Frequently Asked Questions – On-Campus Courses

Once you have decided which course you would like to attend, and where you would like to study, you can book online using our secure booking system. You will need the details of the student and of the person paying the bill, the name of the course or courses you would like to study, and a credit or debit card to pay the relevant deposit.

We are happy to accept deposit payments via a number of other, non-card payment methods (including domestic and international bank transfer), thanks to our partnership with education payment specialists, Flywire. If you would prefer to pay your deposit payment by bank transfer or another method, please contact our Admissions team who will be able to assist you.

Once your application has been submitted, your deposit payment has been received by us and your booking processed by our system or our team, you will be sent an email confirming your place. You will also receive a login to the Oxford Royale Portal, which you will use to provide us with important additional information about you as your time with us approaches.

A Welcome Pack is available to download from the Oxford Royale Portal.

If at any time you would like to discuss your booking with a member of our award-winning Customer Service team, please feel free to contact us.

All enrolments require a deposit payment to secure the booking. For Summer 2022, deposit payments are structured as follows:

• Summer Schools for ages 13-15, 16-18 and 19+ (University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and Yale University) – £995 GBP for each 2-week session

You may either pay the full course fee when you book your place, or pay the deposit amount and then the balance at a later date.

The balance clearance is required no later than 90 days before the start date of the course. Where the student is booking less than 90 days before the start date, the course fees must be covered in full. We appreciate that, with the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, people may require additional flexibility to these terms, and we are doing our best to accommodate that – please contact us if you have concerns regarding making the balance payment in line with the 90-day deadline.

Enrolments received via our online application form will require a debit or credit card payment of at least the deposit amount. If you would like to enrol and make your deposit payment via Bank Transfer or another method, we are happy to facilitate this. Please contact our Admissions team to arrange this.

Balance payments for existing enrolments can be made via a number of methods, including domestic and international bank transfer, credit or debit card, as well as local payment options; please log in to the Oxford Royale Portal and click on the ‘Pay Now’ button on your booking details.

All course fees include the following:

• Classes and tuition (Minimum taught hours per week: 20 for ages 13-18, 15 for ages 19+)
• Study files/materials
• Guest lectures by academic speakers
• Personalised academic reports and graduation certificate
• Accommodation at a top university or boarding school
• Meals in the dining hall of your college or school, every day of your programme (Meals provided: breakfast, lunch and dinner for ages 13-15; breakfast and dinner for ages 16-18 and 19+)
• Free WiFi (subject to availability)
• Daily updates for parents and family on the ORA campus blogs
• A wide selection of afternoon and evening activities
• Coach excursions (kindly note that excursions can be to local attractions or to sites further afield)
• Welcome and graduation events
• A multitude of extras, including an ORA notebook and branded clothing

If you wish to change your course or study options (including dates), please do not hesitate to contact us. However, changes to courses are always subject to availability. For this reason, it may be more difficult for us to accommodate any changes requested less than 60 days before the course start date.

Oxford Royale Academy’s terms and conditions for refunds are as follows:

Any cancellation must be received in writing and can only be made on the following terms:

• No refund of deposit will be made under any circumstances once the two-week cooling-off period has concluded;
• For cancellations before your course start date, the remainder of the course fees excluding the deposit amount will be proportionally refunded as per the table below:

Cancellations made after the commencement date of the course will not receive any refund.

Our English language requirements are as follows:

• B1 for EFL courses
• B2 or IELTS level 5.5 – 6.5 for IELTS Preparation
• C1 or IELTS level 6.5 or higher for all academic courses

Students who have studies at an English speaking school for two or more years are exempt from English requirements.

All students registered to attend our English Language courses will be required to take an English Language Placement Test, which will assess the relative abilities of each student. Students are then placed into ability groups based on the results of their assessment, and the material that they study is tailored to the level of the class.

The English Language Placement Test takes approximately one hour, and is taken by students on arrival at their course.

Please note that Oxford Royale Academy English courses do not cater for beginners in English.

It is certainly possible to take more than one course and combine a variety of study programmes. This can be done by enrolling on two different programmes. For example, you may wish to have two weeks on the Film Academy and then two more weeks on Creative Writing

Students staying for two consecutive sessions will be provided with accommodation for the Saturday night, and their campus will provide supervised activities between their first session ending and second session starting. Should you have any queries about how to take more than one course please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yes, all students will be awarded an Oxford Royale Academy Graduation Certificate in their chosen course upon satisfactory completion of the course. This will be presented in a graduation ceremony on the final evening of the course. In general, the graduation ceremony is for students only, but in certain cases, it might be possible for parents to attend on request. Due to limited seating and viewing facilities in the colleges, it is essential that parents contact the campus office well in advance to ascertain whether space is available.

The day of arrival for all courses is always a Sunday. You will need to check the dates of your course to find out which Sunday you need to arrive on. Please aim to arrive between 15.00 and 17.00 on your start date. We recommend that you arrive before 17:00 as there is a welcome reception for all new students at this time. On arrival, you will need to register at your campus and sign in. You will receive your room keys and course information at this point.

Students should arrive on campus between 15:00 and 17:00 to register for their course. From 17:00-18:00 there will be a welcome reception for all new students. The welcome reception will give students a chance to meet the director and staff who will be looking after them during their stay. Following this, students will go for dinner in college, and then attend their Induction talk with the Programme Director, who will outline all of the safety information and remind students of the key rules of the programme.

Students will be asked to vacate their room shortly after breakfast, and all rooms should be vacated before midday. If you have booked an Oxford Royale Academy airport transfer, you will have been informed of the procedure a few days earlier. Students will be asked to return their room keys and collect their reports and graduation packs as soon as possible after breakfast. Staff will be on hand to assist with departures throughout the day.

The most convenient airports in relation to Oxford, Cambridge and Uppingham are the major London airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton. The Eurostar is also a good means of traveling to the UK by train from mainland Europe. Learn more about choosing airports and other travel information on our detailed Arrival and Departure page.

Yale is accessible from a number of major international airports in Massachusetts and surrounding states, including JFK, Newark and LaGuardia. There are also more local airports available to those taking domestic flights, including Tweed New Haven, located just a 15-minute drive from the Yale campus. More detailed US airport information is available on the Arrival and Departure page.

Oxford Royale run a private taxi transfer service from Heathrow Airport. If you are travelling from other airports, you can opt for a number of private taxi companies in the local area. For all details on taxi transfers, and for full terms and conditions, visit our Arrival and Departure Taxi Transfer page.

If you would like to share your taxi ride with another student, please contact our admissions team with your travel details.

For public transport options, please refer to our location specific pages:

Getting to Oxford

Getting to Cambridge

Getting to Uppingham

Most of our accommodation sites offer a mix of single and twin bedrooms. Some campuses have en-suite bedrooms while others have bathroom facilities shared between a small group of same-sex students.

Sharing your room with fellow students is a great way of getting to know people and making friends.

If you have a particular preference for a certain room type, you can make a request on booking or requests can be made later via the online portal, but please be aware that single rooms cannot be guaranteed. All requests are subject to availability. If a particular room type is required for medical reasons, please contact our Admissions Team who will be able to check for availability across the sites offering your chosen course.

Whilst male and female students under 18 years old are housed in the same buildings, their rooms are almost always on separate corridors and/or staircases. If you have any questions about a particular location, please contact us.

All of the campuses have laundry facilities. Tokens can be purchased from the College lodge or campus office. Oxford Royale Academy staff are on hand to assist.

All our programmes take place in a secure environment. Our students are supervised 24 hours a day by campus staff. All students must check-in regularly during the day: at breakfast roll-call; at their morning classes; in the afternoon for lessons, workshops or activities; at dinner and in the evening before curfew. All campuses have a curfew.

Each campus office has its own safe where students may deposit items of value such as passports, travel documents, bank cards etc.

All campuses have residential staff who can be contacted 24 hours a day.

Breakfast and dinner are included in the course fees, but lunch is included only for students under 16.

For further information on what your course fees include please refer to your course page on our website.

If you have any dietary requirements you must let us know at least 60 days in advance of your course start date so that we can cater to your requirements.

All meals offer a vegetarian option (which must be booked in advance). We are not always able to provide special Kosher or Halal food as a dining option; students with these dietary requirements will sometimes be offered the vegetarian option, so you must let us know in advance what foods you cannot eat.

All medical dietary requirements such as lactose intolerance and any food allergies must be reported to us at least 60 days in advance of your course start date so that we can ensure you receive the correct meals. This can be done using the Medical and Dietary Form that all enrolled students must complete prior to their arrival in the UK or US. Enrolled students will be able to access the Medical Form via their portal from April.

If your country is part of the EU or the European Economic Area you will not require a visa to enter the UK. It is always advisable to check with the relevant authorities for visa requirements.

Students attending our USA Summer Schools may be able to enter the USA on the Visa Waiver programme – we can provide individual support on request for those who will need a visa.

Please click here for more information.

You will need to arrange fully comprehensive travel insurance separately as this is not included in the course fees. For full information about the cover needed, please visit our insurance page.

Students who have booked a place on a course will receive a Welcome Pack close to the summer. This will contain information on what clothes to bring and a list of other packing suggestions.

In June, July and August, it is normally warm in the UK. However, it can sometimes rain quite heavily (even in the summer) and so it is important that some warm clothes and waterproof clothing are packed. Recent weather reports and forecasts can be found online at BBC Weather.

The weather in New Haven, where Yale University is based, is likely to be very warm and humid in June and July, although students should be prepared for any weather eventualities!

Parents and family are welcome to visit on weekends when students have free time but should bear in mind that the students may be going on trips or excursions and so should find out ahead of arriving whether the student will be available.

In order to take students out of campus for any amount of time, a completed exeat form will be required; these will be available upon request once the summer school is in session.

Students should certainly bring their mobile phones with them (if the phone will work in the UK/US), as this provides family and friends as well as the programme staff with a good means of contacting them. However, please note that mobile phones are not permitted in classrooms and lessons.

We also recommend that students bringing their own mobile phones switch Data Roaming off, to avoid incurring large unwanted telephone bills.

Morning classes usually take place between 09:00 and 12:30, with a 30-minute break between 10:00 and 11:00. Afternoon classes take place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and usually begin at 13:45 and finish at 15:30. Please note that these timings are a guide, and the actual timings of lessons at a particular campus may be different.

Outside of lesson time, students are kept fully engaged with a variety of extracurricular activities, excursions, and guest lectures, all organised by our dedicated Events Team. Students also enjoy various themed parties at local venues.

Oxford Royale Academy offers a variety of trips to sites of historical and cultural interest. For further information please see our Coach Excursions page.

All of Oxford Royale Academy’s campuses have residential staff, so there is someone on site 24 hours a day. There is also a 24-hour emergency phone number for each campus, which students can call in an emergency. Family/friends may call the campus office in an emergency. These telephone numbers will be emailed to all students before their course date, and will also be available on our website during the summer.

All students under the age of 18 must provide contact details for one parent or guardian. In addition, if their parent or guardian is likely to be unavailable during the course dates, students are asked to provide another Emergency Contact. Students are reminded that it is vitally important that all contact details are up-to-date so that we have the correct information in case of an emergency.

All Oxford Royale courses culminate in a special graduation ceremony and leaving party on the last Friday of the course. Parents and guardians often ask whether it is possible for them to attend these events, and in some cases, this might be possible. However, due to limited seating and viewing facilities in the Colleges, it is essential that parents contact the campus office well in advance to ascertain whether space is available.

There are plenty of banks and ATM cash machines (which may charge you for withdrawing money) in all of our locations. However it is also advisable to come prepared with a variety of payment means e.g. Traveller’s Cheques, bank cards, credit cards and cash. Students may keep money in their campus safe.

You will probably want to bring some cash with you for your first day’s travel, to cover food and any emergency purchases that are required.

Guidance on personal expenses is difficult as it depends on the individual. General guidelines on the amount of pocket money to bring are provided in the student Welcome Packs.