Develop a toolkit of academic skills
• Practise time management and independent learning skills
• Connect with future classmates and University staff.

Completing the course in advance of starting your undergraduate degree will help you to develop essential academic skills and build confidence, allowing you to learn at your own pace and receive support and advice from our team of tutors and current students.

Participation in OppOx Digital is by invitation only. Due to limited capacity, we are unable to extend invitations to all offer holders.

What does OppOx Digital involve?

Each year, over 300 students are offered the chance to participate in OppOx Digital. Students participate in a structured programme which includes:

• An online information and welcome event for all participants and supporters
• A supportive online academic course in the summer during July and August
• Ongoing feedback from Oxford tutors and interaction with current undergraduate students.

You can find more information about each component of the OppOx Digital programme on the other tabs on this page.

“The Opportunity Oxford Digital course is offered to about 17% of offer holders each year, from across all subjects and colleges. In selecting students for invitation to the programme, we use postcode and school data to focus targeted academic support for those students whose prior education may not have offered very many opportunities for such support. The tutors who selected you for an Oxford place are subject specialists and experts in their field and recognise your excellent academic potential; the online courses are designed by tutors to help you realise that potential.

The aim of the digital courses is to maximise the skills that you have already developed at school or college, and to support you as you get ready for university study.”
Lucinda Rumsey – Academic Programme Lead, Opportunity Oxford

Timeline

Why sign up to OppOx Digital?

Even the most capable students can find that it takes some time to adapt to the challenges of high-level, fast-paced academic work at university. Joining OppOx Digital will be beneficial for offer holders in supporting their transition to university, giving them the opportunity to:

• Develop high-level academic skills
• Access personalised tutor feedback on the work you submit
• Become familiar with, and have early access to, key university systems such as email, Canvas (the University’s online learning platform), and the vast online Bodleian Libraries resources
• Meet other participants, current student ambassadors and academic teaching staff.

Working through carefully designed, challenging but manageable academic tasks will help students to begin their undergraduate studies at Oxford with confidence. Students will continue to have access to all the support materials on Canvas for a year after the course ends.

Student Stories

“The programme introduced me to the kind of work I would be doing at Oxford, helping me develop key skills like critical thinking, essay writing, note-taking and independent study. This made the step up to university-level learning feel much more manageable and familiar. I felt like I knew how to approach the work that my tutors had set me immediately after I arrived. The online course exceeded my initial expectation as I was not expecting such detailed feedback from my tutor, nor did I think I would read about such a variety of topics. I also gained more reassurance and motivation from watching the Q&A sessions with students who had completed the course before coming to Oxford.”
Eleanor, Modern Languages

“What I found most helpful was the feedback I got from the academics, when I submitted my work. And I think I was both surprised and relieved by the amount of feedback I got in response to my answers that I submitted, because that meant I had a lot of insight into what I could do to improve, and that the tutors care a lot about the work you submit.”
Isabella, Law

OppOx Digital Courses

The OppOx Digital courses have been expertly designed by our academic tutors and consist of structured, in-depth, problem-based tasks. These courses will help you bridge the gap between school and university study by refining the skills you've already developed.

OppOx Digital students follow one of four tailored online courses, depending on your future degree subject:

• Humanities – Enhance your critical thinking and analytical skills
• Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) – Develop problem-solving techniques for scientific inquiry
• Medical Sciences – Refine your approach to critical analysis, data interpretation, and problem-based learning
• Social Sciences – Strengthen your research and data analysis capabilities

At the end of the course you’ll have developed a toolkit of useful core academic skills ready for the start of your undergraduate degree course.

“I can't stress the value of OppOx enough for incoming offer-holders. The programme offers students one-to-one feedback on essay writing: invaluable for those who may have done STEM-based A levels, and feel less confident with it, but it's useful too for those who might not have written in an explicitly interdisciplinary way before, blending music, history, philosophy, sociology, and literature. Many students feel anxious but OppOx tutors provide an approachable introduction to their course and students benefit from the head start that OppOx provides. Most importantly, though, the course is intellectually stimulating and fun; it allows you to build study skills before term has even begun.”
Dr Oliver Chandler – Humanities tutor, Opportunity Oxford

Flexible Learning – Study at Your Own Pace

The online course launches in early July and will take around two weeks to complete. We understand that the summer before university is a busy time, so the course is designed to be flexible and manageable, allowing you to complete it at your own pace.

There are no in-person or residential requirements and the course remains open for six weeks, meaning you can easily fit your studies around work, holidays, and other commitments.

Student Stories

“The course helped consolidate my knowledge of my A level content by applying it to a more advanced task. It went even further then by introducing me to new, more complex ideas and areas of research, and in doing so highlighted the areas of improvement I would need to make to improve my academic life.”
Harrison, Biochemistry 

“It was self-led so I was able to work flexibly, and the summaries were very effective in allowing me to make sure I remembered important parts of each section. Quizzes were short so it didn't feel daunting every time I had to complete one.”
Jesika, Mechanical Engineering