Overview
History at Aldermere is taught the way historians work: from the sources outwards. From your first term you read letters, court rolls, newspapers and diaries in the Old Library and the college archive, and you learn to build an argument that others can test.
The course is broad in the first year and increasingly your own after that. By the final year most students are working on a question nobody has answered before.
- 60+Special subjects to choose from
- 12,000Word dissertation, supervised one-to-one
- 1 in 3Students use the college archive for their dissertation
Course structure
The outline below shows a typical path through the course. Options change a little each year as tutors join and research moves on.
Year 1
- The Ancient Mediterranean
- Medieval Europe, 900-1500
- Revolutions, 1640-1850
- Historical Methods and Sources
Year 2
- The Making of the Modern World
- Two options, e.g. Empire and its Critics, Women in Medieval Towns
- Group research project in the college archive
Year 3
- Special subject, studied from the original sources
- Dissertation of 12,000 words
- One further option
How you will learn
You will have two tutorials a week with one or two other students, where you discuss the essay or problem set you wrote that week with a tutor. Lectures, seminars of ten to twelve students and practical classes fill the rest of the week. Each student has a personal tutor for the whole degree.
Assessment
A mixture of timed papers, extended essays and the dissertation. The first-year papers do not count towards your final degree, so you can take risks while you find your feet.
Entry requirements
- A levels: A*AA, including History
- International Baccalaureate: 39 points, with 7 in Higher Level History
- A piece of marked written work, sent by 1 November
We make contextual offers, typically one grade lower, to applicants from schools that send few students to university. If your qualifications are not listed, the admissions office will tell you what we would expect.
Fees and funding
Tuition for 2027-28 is $38,400 a year, including college membership. Under the Aldermere Promise, students from families earning under $85,000 a year pay no tuition, and partial awards continue up to $150,000. Every undergraduate also receives a $2,000 grant each year for books, travel and equipment.
Careers
Graduates of this programme go on to a wide range of careers. Recent destinations include:
- Law and the civil service
- Journalism and publishing
- Museums, archives and heritage
- Teaching and research
- Policy and think tanks
- Finance and consulting
The day I held a 1349 plague will in my hands, the fourteenth century stopped being a chapter and became people.
Eleanor Hayes Class of 2026
Questions
Do I need to read Latin?
No. Where a source is in Latin or another language we work from translations, and you can take a language course alongside your degree if you want to read the originals.
Can I change programme after I arrive?
Yes, at the end of the first year, if there is space on the programme you want to move to and your tutors agree. Around one student in twenty does.
Is there an interview?
Yes. Shortlisted applicants have a conversation of about twenty-five minutes with two tutors in December, in person or online. It is about how you think, not what you have memorised.
