Shedding light on the application process
Biological sciences admissions support for Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial
I'm Flora, a qualified biology teacher. I help students through the ESAT, the personal statement and the interview.
I read every email myself, and I answer all of them.
Who you'd be working with
- MSci Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge
- PGCE, University of Oxford
- Qualified teacher, seven years in secondary science
- Ten years tutoring GCSE and A-level biology, over 1,000 hours taught
- Oxbridge applicants supported at three schools
- Applied from a state school, and went through all of this myself
What you actually need
You don't need a polished agency, and you don't need insider access. There isn't any. The universities publish what they are looking for, and most of what gets sold as inside knowledge is guesswork with a price on it.
What helps is someone who knows the process and can teach the parts of it that are teachable. ESAT reasoning can be drilled. Interviews can be practised. A personal statement can be edited into something that sounds like you. Those are skills, and they get better with good teaching.
Nobody can promise you a place, and I'd be careful with anyone who does. What I can do is tell you what to work on, teach you how, and be honest with you about how it's going.
The application year
For 2027 entry.
-
Spring, Year 12
Choose the course
Natural Sciences, Biomedical Sciences and the Imperial courses ask for different things, so work out which one you want. Then start going deeper into the subject: books, online lectures, talks, a science club, a competition. Schools call this supercurricular, and it just means following the subject past the end of the syllabus.
-
Summer
Start preparing for the ESAT, draft the statement
The test rewards reasoning more than recall, so preparing for it means practising questions rather than revising content. The personal statement takes longer than most people expect.
-
Early September
Register for the ESAT
You register through a test centre, not through the university. Registration closes on 28 September 2026.
-
Mid-October
UCAS deadline, then the ESAT
The UCAS deadline for Oxford and Cambridge falls in mid-October, earlier than for other universities. The ESAT takes place between 12 and 16 October 2026.
-
November
Shortlisting
Colleges decide who to interview. There is nothing to do at this stage except keep preparing.
-
December
Interviews
Two or three conversations about material you have not seen before. Tutors are looking at how you work through a problem, not at whether you already know the answer.
-
January
Decisions
Offers and rejections arrive. Some applicants are made an offer by a different college from the one they applied to, through the winter pool.
What it costs
Packages from £300 to £895, or £75 an hour. Everything is priced in full on the pricing page, so you can decide before you talk to me. There are funded places for students on free school meals or first in their family to apply.
Free to read
What the ESAT Biology module is actually testing
The ESAT is a reasoning test built from GCSE-level biology, which is why students with an A* still lose marks. Three worked questions, with my reasoning as I go through them.
Tell me what you're applying for
Send me your course, your school year and your predicted grades, and I'll tell you what I'd do next, whether or not you end up working with me. Get in touch.