The Jesus College Oxford Access channel on YouTube has become Oxbridge’s largest access video channel, thanks to the work of Tutor in Politics and Access Fellow Dr Matt Williams. 

 

Latest data shows the channel now has 9.38k subscribers, roughly 16% more than its closest competitor, King’s College, Cambridge (7.68k). The Jesus Access channel is home to a wide range of video content that aims to inform and support prospective Oxford students as they navigate their way through subject choices, the applications process and interviews and tests. It also provides content that aims to demystify the Oxford student experience; presenting tours of the city and Colleges, and sample lectures in subjects as broad as ‘Can justice be engineered?’ and ‘Women in early Islamic Religious Life’.  There’s also a film for those who might get rejected by universities like Oxford, in which Matt shares his personal experience of university rejection, and explains why it’s not the end of the world and can actually be a positive outcome.

 

While Matt hosts many of the engaging films himself, viewers also get to meet undergraduates, postgraduates and College Tutors who are keen to share their first-hand experiences of admissions, the University and Jesus College. In the past month alone, a video of a sample Mathematics interview with Jesus Fellow and Associate Professor of Statistics Robin Evans has been viewed over 116k times. A mock interview video hosted by two Jesus 3^rd year Physics undergraduate students has been watch over 35k times.

Matt says, “I started posting videos in lockdown, when school visits to Oxford became impossible. The aim was to open up the university and its admissions processes to everyone. I can’t quite believe how many views and subscribers we have gained since the start of lockdown, but I’m delighted by the response from our subscribers, both in the UK and around the world. The channel’s growth has in large part been thanks to transformative donations from our alumni, supporting digital outreach.”

He also has further ambitions for the channel going forward; “I fully intend to see how far we can take this! With the College’s Digital Hub opening in 2022, we will have new infrastructure to improve the quality of our digital outreach. Next summer we will also hire digital interns from amongst our undergraduates, to continue producing content that will be of help to people that otherwise do not have access to such information or resources.”

The Jesus College Access channel can be viewed here and you can find out more information about all the College’s Access and Outreach work here.