Degrees.
Possible to Rhodes Scholars.
The University of Oxford grants degrees in Arts, Music, Medicine (Surgery), Law, and Divinity, to which must be added the recently instituted ‘research’ degrees in Letters and Science. Special advanced courses, extending over a year or two, are offered in Education, Geography, Public Health, Economics, Anthropology, Mining and Engineering, and Forestry, for which a certificate or diploma, but no degree, is granted. We are concerned here only with those degrees which are possible to the Rhodes Scholars. As has already been stated, all candidates for an Oxford Bachelor’s degree (except the degree in Music) must satisfy certain requirements of residence and scholarship. The degrees which will be open to the Rhodes Scholar who remains in Oxford only for the three years of his Scholarship are:—
1. The ordinary Bachelor of Arts degree,—which, except on certain conditions, requires twelve University Terms of residence, i. e. three academic years; and
2. The more advanced, or ‘post-graduate’, degrees of Bachelor in Letters, Science, or Civil Law,—which can only be taken, upon satisfying certain preliminary qualifications, after a residence of at least eight University Terms, i. e. at the end of the second year.
‘Standing.’
To proceed to the higher degrees, there are no further requirements of residence, but only of standing. This consists in keeping the name on the books of the College whether resident or not, and paying the quarterly dues to the University. In practice it amounts to paying a nominal sum annually to the College, which pays the University dues for the candidate for higher degrees. This is technically known as keeping Terms of standing.
Master of Arts. This degree can be taken only by an Oxford B.A. upon entering on his twenty-seventh Term from matriculation, i. e. after six and a half years. There are no further requirements of scholarship.[52]
D.Litt., D.Sc., D.C.L. Candidates who have taken the Bachelor’s degree in Letters or Science may proceed to the Doctorate in the twenty-seventh Term from the date of their matriculation. Bachelors of Civil Law cannot take the degree of D.C.L. until the expiration of five years from the time of their admission to the B.C.L. In any case, all candidates for the Doctor’s degree in Letters, Science, or Civil Law are required to submit a dissertation which has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in their particular field.
Advanced standing.