Why Study PPE?

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics is one of the most prestigious courses at Oxford, and indeed the world, and is arguably the very most. In 2017, the Guardian described it as 'the Oxford degree that runs Britain' and noted that its graduates 'make up an astonishing proportion of Britain's elite.'

It is well-known that a wildly disproportionate number of British politicians studied PPE (Ed Balls, David Cameron, Yvette Cooper, Ed Davey, William Hague, Ted Heath, Michael Heseltine, Nigel Lawson, Ed Miliband, Rachel Reeves, Rory Stewart, Rishi Sunak, and Liz Truss, to name but a few). Less well-known is the fact that a huge number of politicians from all over the world studied PPE at Oxford as well! These include Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, Pete Buttigieg, former US Secretary of Transportation, Imran Khan, Pakistani cricketer and former Prime Minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, former President of Peru, John Kufuor, former President of Ghana, Kukrit Pramoj, former Prime Minister of Thailand, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the first State Counsellor of Myanmar and 1991 Nobel Peace Price Laureate.

However, PPE is not just for politicians. It's also been studied by actors (Riz Ahmed), army generals (Wesley Clark), authors (Walter Isaacson), business executives (Nick Denton), financiers (Guy Hands), historians (Anthony Seldon), journalists (Mehdi Hasan), and even US supreme court justices (Stephen Breyer). Clearly, whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, studying PPE at Oxford is a great first step!

Besides its famous alumni, one of the wonderful things about PPE is the freedom you have in your study. Students in their second and third years take a total of eight modules of their choosing, which can range from Jurisprudence, to Hellenistic Philosophy, to Politics in South Asia, to Marx and Marxism, to History of the World Economy. This allows, you to keep following your interests as you evolve over the course of university.

There is further freedom to be found in the style of teaching, with two compulsory contact hours per week in tutorials, as well as a number of interesting lectures you may attend, and a great deal of independent study, allowing you to structure your days as you see fit. The range of topics you can study means that the course attracts all types of thinkers, leading to a dynamic student population, united in their love of thinking deeply and curiosity about the world.

Of course, all of this means that the application process for PPE is highly competitive, and you're competing against many of the brightest minds in the world. Of the 1,908 students who applied for PPE between 2022 and 2024, only 12% were successful. As such, tutoring can be essential in securing a place. That's where we come in, providing our expert guidance to help you stand out from the crowd.

If you want to learn more, just get in touch with us at hello@ppesuccess.com, or give us a call on +20 8156 4942. Alternatively, if you want to book a trial session for our 1st-Class Service to begin your journey to a PPE offer, you can do so here. Good luck!