University of Oxford

The University of Oxford stands in the heart of Oxford, a city of spires and stone. It is a collegiate research university, the oldest in the English-speaking world, with teaching recorded as early as 1096. The university grew rapidly after 1167, when King Henry II barred English students from studying in Paris. Some scholars fled to Cambridge, where they founded a rival institution in 1209. The two universities share many traditions and are still known together as Oxbridge. Oxford has no single campus; its colleges, museums and libraries are scattered across the city centre. Oxford is worth the journey for its long history and global influence. It has educated 31 British prime ministers and many heads of state. The university counts 76 Nobel laureates, four Fields medallists and six Turing Award winners among its former members. Its alumni have won 160 Olympic medals. Oxford operates the world’s oldest university museum, the Ashmolean, and the largest academic library system in the country. The Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate awards, began at Oxford. A visitor finds a patchwork of colleges, each with its own courts and chapels. The Bodleian Library holds millions of books in historic reading rooms. The Ashmolean Museum displays art and antiquities from around the world. Students attend small tutorials in college rooms or lecture halls across the city. The streets echo with centuries of debate and discovery, from medieval theologians to modern scientists.