Human Sciences
Entry requirements
A level
Excluding General Studies (if taken)
Access to HE Diploma
Some Access courses allow students to take one or two A-levels as part of the course. This option is strongly recommended for students who wish to apply to Oxford, especially for those courses which have specific subject requirements. If you would like to discuss the suitability of your Access course for entry to Oxford University, please contact the subject department that you’d like to apply to for further information. (Contact details are at ox.ac.uk/courses)
Cambridge International Pre-U Certificate - Principal
Pre-U subject requirements are the same as those for A-levels.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
with 6 6 6 at HL
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Conditional offers would usually be: Extended Diploma with D*D*D to DDD, depending on the course. Diploma with DD plus an A grade at A-level, possibly with one or two * grades, depending on the course. Subsidiary Diploma with D plus two A grades at A-level, possibly with one or two * grades, depending on the course.
Scottish Advanced Higher
Conditional offers will usually be for AAB if a student is able to take three Advanced Highers; where this is not possible then a student would be expected to achieve AA in two Advanced Highers, as well as an A grade in an additional Higher course taken in Year 6.
Scottish Higher
A,A,A,A,B-A,A,A,A,A
Supplemented by two or more Advanced Highers.
UCAS Tariff
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About this course
Human Sciences is an interdisciplinary degree which enables students to study the biological, social and cultural aspects of human life, and provides an exciting alternative to some of the more traditional courses offered at Oxford. Central topics include the evolution of humans and their behaviour, molecular and population genetics, population growth and ageing, ethnic and cultural diversity and human interaction with the environment, including: conservation, disease and nutrition. The study of both biological and social disciplines, integrated within a framework of human diversity and sustainability, should enable the human scientist to develop professional competencies suited to address such multidimensional human problems. For more information on this course please visit ox.ac.uk/ughumsci.
The Uni
Wadham
Open Application
St Catherine's
Hertford
St Hugh's
Regent's Park (PPH)
Keble
Magdalen
Harris Manchester (Mat)
St John's
Human Sciences
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Biology
Sorry, no information to show
This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Anthropology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Biology (non-specific)
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
The recession was tough on biology graduates, and although the jobs market has improved for them - a lot - it's still not back to where it was a few years ago. If you want a career in biology research — and a lot of biology students do - you'll need to take a doctorate, so give some thought as to where you might do it and how you might fund it (the government still funds doctorates for good students). A lot of graduates also take 1 year Masters courses to specialise in this wide and deep subject - most students take a standard biology course for their first degree and then specialise in subjects like ecology, conservation or marine biology later. Hospitals, universities, biotech firms, zoos and nature reserves and clinical and scientific testing are common industries of employment for biology graduates.
Anthropology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
This is a pretty flexible degree and a good one if you want to keep your options open. Just over 1,250 graduates completed anthropology degrees last year, and they were well spread out across a whole range of jobs — many industries have jobs that can be done by anthropology graduates and unlike a lot of degrees, there aren't many jobs we can point to and say ‘graduates from this degree do that job’. Management, marketing, housing and recruitment jobs are the most popular, though, and many graduates go into the education or social care sectors. Graduates are also rather more likely than average to work in London, or to go overseas to work. This is quite a popular subject at postgraduate level, and if you want to go into research, you'll need to think about postgrad study - and it's one of the few where numbers are on the up at the moment.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Biology (non-specific)
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£27k
£31k
£38k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Anthropology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£34k
£41k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Sociology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£34k
£41k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Explore these similar courses...
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This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
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Course location and department:
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here