St John's College Oxford

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Average intake: Seven

Tutors and Lecturers

• Professor Walter Mattli, Tutorial Fellow in Politics
• Dr Alison Hills, Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy
• Mr Vijay Joshi, Supernumerary Fellow in Economics
• Dr David Lee, Supernumerary Teaching Fellow in Philosophy
• Dr Kate Doornik, Supernumerary Fellow in Economics
• Dr Maya Tudor, Supernumerary Teaching Fellow in Politics
• Dr David Barron, Associate College Lecturer in Management Studies

Additional Fellows

• Mr David Bevan, Emeritus Research Fellow in Economics
• Dr Peter Hacker, Emeritus Research Fellow
• John Filling, Andrew Fraser Junior Research Fellow in Political Philosophy

More about PPE at St John's

• At St John's, undergraduates, graduates and tutors are all actively involved in pushing back the boundaries of social and political understanding.
• Politics at St John's is taught by tutors both in the college and around the university who are world leaders in their fields - from International Relations to Comparative Government, Political Theory to Sociology.
• We offer excellent teaching in Philosophy by dedicated tutors actively engaged in research in the subject. The college has particular strengths in Ethics and the History of Philosophy.
• Two outstanding economics tutors joined the St. John's PPE teaching team in 2008. Vijay Joshi, formerly Economics Fellow at Merton College,is an expert in international economics as well as macroeconomics;Katherine Doornik, formerly the Management Fellow at University College,is an expert in game theory and microeconomics.
• The intellectual and methodological guidance of St John's tutors, combined with bursaries and other college support, has enabled some of our undergraduates to write original, published studies.
• St John's has produced a great many politics graduates over the years who have gone on to illustrious careers in fields as diverse as media, policy, law, politics, finance and business. Several of our graduates have been offered admission with full funding to the world's best and most competitive doctoral programs, including Oxford, Harvard, and Princeton.
• Our students enjoy participating in the undergraduate Philosophy society (the Strawson Society), which arranges talks throughout the year.

N.B. Although a background in Mathematics is not formally required for admission, PPE applicants should have sufficient interest in, and aptitude for, mathematics to cope with the mathematical elements of the course. Mathematics is a particular advantage for the Economics component of the course, as well as for the first year logic course in philosophy, and for understanding theories and data in politics.

Last year around 90% of the applicants who were offered places for PPE had studied Maths to at least AS-Level, or equivalent. You may like to consider taking Maths to AS-level, or an equivalent qualification such as IB Standard Level, even if you do not pursue it further. It is useful to have learnt the basics of differentiation before starting your university course in PPE.