The Cambridge Experience offers a rich blend of academic rigor and cultural exploration, tailored for younger students to experience the storied environment of Cambridge University, aiming to inspire and cultivate their academic and personal development.
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The Cambridge Prep Experience, tailored for students in grades 8 and 9 at Peterhouse, the University of Cambridge's oldest college established in 1284, offers an immersive educational opportunity. With the choice of two sessions and courses such as Robotics, Espionage, or Medical Science, students receive instruction from university professors and industry professionals, using Cambridge as a living classroom.
The program is priced at $7,125 for a two-week session or $12,225 for a combined session from July 6 to August 2. It covers accommodation, classroom instruction, workshops, field trips, daily meals, and organized activities, with scholarship options available.
Beyond academics, students engage in cultural enrichment activities, including tours of historic sites, sports, talent shows, the Duxford Air Show, and London excursions. Accommodation is in single or double rooms with access to campus facilities.
Founded in 1284 and granted its royal charter by King Edward I, Peterhouse College is Cambridge’s oldest college, and also its most diminutive in size. Known for its strong tradition of academic excellence in both the arts and sciences,...
Compare available dates, duration, campus, fees and availability. Open a session for accommodation details.
| Session | Dates | Duration | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The Cambridge Experience | Combined | 2027 | 11 Jul 2027 - 8 Aug 2027Enrolling now | 27 days | US$12,995 | |
The Cambridge Experience | Session 1 | 2027 | 11 Jul 2027 - 24 Jul 2027Enrolling now | 13 days | US$7,850 | |
The Cambridge Experience | Session 2 | 2027 | 26 Jul 2027 - 8 Aug 2027Enrolling now | 13 days | US$7,850 |
A unique, pre-college summer experience for ambitious students, residential in the finest historic colleges of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
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Students assess the power of suggestion, persuasion, and product placement. Using a range of case studies and creative examples across all media, they explore early salesmanship, modern advertising, branding, and the increasing use of new media. Balancing creative skills with business acumen, they engage in branding exercises, interactive sales games, and the design and development of their own advertising campaign.
Aerospace Engineering is quite literally "rocket science!" Participants examine the disciplines most important to the industry, including aerodynamics, electronics, mechanics, operations systems, statistics, and thermodynamics. The course culminates with the replication of real design offices of aircraft and spacecraft companies. Students go through every stage in the creation of a new vehicle, including aerodynamic profiling, engine sizing, and structural design.
Students cover the evolution of, and relationships between, banking and markets, from their ancient origins to present-day, including the development of the stock, commodity, and capital markets. They learn how money itself is evolving, with the emergence of cryptocurrencies, and how financial institutions and markets are responding to the challenges of the modern economy. Finally, they visit the London’s Square Mile to investigate how money moves and what makes a career in finance.
Drawing ideas and inspiration from the university that nurtured Newton, Darwin, Turing, and Stephen Hawking, students immerse themselves in cutting-edge issues at the fringes of current scientific knowledge and endeavor. They study advances in diverse areas, including atomic and molecular physics, artificial intelligence, astrophysics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, particle physics, space travel, and stem-cell research. They identify the possible futures that science and technology are creating for humankind, and debate how these will affect our daily lives, our society, and our planet.
Drawing ideas and inspiration from the university that nurtured Newton, Darwin, Turing, and Stephen Hawking, students immerse themselves in cutting-edge issues at the fringes of current scientific knowledge and endeavor. They study advances in diverse areas, including atomic and molecular physics, artificial intelligence, astrophysics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, particle physics, space travel, and stem-cell research. They identify the possible futures that science and technology are creating for humankind, and debate how these will affect our daily lives, our society, and our planet.
Develop original fiction, poetry and other forms with published writers, using Oxford, Cambridge, Paris or Barcelona as creative inspiration.
Through workshops, debates, and visits to police stations and criminal courts, students explore individual and social theories of crime, philosophies of punishment, criminal profiling, incident analysis, and basic forensic science. They consider the causes of crime, the influence of the media upon crime, and issues of race, inequality, and gender within the context of the British and American criminal justice systems.
Students apply engineering principles to mechanical, structural and architectural case studies before designing a model project of their own.
Study influential writing in its Oxford or Cambridge setting while strengthening close reading, criticism and academic writing.
Students are exposed to the mechanisms, institutions, and principles that underpin modern business. They address the main business principles of strategic planning, marketing, economics, finance, accounting, and management. Concepts covered include SWOT analysis, developing a marketing strategy, as well as working through how to create a product-centered company and draft a business plan. For their final project, they create a mock company that they present in a "Shark Tank", mirroring the high-pressure, quick-tempo presentations used at colleges, business schools, and startup incubators around the world.
Students examine international commerce, free enterprise and economic development through case studies, a start-up project and exposure to Cambridge’s Judge Business School.
Compare legal systems, cases and institutions through classroom analysis, practitioner insight, court observation and moot-court advocacy.
This hands-on course introduces students to key aspects of medicine and modern medical practice. Combining specialist lectures with experiments and class discussions, students learn the main principles of human anatomy and physiology, the pathology and significance of certain diseases, the main challenges that medical science faces today, and the variety and changing nature of careers in medicine.
As opinions become radicalized, and the broad, postwar consensus is replaced by increasingly angry confrontation, students seek to discover what is now understood by politics. On what bases have we, as citizens, agreed to hand much of our power over our lives to governments? What power should governments legitimately be allowed to exercise? When, if ever, are citizens justified in refusing to comply with governments? What distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate protest and how should governments deal with protest? Through contemporary case studies, and guided by a range of thinkers, students seek to redefine the role of government and the rights of protestors.
Investigate human behaviour, psychological theory and research methods, with location-specific case studies and intellectual traditions.
At the University in which the world's most famous fictional spy, James Bond, studied, this course, which blends politics and history with practice, examines the methods and techniques of the world's most infamous services-Mossad, the KGB, the CIA, MI5, and MI6. Students address the future of intelligence operations, the challenges of field work, and the ethics of espionage in terms of international cooperation, competition, and conflict.
Examine the two world wars as connected conflicts and assess their global political and social consequences.
Students will explore the most recent body of work on the origins, course, and consequences of WWII. Students will go on short field-trips and complete individual research projects to complement their classroom instruction. This course will concentrate on the different theatres of the war, including the home front; the ways in which different people and groups experienced the conflict; how governments sought to maintain morale; and about the work of allied military intelligence at Bletchley Park.
Our programs take place in university residences or, in the case of our Paris program, at a centrally located boarding school. Each program has single and double rooms available and we are happy to take requests for single rooms or roommates via email. In the UK, students can purchase a private bathroom for an additional fee. In Barcelona, each room is equipped with an en-suite bathroom. In Paris and New York, there are shared facilities on each floor.
Students spend 21 hours in class on the one-week programs, 45 - 50 hours in a class on a two-week program (depending on the age group), and 90 -100 hours on a four-week program (depending on the age group).
Our programs are conducted primarily in English, and our programs in Oxford and Cambridge are taught exclusively in English. We want to ensure that our students can integrate fully and feel comfortable with the program community.
In France or Spain, immersion courses are taught exclusively in French or Spanish, but program information, materials, and literature are all available in English. We are happy to have a short conversation with prospective students to make sure they will be able to follow the courses in English, so please feel free to contact our Admissions office if you’d like to speak with us, or if you have any questions.
We hire a team to work at the programs and look after the students. This team consists of a program director, 3-4 deans, 3 program assistants, and 3-4 activities directors. The program director and deans are professional educators who come from reputable schools across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. They are experts in working with students in these age groups. The onsite team sets up a program office in the week leading up to the program.
Parents will be able to call and email the program office if they have any questions or concerns while their child is at the program. Each evening, students must check in with one of our Deans in the program office between 9 and 10 pm on the Experience programs and between 10 and 11 pm on each of the other programs. This is a great time for students to let the program staff know if they have any questions, or if they need something.
Students typically spend their mornings in class and on each program except for the one week seminars, students will have afternoon classes three days a week. We plan a wide range of optional chaperoned activities for students to take part in when they are not in classes.
The activities directors and program assistants are typically university students who know the city well. The program assistants help out with administrative duties in the program office and the activities directors plan the afternoon and evening activities - they, along with the program director and deans, reside at the residence where the program is taking place, so there is always an adult nearby if a student needs something.
We offer both a Tuition and Travel Protection Plan and a Full Refund Program. You can find more information regarding the Tuition and Travel Protection Plan here: https://oxbridgeprograms.com/ttpp/. There will be more information about each of these options within the application and families will also have the option to purchase them after submitting the application.
Yes! Each student receives a comprehensive grade report at the end of the program with a write up from their lecturer detailing their performance during the course as well as a letter grade.
