Oxbridge Spanish Applications in 2024: Our Guide to Reading, Personal Statement and Interview Tips
This article is written by U2 Spanish and Linguistics mentor, Rhys. Rhys graduated with a First in Linguistics and Spanish from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford in 2012 and was the winner of the Fred Holcroft Prize for study of the history of Spanish as a language. This article provides a comprehensive guide to Spanish / Modern Foreign Languages Oxbridge Applications, what to read, and how to write a Spanish personal statement. We also provide a few tips on what to do before your Spanish Oxbridge interview!
Spanish University Applications
Spanish is, in many ways, just like the other European languages available to study at university - only bigger. As the world’s second or third most-spoken language (really, it depends on how you count it), it can be hard to know where to start when approaching the language with a personal statement in mind. Myself, though, I think this is part of the attraction - you only need to make a start, your start, with comparatively little need to get a handle on all the immensity and complexity that the Spanish-speaking world displays. This guide is written with that in mind - and by that, I mean that there will be parts of this guide where nothing is set in stone. If that feels like a cop-out, I promise you: it isn’t. What’s the point of a personal statement? To be personal. Yes, there are certain abilities you will need to be able to demonstrate, certain thresholds that you will need to exceed. My point is more that the way in which you reach those thresholds, gain those abilities, and how you do it, is very much up to you - and it can be determined by your interests. This guide is a series of suggestions, and it can provide some pointers, sure - and I’ll do my best to do so. But it’s just a launchpad, not a doctor’s prescription.
Even if you’re not applying for the particular languages described in the blogs, I do recommend having a look at the posts about French (LINK) and German (LINK). The general points about how to build modern foreign language personal statements, and the literary background that is expected, are equally valid and applicable to Spanish. So please do read this post in parallel to those. You might also like to have a look at this guide to Linguistics (LINK) by a charming and dashing author. Language and linguistics complement each other immensely, and at both Oxford and Cambridge it is possible to incorporate a Linguistics paper or two into your languages degree. I’m biased, of course, but I highly recommend you give it at least a few minutes of consideration.
This guide is in several parts. The first few parts are related to Spanish at any university, and the final few sections are related to Oxford and Cambridge only, with a discussion of written work submissions, admissions tests, and (in less detail, as it’s not really the focus of this article) interview preparation. If you would like further insight into interview preparation, U2 has an excellent guide in its Materials Store (LINK).
Reading Around Spanish - How and Why
If you’re looking at the top-flight universities in the UK - especially, but not exclusively, Oxford and Cambridge - then having read some texts in Spanish is pretty much a non-negotiable part of your application preparation, and it’s going to take up at least a paragraph on your personal statement. Honestly, if literary analysis isn’t your bag, Modern Languages at Oxbridge is not the course for you. But before discussing particular texts, I’d like to clarify a couple of things about how literary analysis and discussion works in the slightly atypical context of writing a personal statement:
You do not need to study English literature to apply for Oxbridge. Many applicants do study English Lit at A-Level (or equivalent), it’s true, and it certainly doesn’t hurt - and a good grade in GCSE (or equivalent) in English Lit is ideal, because you’ll be using those very same skills all the time. By this, I mean that the analytical ability from literature classes is definitely a tool to use when reading for Spanish preparation - so don’t let that tool go rusty! But it’s not obligatory to study English Lit at the time of your application. The first year in Oxford and Cambridge is fairly rigid and structured, and that’s partly to ensure that you have the literary abilities that you’ll put into further (and more specialised) practice in the rest of your course.
The personal statement should be neither a list of texts you’ve read (that’s not informative), nor a deep and fancy essay-style analysis of one or two texts that you’ve read (that’s not personal). It should be somewhere in the middle - a good overview of your reading, and some of your thoughts about them. You don’t need to feel the need to mention every text in the personal statement- why not have a surprise up your sleeve for the interview?
Some texts are more common than others on Spanish personal statements. This is mostly due to the A-Level syllabus, where some texts are simply more popular with some schools than others. A couple of examples of this are La casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca, Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez, and the films Volver and El laberinto del fauno. If you want to include and discuss them in your Spanish personal statement, that’s OK. Go for it! But be aware that interviewers often judge the quality of an applicant’s discussion of them (both in the personal statement and Oxbridge interview) to a different standard, if they think it’s a text that you’ve studied at school. In mock interviews, if these texts appear, I always ask if they’re a classroom text - and if so, I dial my expectations up a little. Other interviewers might just assume, though - so I recommend having a quick look at the texts on the AQA and Edexcel syllabuses, just to see when an interviewer might also amp up their expectations. To repeat, this should not deter you from reading and discussing them if you want! They’re on the syllabus for a reason: not only are they at roughly the expected level, they’re also usually good reads/watches. But if they’re syllabus texts, give them a little extra attention in your preparation.
Spanish Reading Suggestions- What to Read
The majority of your reading will probably revolve around literature, and that’s understandable; it’ll take up a lot of your time in university (especially at Oxbridge), and, if given a stimulus at interview, it’ll likely be either a prose extract or a poem (though we won’t be discussing that so much here, as this is more about the personal statement). Whilst there’s plenty to be said for other things as well - mostly history, or current affairs - it’ll be literature that’ll most capture the attention of admissions tutors.
Poetry: I put this at the top of this series of bullet points not because I think it should form the bulk of your reading, but because it’s the thing that most people are frequently given in their Spanish Oxbridge interviews. Essentially, it’s worth keeping these skills sharp if you’re going for an interview at Oxford … but I consider it less important elsewhere. You can do this, if you’re nervous, with English poetry too. All the techniques you might notice - metaphor, sound, sentence length, structure, the lot - are just as valuable here (though I don’t think you need to investigate Spanish poetic metre as part of this - a nice-to-have, but very much optional and less important than actually engaging with a text!).
As a result, rather than recommend individual authors straight off the bat, I think a good place to start is anthologies. There are many available - Google is your friend here - and don’t worry if they’re English-only, as Google will also help you find the originals … though I often go straight to a site called Poemas del alma for that, which almost always has what I need. In fact, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon than having a nose around Poemas del alma itself - plenty there to look at, discard, and delve at will.
Some of the popular authors, like Lorca, have sets of selected poems with parallel English - don’t think that this is throwing in the towel! Feel free to select a period, a theme, or an author that you like, or go totally according to what’s available/cheap when you look … this, in fact, is why I’ve avoided (mostly!) names here. You’ll need to have a personal interpretation of the poem, and I can’t provide or influence that. And, after all, sometimes the things we stumble upon by accident are some of the best. This is about your ability to analyse, and not about reading the big names simply because they’re big names.
I am in two minds about whether to recommend Golden Age texts. You’ll need a guide to help you (though these aren’t too hard to find), and some people enjoy them greatly (especially their clever use of cultismos - words that were “upcycled” from Greek or Latin and used in contemporary poetry) - and objectively, they’re some of the finest European literature of their period. But I’ll be honest, they’re hard, and they never much set my heart racing … and if poetry isn’t your forte or if you don’t currently study it, I think (sound the opinion alarm!) that time might be better spent with more recent things, where you don’t have to delve into 1500s/1600s culture and history whilst also keeping your literary talons sharp! Dig your claws in if you like, but only if you want to - it’s not a must-have.
Prose. It can feel like a big time sink to read a whole novel in Spanish, and I don’t think you need to read a lot of them (and you can go for short novellas if you like - Nada by Carmen Laforet is a popular choice, though I’ve not yet read it myself, and so are some shorter García Márquez texts).
In general, I think this is a good place to read the texts in parallel. Reading in English should be second in importance to engaging with the Spanish, of course - but the English can help if you’re a bit lost. I should repeat, though, reading in English is not a replacement for the originals. Either read the Spanish with the English to help you, or be very explicit that the text you read is in translation only. People have been caught out on this before - for example, you might be asked how the use of tú and usted changes in the text, and you won’t know if you’ve read only the English.
Two of the big-hitters for Latin American novels that I see on Spanish Personal Statements are Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, with Isabel Allende taking third place. All great choices! Some are on the syllabus, so the usual caveats apply.
Short Stories. I singled these out from prose since, in Latin America in particular, this is a standalone genre. It allows you to be nice and selective, finding and discarding authors (or even individual stories) who please/bore you as you see fit. And, also, it’s a personal favourite. Some of the best include Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones and El Aleph), Isabel Allende (Los cuentos de Eva Luna), Roberto Bolaño, Julio Cortázar (Todos los fuegos el fuego), Gabriel García Márquez (various), and - though he’s trickier - a personal love of mine is Juan Rulfo (El llano en llamas). There are also decent anthologies available with parallel texts - by Penguin, by Angel Flores, and by Olly Richards, which can be a boon - treat them as a starting point.
Drama. If you like drama, go for it! It was never really my bag, but that’s OK - maybe it’s yours. The big one here is probably Federico García Lorca, who was mentioned above. The three common texts are La casa de Bernarda Alba, Bodas de sangre, and Yerma. The first two of these are often syllabus texts, so keep that in mind. Some people like to try one of the Golden Age writers of plays as well - such as Calderón de la Barca, or Lope de Vega. Give it a try if you like, but I should add a caveat. Like with Shakespeare in English, a lot of its content and style is opaque to modern readers without all the supporting material and study - so ensure you have some of that to hand unless you fancy a challenge! Personally, as with the poetry I don’t think delving into Golden Age is necessary, but if it floats your boat, go for it.
History. I thought about including this below in another section, but decided to move it up here for a couple of reasons. First: it’s the sort of context that often informs your interpretation of the literature you read. Second: it’s another avenue through which you can demonstrate your analytical skills, perhaps on something like an event, a figure, or an ideology. Again, you don’t need to feel the need to try and swallow the entire history of the Hispanophone world here. Overviews are fine, and you might like to specialise in an area that matches your reading (whatever it is).
Current affairs. You don’t need to go overboard here, and it’s not something you need to make any mention of in the personal statement. The exception, though, is if you make it one of your special interests (see below), in which case relevant current affairs stuff is non-optional. I think a quick check-in on a Spanish-medium news site one or twice a fortnight is sufficient … though, if you have an interview, make this once every one or two days in the run-up to the interview itself.
Non-Text Preparation Suggestions for University Spanish
I’m an evangelist for this sort of thing. Yes, there does need to be a literary component for the top-flight universities; that’s inevitable. Though it certainly isn’t the only suitable source. Far from it! As mentioned in the introduction, you have the scope to indulge yourself here, all according to your interests and specialities. The thing is, especially for Oxbridge, that there is no template into which you need to fit. It’s not a negative (i.e. “let’s see what you don’t have”) process; it’s a positive one (i.e. “OK, show us what you *do* have”). There are plenty of routes for this - so what I’ve written below isn’t exhaustive.
FILM and TV. This is probably the biggest one to appear after literature on a personal statement, again because there’s often exposure via schools. Really, there’s a lot of scope here - if it’s in Spanish and you can demonstrate an ability to analyse it, like you would a literary text, then it’s worthy of inclusion. Explain what you found intriguing, or some inferences that you made (just saying you watched it, well, that’s not enough).
I had a stroke of luck here - in my interview, I was given a text that was written from the perspective of an extraterrestrial who crash-landed in Barcelona. By chance, I had recently watched a low-budget (and, in retrospect, really awful) Argentine film called Mercano el Marciano about a similar story in Buenos Aires! I didn’t expect it to be relevant, and it didn’t make the cut on my personal statement, but I could draw on it profitably at interview.
There are “usual suspects” for film, as there are for literature - this means El laberinto del fauno, María llena eres de gracia, La lengua de las mariposas, and several of Almodóvar’s works. As before, include them if you like - but remember that the interviewers might have correspondingly higher expectations.
Spain (and the Spanish-speaking world) generally doesn’t produce a lot of high-quality TV, though there are exceptions. La casa de papel/Money Heist and the prison drama Locked Up might be fun.
VIDEOS. I’d be remiss here if I weren’t to make a nod to YouTube. The Hispanophone world has had quite the explosion of online entertainment, just like everywhere else. The sort of things you binge on YouTube (don’t lie, yes you do) in English are probably there in Spanish too. Give it a go! I have an interest in geopolitics, for instance, and the YouTube channel VisualPolitik (which, even better, has versions in Spanish and English) is my go-to, especially for Latin American affairs. I also watch a few Spanish-medium cooking channels.
PODCASTS. Basically ditto as for the videos, but in audio - all the benefits apply. You can explore these in any way you like, and to go down any route that corresponds with your pre-existing interests. There are also some that are English-language for this - I think Latino USA deserves a shout-out for its discussion of Hispanic life in the United States. The US has the fifth-highest number of Spanish speakers of any country in the world, after all, and it’s easy to forget that.
If you’d like a trashy bit of fun, there’s also a very entertaining (but also melodramatic, poorly-acted, and silly) conspiracy-horror-apocalypse fiction show called El gran apagón. Proof that you don’t have to be super-serious in everything you do - getting accustomed to hearing spoken Spanish is a benefit in itself.
CULTURE. I said above, in the introduction, that you don’t need to get a grip on every facet of this enormous culture - and I still mean that. But you can certainly take advantage of your own special interests and abilities. Do you study Art or Art History, for instance, or have a general interest in Art? It should be obvious what sort of things you can get up to. This is why I mentioned cooking and geopolitics: you can harness whatever it is that gets you talking, and (provided that you can say intelligent things about the thing, beyond “I like it”) use it as a completely legitimate way to demonstrate your enthusiasm. I like those things, but you probably have others - history, architecture, dance, and music (of course music!) are all fair game, and things I’ve seen before.
You can get super-specific here, if it suits. I once met a student with a particular interest in one indigenous group in Peru, and their potential connection to the Nazca Lines archaeological site. I was blown away; it was fascinating. Fly your nerd flag with pride. Please!
SPEAKING (interviews). Whilst it’s not something that you’ll mention in the personal statement, I do want to make it clear that, 99.9% of the time, you’ll need to speak in Spanish in at least one interview (Oxford, for one, state this on the website). This daunts some students, but it needn’t. Put it this way - I don’t even remember what I was asked! This shows that it was not terrifying, and that I didn’t freeze up when asked something.
Do take advantage of any opportunity to talk in Spanish that you have - maybe on holiday, maybe in school, anywhere.
If you have nobody to talk to, talk to yourself. Speaking in another language is like a muscle; it needs flexing. I did this, and it was very handy (even if it feels weird at first).
What to Put in Your Spanish Personal Statement
This really is very much up to you. In my time I have seen myriad personal statement styles, and there are merits and drawbacks to them all. It’s also worth saying, that the personal statement for Modern Languages is often a bit of a chimera. Studying Spanish solo is not an option at, say, Cambridge - and whilst it’s possible to study only Spanish at, say, Oxford, most people apply for a joint course. This is normally another language (maybe one that’s currently studied, maybe a fresh one), or it could be with History, Philosophy, English Literature, Classics, or (my obvious favourite) Linguistics. As a result, your space that can be devoted to Spanish is likely to be more limited than the standard 4000 characters; the other subject will need attention too (and yes, that includes a from-scratch language: the interviewers oughtn’t feel that the language has been picked on a mere whim).
You will find yourself forced into being highly selective, as a consequence. And that’s no problem. After all, if you’re being interviewed, why not have an ace or two up your sleeve? That’s what I mean when I say that what goes in the personal statement is up to you. Be judicious, and select the things that’ll allow you to put yourself in the most positive light if asked to expand on it in an interview.
I’ve split this section into some dos and don’ts.
Do include some of the texts (etc) that you’ve read. In doing so, it can be tempting to write what feels like an analytical essay for a literature class - but I would be cautious. This is a balancing act. Of course, you want to show off your analytical skills, and you can do so to a modest extent. But there are other places where that happens - like your submitted grades, written work submissions, and an interview at Oxbridge. Plus: an unadorned piece of analysis isn’t personal. Far better to explain what you took from the text, and why.
Do discuss any times you’ve visited the Spanish-speaking world, but only if you can explain what use you got out of it. Over 18 million Brits visited Spain in 2019, making it the favourite tourist destination for UK holidaymakers. That does not automatically make them all good candidates! Tell readers what you noticed, experienced, learned, and remembered - this is infinitely more valuable.
Do show that you have an appreciation of the Spanish-speaking world as a large and living culture. Now, this doesn’t mean all of it, nor does it necessarily mean contemporary culture. It’s the rot of non-text preparation that I mentioned above, really. The Spanish Civil War is a popular topic, for instance - and what’s good about it is that it’s not a resolved issue, really (same as the effects of the Second World War are unresolved for Germany). Over in Latin America, with the effects of colonialism and Bolivarianism, this is just as true. Always worth a brief and interesting commentary on the theme of your choice.
Do indulge any special interests that you have. After all, there’s nothing more personal than that for a PS! The upside of studying a language, especially at top universities, is that you can patch them into other disciplines and areas. A historical period is an option, or maybe linguistics, or film, or photography. I mentioned Icelandic on my personal statement, for example (I was applying for it at one university), and it was very clear that the interviewers in *every* interview wanted to talk about it. It’s variety for them, and it’s probably an ideal avenue for you to get effusive about something.
Don’t worry if you haven’t visited the Spanish-speaking world yet. It’s not mandatory. I have worked with several successful Oxbridge applicants who were (at the time) yet to visit. Interviewers recognise that visiting a country might not be feasible, for a variety of reasons. They’re looking for aptitude and interest, not passport stamps.
Don’t fret too much about structure. I always prefer a content-rich personal statement to one that is elegant but empty. The multi-subject chimeric nature of a languages personal statement means that elegance and true coherence is hard to achieve anyway.
Don’t turn the PS into a buffet of texts. It’s tempting to try and cram everything onto your plate, but this quickly turns into merely name-dropping texts without giving the interviewer anything meatier to chew on. Remember, an extra text to mention in the interview is a nice garnish. But for the PS alone, I’d far prefer a rich and belly-filling discussion of just a couple of texts, and not a superficial twelve-course tasting menu.
Don’t feel the need to go for silly extended metaphors like I did in the bullet point above. It’s a pitfall for more students than you might think, and, like the example you just read, it probably won’t impress.
Don’t use the word “relish”, the biggest cliché word of them all.If you can define it without Google, you can use it.No student I have met is yet to pass this test.
Oxbridge Spanish / Modern Foreign Languages Written Work Submissions
This section contains my personal opinion even more than the others. I would like to make that very explicit, because it may run against the advice that others might give you. Here goes: written work submission are less of a big deal than you might think.
At Cambridge, the requirements for written work vary by College - and some do not require any at all. So we’ll use Oxford as a benchmark, as the requirements are standard at all Colleges. At Oxford, all applicants will need to submit a piece in English (about 2000 words) and one in each of the target language(s). So, if you’re applying for French and Spanish, and study them both already, that’s three pieces to submit.
That might sound like a lot. It isn’t. 2000 words is between 3 and 4 sides of A4 paper from Microsoft Word, that’s all. As for the languages, from Oxford’s website, they require (I quote) “normally a few hundred words in length” for the text in the target language. Or, in other words, the length of an A-Level Spanish literary essay. As I’m sure you have found out through school essay practice, that’s really not much at all!
The aim therefore, as I see it, is not to wow the interviewers - or, at least, it isn’t the primary aim. In my opinion (to repeat, it’s just an opinion), the written work is a verification process - and indication of how you’re progressing with the language, and where you are likely to be at the end of your school studies, as well as acting as a companion to your entrance exam. If the submitted work also happens to give you an opportunity to flaunt your literary skills, even better (my English-medium piece was about Cordelia in King Lear, for instance) - but as mentioned above, that’s not a must-have. Structure and logical argumentation are more important; these can be demonstrated even in a petite essay. So, pick a good piece of schoolwork - a representative one, not a bloated Norse saga - and that’ll do.
I inadvertently practiced what I’m preaching here. What did I send as a representative work for Spanish? It was a roughly 300-word mini-essay on the (decidedly non-scintillating and non-literary) topic of why smoking is bad for you. If that was good enough for my application, it’s good enough for yours. Meanwhile, a student I met on the Open Day was worried that their 2000-word German-language paean on Angela Merkel’s TV persona wouldn’t be enough … when I heard this, it scared the bejesus out of me, but you know what? I never, ever saw that person again after the Open Day. When Oxford (the ones for whom we have more info) say just a few hundred words, they really do mean it.
Oxbridge Admissions Tests - The Oxford MLAT and Cambridge MML Tests
No matter the course combination, you will need to sit an admissions test to read Spanish at Oxford or Cambridge. We have covered the Oxford MLAT (LINK) and the Cambridge MML Test (LINK) on other posts, so I won’t repeat that here - but please, have a good look.
Preparing for Oxbridge Spanish / Modern Foreign Languages Interviews
Here are some of the useful things that you can do before the interview period starts:
Keep an eye on current affairs in the Spanish-speaking world
Touch-up on grammar
Speak Spanish!
Remind yourself of all your reading so far - especially the texts mentioned on your personal statement
For more information on the interviews and example questions to practise, check out our Modern Foreign Languages & Additional Spanish Questions packs!
Conclusion
If you’ve made it to the end of this sprawling guide, well done! It’s remarkable how many words I used to say “how you prepare is up to you” … but a reminder of that is how I’d like to finish. My wordiness on this subject is for one simple reason: the things I discussed are things I found exciting. This should be your golden rule as well. I don’t know what those things are for you - maybe you do already, or maybe you don’t yet (and that’s OK; there’s time). Explore, excavate, expel boring stuff if needs be, and, most of all, explain. A good candidate is more than just a list of experiences (after all, most good candidates have that - so how to differentiate?). More than that, they show what they’ve learnt, and why it excites them. There’s a lot to find out there, and some of it will be right for you - so find things you enjoy, show it, and that personal enjoyment will shine right through.
Are You Applying For Spanish or Modern Foreign Languages at Oxbridge?
Oxbridge Spanish / Modern Foreign Languages Tutoring
U2 offers ad hoc sessions as well as wider Oxbridge Mentoring programmes (book a free consultation to discuss options). We have a great team of Oxbridge-educated Spanish tutors including 1st Class, Master’s and PhD level graduates.
The Process:
1) We suggest an Oxbridge Spanish / Modern Foreign Languages graduate as a tutor and send their full CV for review. Our tutors are deeply familiar with the admissions process to study Spanish / Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Oxford and Cambridge, and are well-placed to guide you through personal statement curation, the entrance exam (if applicable) and interview process.
2) We typically suggest beginning with a 1.5 hour informal assessment/ taster session, where the tutor will informally assess the student’s current performance level at Spanish for application, including test and interview. Following this, we issue a report with feedback, and structure a plan to best prepare.
3) U2’s approach for regular Spanish application sessions: The main focus of tutorial sessions will be to explore material that can be discussed in the personal statement and at interview. Tutors ensure each student refines their interests within Spanish, and is exposed to a range of approaches and new concepts, guiding students in their reading and wider subject exploration. Together, we build a case for the student, exploring their special interests in the subject and honing skills for the admissions test if applicable.
Frequency of sessions can be decided between student and tutor. Students can take either ad hoc sessions, or we structure a full programme for preparation, which may include further co-curricular opportunities such as our research projects, our Languages Summer Schools and Oxbridge mock interview days. Oxbridge tutoring presents a wonderful opportunity to learn from and be inspired by some extraordinary academic minds. We would be delighted to support you through what can be a challenging, but hugely rewarding process.