SCIO Semester Programme

Students on the SCIO Semester Programme spend one or two semesters in Oxford as either an Associate Member (semester only) or a Registered Visiting Student (year long).

SCIO and Wycliffe Hall require students to have a GPA of 3.7 or higher. Tutorials, lectures and seminars are equivalent to upper-division courses, and students are expected to do advanced-level work. If your schedule won’t allow you to consider Oxford in your junior or senior year, you can apply for admission as a sophomore.

The tutorial

The heart of their 15-week programme is the tutorial, a weekly meeting between tutor and student which epitomises Oxford’s teaching method of independent learning and argumentation. All students choose one primary and one secondary tutorial. Students write an essay (paper) for each tutorial in which they are encouraged to formulate their own well-supported views, and develop an argument.

Research

Complementing the tutorials are Undergraduate research seminars which explore the methodology and approaches characteristic of each discipline, and in which students have the chance to write a longer essay in a process which mimics that of a graduate student. Discussion classes enable students to reflect on methodological issues within their discipline, and integrate material covered in tutorials and University of Oxford lectures.

Selected topics in British culture

Finally, all students come together to explore the country which is their home for a semester in the Selected topics in British culture course. This course examines aspects of past and present day Britain. Students attend discussion and gobbets classes in the tutorial seminar of their choice, participate in field trips, and have two tutorials, but spend most of their time doing independent study to produce detailed, scholarly essays.

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* Choose one – the choice of these two courses is only offered in the optional second semester