The question I hear from parents and sixth-formers in the autumn term is not usually 'Can I get into Oxford?' It's 'Which course do we actually pick?' By the middle of September, the family shortlist often has four or five names on it. The worry underneath is the same: that they've missed an Oxford University 2026 course which would have been a better fit for the student's strengths and the grades they're likely to achieve.

Oxford's 2026 undergraduate course list is public, tightly organised and smaller than most people expect. The university runs around 50 named courses across four academic divisions, plus a small set of Foundation Year programmes. Once you understand how the list is built, choosing becomes easier.

The 2026 course list at a glance

Oxford's courses are the degree programmes themselves, not the individual modules you'll take. The university uses 'course' the way an Australian university might use 'degree', not 'subject'. When you apply, you're committing to that named course for the whole degree, though many courses leave room for options in the second and third years.

The list is split across four divisions: Humanities; Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences; Medical Sciences; and Social Sciences. Some joint courses sit across those boundaries, but the broad subject groups below are the quickest way to find a course.

Humanities and languages

• Classics
• Classical Archaeology and Ancient History
• Classics and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
• Classics and English
• Classics and Modern Languages
• English Language and Literature
• English and Modern Languages
• European and Middle Eastern Languages
• Fine Art
• History
• History (Ancient and Modern)
• History and Economics
• History and English
• History and Modern Languages
• History and Politics
• History of Art
• Modern Languages
• Modern Languages and Linguistics
• Music
• Philosophy and Modern Languages
• Philosophy and Theology
• Theology and Religion
• Religion and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Sciences and mathematics

• Biochemistry (Molecular and Cellular)
• Biology
• Biomedical Sciences
• Chemistry
• Computer Science
• Computer Science and Philosophy
• Earth Sciences (Geology)
• Engineering Science
• Materials Science
• Mathematics
• Mathematics and Computer Science
• Mathematics and Philosophy
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Physics
• Physics and Philosophy
• Psychology (Experimental)
• Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics

Medicine and health

• Medicine
• Medicine (Graduate Entry)

Social sciences and management

• Archaeology and Anthropology
• Economics and Management
• Geography
• Human Sciences
• Law (Jurisprudence)
• Law with Law Studies in Europe
• Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE)

The full course A-Z is longer than a quick list, but these are the named undergraduate courses that appear in the 2026 entry cycle.

Joint schools and Foundation Year routes

What makes Oxford's list distinctive is the number of joint schools. They are full degrees where the workload is shared between two faculties, not a light-touch combination. History and English, Mathematics and Philosophy, Physics and Philosophy, and the language combinations each have separate entry requirements and separate tutorial arrangements. When you're shortlisting, don't treat a joint school as a back-up for the single subject. It's a different degree with its own workload.

Oxford also lists Foundation Year routes for UK students from under-represented backgrounds. These are one-year programmes that prepare students for specific degrees, and they have their own eligibility rules. Contrast that with an Australian Bachelor of Arts, where major selection often happens in second year, or with systems in much of Asia where the degree track is fixed at application. Oxford sits somewhere in between. The course is fixed, but the tutorial system and option papers create flexibility within it.

How the course list actually works in practice

There's more to Oxford than the course title. You apply to a college, or make an open application, but the course is run across the university. That means your tutorials, admissions interviews and some of your first-year teaching happen in college, while lectures and labs are organised by the department or faculty. The course list won't show you the college atmosphere, and exploring college profiles is a separate task.

This is also where the October deadline matters. Oxford and Cambridge share the early UCAS deadline, which for 2026 entry falls on 15 October 2025, well before the January deadline most UK universities use. Missing it removes the option, no matter how carefully the course shortlist was built.

Where to check 2026 entry requirements

The authoritative course A-Z is on Oxford's undergraduate admissions site. Oxford University undergraduate courses sets out the full list, and the individual course pages include the A-level and IB subject requirements, admissions test details and written work rules. Treat the course page as the contract; the printed prospectus is only a starting point.

For comparisons across the whole UK sector, UCAS course search is useful because it shows the same named course across different providers. It also lets you filter by location, entry requirements and application route. Oxford's own applying to Oxford guide covers the timeline from test registration to interviews, and it's updated for each entry year.

What to do this month

The practical work is not reading the whole course list again. It's filtering ruthlessly. For each shortlisted course, open the official course page and note two things: the exact subject requirements at A-level or IB, and the deadline for any admissions test registration. Test registration often closes earlier than the UCAS deadline, and missing it is one of the most common unforced errors.

This week, open the official course A-Z and put a star next to the courses that actually match the student's A-level or IB subjects. That one filter removes most of the shortlist pain before the October deadline closes in.

Photo by Nils Lindner on Unsplash