The Modern Problems of an Ancient University with Dr. Matt Williams

“Hi everyone! My name’s Dr. Matt Williams. I’m a tutor in Politics and what is known as the Access Fellow here at Jesus College at the University of Oxford.” That introduction, ingrained into the ears of many prospective Oxford applicants, gives me slight chills. Taking me back to the stressful, exciting, and especially long application process, Dr Matt Williams is the constant soundtrack to many students’ months navigating personal statements, admissions tests, interviews, and (as all applicants know) much, much more. While running the immensely successful Jesus College, Oxford, YouTube channel, Dr Williams took some time out of his day to talk to me about the challenges of the notorious and unique Oxford admissions gauntlet —a rite of passage for all Oxford undergraduates— its effect on students as well as the Oxford “brand”, and how it might change in the future.

Luke: You’re the Access Fellow here at Jesus College. What does that entail as far as your job?

Matt: It’s a relatively unusual role at the university. The idea is that we are academics, but also Access Officers. Most colleges have Access Officers who don’t necessarily engage in academia directly, but this role gives us a foot in two camps. When I do access events, I can speak authoritatively on what it’s like to teach at Oxford or what it’s like to do admissions, which can add some credibility, I suppose.

Luke: The first Jesus College YouTube video you are in dates to September 6th, 2019. Is that when you started the YouTube channel?

Matt: Yeah, I guess! I was really just dabbling at that stage, but in the pandemic, things really took off. One video in particular, on personal statement writing, did quite well. It sort of made me realise that this is a good avenue to make Oxford more accessible. I mean, that’s ultimately the point of being an Access Fellow. It’s to get the information out there so people can make the right decisions about their higher education. There are significant informational asymmetries in British higher education, in that some people, through personal contacts or school resources, get much more help with applying to these universities than others. And as any political economist will tell you, when there are informational asymmetries, you get suboptimal outcomes. And the suboptimal outcome for us is just that we are not necessarily taking the best students.

Luke: Where do you see the channel going in the next few years?

Matt: At the moment, we’re doing quite a lot of stuff on admissions because it’s quite contemporary and relevant. But there’s also been a lot of interest in more study skills content. And so, some of the videos I’ve made on writing good essays or academic skills seem to be quite popular.
I’m also generally interested in how technology can help us take this medieval university and improve its mission, doing better things. So we’re starting to do some quite wizzy things with potentially the Metaverse. We’re going to start working on Substack to have essay competitions that people can contribute to. We’re not just going to keep plodding along. We’re going to try and innovate, but the core message of, “we’re all a bit vulnerable, and we ought to acknowledge that— and that’s okay”, is going to stay.

Luke: Some of the comments on the YouTube videos are along the lines of, “I’m not applying to Oxford right now, but I find these videos really inspirational.” Are you happy to have that effect?

Matt: I hope so. The goal is to be as helpful as possible, and like I say, just to prevent the information asymmetry. I went to quite a fancy school in the UK, and the teachers there gave us lots of insider information because either they’d been to Oxbridge or they knew all about its ins and outs… I’d think, “I’m not special. This is insane.” I knew students at the school next door weren’t getting this support. It just seemed completely wrong. There’s no moral case for it, and it’s magnificently inefficient for a country to hide and put guardrails around information that can empower people. It’s just the path to ruin… Sometimes I do get quite negative comments from people who sort of see me as almost a class traitor. They say, “What are you doing? Why are you giving all this information to people from state schools and poor backgrounds?” I think that is just such a baffling comment.
It seems bizarre to me that everyone wouldn’t want Oxford to be fishing in the best pools of talent, you know? 

Luke: I want to talk a bit about the pressure of applying to Oxford. Every student who gets in seems to have a distinct memory of the admissions process. Do you think the pressure cooker of Oxford admissions is a bug of the system, or a feature?

Matt: It’s a feature, but I don’t think it needs to feel pressurised. I think that to a certain extent, it’s the choice of the applicant… I don’t think that people who are stepping into [the admissions system] should necessarily feel a huge amount of pressure, and I don’t think it helps them if they do. Now, certainly, when I went through it for Cambridge, I did feel a lot of pressure. So don’t get me wrong —some people will be unavoidably under pressure because it’s part of their personality. But that’s where I think the real pressure is coming from; it’s coming from within the individual, not from the University of Oxford. We don’t design the systems to be unpleasant, because that would be against our interests. We design them just to get the data we need. That’s it. The individuals who go into it are thinking, not just that “I’m applying to a competitive university.” They’re thinking, “and if I don’t get in, this reflects poorly on me, I’m a failure, I’m not the best I can.”
They start to project a lot of psychological baggage, which the university is not imposing at all. There’s not a huge amount we can do about that, actually.

Luke: Is there something to say about the social element of the application process and how that affects the pressure?

Matt: These days, a lot of the process of applying to universities is a social performance. It’s not just a calculation of what’s best for me and my education. It’s a bit like buying the latest iPhone when it comes out to show off to friends. And that is not a particularly healthy way of choosing a university, right? That’s another sort of thing that I’m trying to deliberately counter on YouTube. To be honest, I really detest those sorts of “decision day” videos that you see where someone is just showing off about, “Oh, I’ve got offers from all of these amazing places. How am I supposed to decide?” Then, a few months later, they’ll do a ‘day in my life’ video, waltzing around these beautiful buildings. They’re just showing off. It’s a bit like people who post on social media all the time about how blessed their life is, and it just makes me sick. I just think, “How are you so tone deaf?” When I’m thinking about what video to make next, I have in my mind, “what’s the counter to that bull****”? Some people do it really well, like Ruby Granger, who we had here [at Jesus College]. She did it really delicately.

Luke: Is there one thing about the Oxford admissions process that you’d change?

Matt: I think one thing that seems to work for some subjects is that they are more centrally administered. Things like medicine, law, or engineering involve a bit more coordination at the departmental level, whereas pretty much every other subject is delegated to the colleges. That means you get very, very different approaches because there’s so much discretion for the individual tutors. I’m not saying discretion is inherently bad, but it just leads to indeterminate outcomes. We can see that moves to diversify cohorts and raise academic standards have been faster in medicine and law. A bit more central administration and guidance could improve admissions outcomes.
I understand why a lot of my colleagues would be resistant to that because they feel like, “I’m gonna teach these people, so I need to make sure that they’re going to get along with my teaching style.” Sometimes, and I’m not trying to accuse anyone, I get the sense that people are defaulting to familiar decision-making patterns and basically choosing people who look or sound a bit like them. We need a university that doesn’t have a specific type of person.

Luke: Do you think there will be any changes to the admissions process in the next few years?

Matt: I’m still quite impatient for change. But [the resistance to this change] is not necessarily just thoughtless conservatism either. It’s because, quite reasonably, people say this is a model that works and we shouldn’t risk breaking it. I suppose I would say that there is also a risk that we are too conservative, and start getting close to the 22nd century without much credibility left. The brand will live and die on the talent it attracts. And it’s not unfeasible for a university, even a nearly thousand-year-old university, to just disappear and be forgotten because it became irrelevant and didn’t do the job it’s supposed to do. I suppose I can understand why some people are resistant to change, but it just baffles me why you wouldn’t want to open admissions to a more talented cohort to get the brightest minds solving the biggest problems faster. I think that does mean we might need a bit more bureaucratic centralisation, I’m afraid, and a little bit less autonomy from individuals. The only other thing is the introduction of AI, and whether it could encourage people to cheat. That is the only thing that could really change things very quickly. If you have some sort of text-based AI system going on next to your Team’s call, you can just cheat in the interview. It’s highly possible. If we get the sense that it is being used systematically to gain the system, unfortunately, we may have to return to in-person interviews.

Luke: When I was preparing for my admissions test, I remember you saying in one of your videos, “if you aren’t doing all the available practice tests, you aren’t serious about applying to Oxford”. Do you think that says something about the sacrifice that you have to make to try and come here? 

Matt: Oh, that might have been a bit harsh! I often emphasise the direct correlation between effort and results. And again, that sort of links to what I was saying about how people can’t just rely on natural intelligence and nor can they assume they don’t have sufficient natural intelligence to be competitive. If you are willing to put in the hard yards, if you’re resilient, then you can achieve great things. I do want to be fairly blunt that you can’t just be lackadaisical about it. 
If you want it, you’ve got to be pretty serious and committed.

For Dr Matt Williams, the University’s future lies in the quality of the students it recruits. Making sure the best and brightest, regardless of where they come from, end up in Oxford is a mission he strives to achieve.