Applicants should explore the MPhil PHS course website and pre-application self-screening tool before completing their application.

Applicants should carefully follow all instructions given here and in the Applicant Portal.

 

Before applying, applicants should consider how they will address each of the following questions on the application form. Your answer to each question should be no more than 2000 characters (approximately 250 words): we value clarity and succinctness, and longer answers may impact negatively on the impression you create.

• Statement of interest: explain why you are interested specifically in the MPhil course. Briefly discuss a population health problem you have come across and explain how the knowledge and skills you hope to gain in the MPhil will help you address that problem.
• Career goals: Candidates must be clear why they are doing the MPhil and how it will help them to achieve a career in population health sciences in service, academic or other settings.
• Relevant Experience: describe how your prior experience (research, academic, work, extra-curricular) might be relevant to your application for this MPhil, and your success on the course.
• Maths and Stats experience: Explain how your previous experience in maths and statistics has helped prepare you for the course, referring to the core module pre-requisites and self-screening tool on our website.
• Theme choice: Consider your first and second choice specialisation theme to follow. Note that while this is necessary for triage in our admissions process,  at this stage your choice of theme is indicative, and can be changed during the course. Nevertheless, your prospects of admittance to the course may be enhanced if your interests, qualifications and experience align well with the themes you indicate.  Select your first and second choice from: Epidemiology, Global Health, Health Data Science, Infectious Diseases, Primary Care Research, Public Health
• Widening Participation: In support of our widening participation, equality and diversity goals, we are keen to take relevant information into account when allocating our limited number of departmental scholarships. In the UK, applicant circumstances that might fit with this goal include, for example:
  • Having been eligible for Free School Meals at secondary school
  • Having spent at least three months in the care of your Local Authority whilst at secondary school
  • Living for the majority of your secondary school years in an area of high deprivation, as defined by the UK government’s IMD postcode database, ranking 16250 or less (check your postcode at that time here: https://imd-by-postcode.opendatacommunities.org/imd/2019)
  • Living for the majority of your secondary school years in an area where it is unusual for young people to go to university, as defined by the UK government’s POLAR4 classification database, falling into Quintile 1 or 2 (check your postcode at that time here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/young-participation-by-area/search-by-postcode/)
  • Being in the first generation of your family to go to university
  • Entering undergraduate study as a mature student (21 or over)
  • Being, or becoming during the course of your full-time undergraduate course, a single parent, lone foster parent, or lone guardian of a person who is aged under 18 and/or still in full-time education
  • Being estranged from immediate family or care-givers for the duration of your undergraduate course (for more information on what estrangement is, see http://www.thestandalonepledge.org.uk/)
  • Being a full-time undergraduate student with caring responsibilities for an ill or disabled family member who could not manage without this help
  • Being in receipt of full state support for maintenance for your undergraduate course

  This list is unlikely to be exhaustive, and other markers of significant adversity may apply in other countries. Please do tell us about relevant circumstances that may be specific to you and your context if you would like to answer this question. (Note: this question is optional and will not be used for shortlisting or offer-making purposes.)