Did You Know?

It is a city in central southern England, revolves around its prestigious university, established in the 12th century. The architecture of its 38 colleges in the city’s medieval centre led poet Matthew Arnold to nickname it the 'City of Dreaming Spires'.

As you wander through its quaint streets, you’ll encounter forward-thinking professors lost in contemplation, delve into museums teeming with treasures, and revel in the enchanting ambiance that inspired the magical world of Harry Potter.

Oxford is a private university that offers more than 300 different graduate degree programmes that cost an average annual tuition of about £9.000 per year for a British or EU student, or between £14.415 and £21.220 if you’re coming outside the EU.

The statistics of Oxford show that the University has 22.000 students, 11.772 of which are undergraduate students and 9.850 are graduate students. 62% of the grad students are not from the UK.

Oxford University is roughly 922 years old, making it the second oldest University in the world. It is beaten in age by the University of Bologna which is around 930 years old.

Oxfordshire may have been eyeballed by Adolf Hitler during World War II. In fact, the county – particularly Oxford itself – were left well alone in bombing raids by Nazi forces to a huge extent. This is because Hitler fancied it for a ‘new capital’ of England once he took over

It has more published authors per square mile than anywhere else in the world! Famous authors include JRR Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), CS Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia).

Oxford is five minutes behind Greenwich meantime because it is 1 degree west of the prime meridian. That’s why the Great Tom Bell rings 101 times at 9.05 pm every evening.

Founded in 1555, Trinity College is one of Balliol College’s biggest rivals as they live in such close proximity to each other. Every College has a tortoise that they own, and every Summer in May, the colleges come together to have a tortoise race. A circle of lettuce is placed on the ground, 8 metres wide, and spectators wait for the tortoises to come out of the middle of the circle to reach the lettuce line to win.

Oxford has nurtured some of the world’s most influential minds and leaders, with alumni (or Oxonians as they are also known) including more than 26 Nobel Prize winners, seven poets laureate, 120 Olympic medallists, and over 30 modern world leaders (Bill Clinton, Indira Gandhi )

Down in the basement you can find the chalkboard that Albert Einstein wrote on at Oxford University in 1950, which has his famous e=mc2 equation on. You can also find the lantern that Guy Fawkes was holding when he was arrested for taking part in the Gunpowder Plot on the 5th November in 1605!