The Open Secret Podcast: How People Really Get Into Oxford, Cambridge, and the UK's Top Universities for Postgraduate Study Tue, 28 Jul 2026 22:31:41 +0100 https://www.buzzsprout.com/2632447 en-us © 2026 The Open Secret Podcast: How People Really Get Into Oxford, Cambridge, and the UK's Top Universities for Postgraduate Study yes f3cb432e-a068-541e-8e19-d984177ff01d Dr Claire Bergstrom Johnson episodic false Getting into Oxford, Cambridge, and the UK's top universities for postgraduate study can feel like there's a secret code that everyone else was handed and you weren't.


There is. It's just that almost no one says it out loud! The Open Secret is the show that says it out loud.


Hosted by Dr Claire Bergstrom Johnson, a Clarendon Scholar, Oxford DPhil graduate and clinical research fellow, this podcast pulls back the curtain on how people actually win places and full funding at the world's most competitive universities. And Claire knows both sides of it intimately, because before the two fully funded Oxbridge offers, she received 20 graduate rejections in total. When she finally got in, she was the same person with the same grades - just a completely different rebuit approach.


Since then, she's helped thousands of applicants across more than eighty countries, and she's read the real successful postgraduate applications almost no one else gets to see, which means the guidance here isn't guesswork. It's the patterns behind what actually works!


Each episode gives you the honest, insider version of postgraduate admissions: the seven factors that decide how competitive you really are, why fit beats prestige, how funding actually works (and why it's half the battle), what a winning personal statement and reference letter look like, how to approach supervisors, and the mindset shifts that separate the people who get in from the people who talk themselves out of applying.


Whether you're already drafting your application or you're still wondering whether someone like you could ever get in, this is the resource Claire wishes she'd had before her own rejections.


Because the real question isn't whether it's possible. It's *why not you?*


New episodes weekly. For the full self-assessment and the resources mentioned in the show, head to oxbridgeadmissionsclub.com.

]]> Buzzsprout (https://www.buzzsprout.com) Dr Claire Bergstrom Johnson https://storage.buzzsprout.com/jw61mcw0hoah55jgaju9l8jn2l2h?.jpg The Open Secret Podcast: How People Really Get Into Oxford, Cambridge, and the UK's Top Universities for Postgraduate Study https://www.buzzsprout.com/2632447 How I Got Into Oxford and Cambridge, Both Fully Funded, After 20 Rejections How I Got Into Oxford and Cambridge, Both Fully Funded, After 20 Rejections In my first application cycle I sent off eleven applications and got eleven rejections, without a single interview, and I thought that was my answer.

Then in the very next round, the same cycle where I collected nine more nos, Oxford and Cambridge both said yes, and both fully funded.

👉 Want to know exactly how competitive you are right now, before you write a single word of your application? Start here: https://oxbridgeadmissionsclub.thrivecart.com/roadmap/?el=podcastep1-podcast

This is the first ever episode of The Open Secret, and I wanted to open the show with the story I usually only tell in pieces. Not the tidy version where it all worked out, but the whole thing: the rejections stacking up one after another, the year I spent convinced someone like me was never going to be competitive, my twin sister Maegan and why she is the reason I do any of this at all, and the one shift in approach that changed everything between the round that rejected me and the round that funded me.

Same grades, same imperfect profile, a completely rebuilt approach.

If you have already decided that Oxford or Cambridge is for you, but somewhere between that certainty and the blank application everything starts to feel impossible, this episode is for you. My whole thesis is that how you apply matters more than the profile you walk in with, and that the game is far more winnable than the myth of the perfect applicant would have you believe.

The Oxbridge Postgraduate Roadmap 📍

Everything I actually did to turn things around lives inside the Roadmap. It is a £25 diagnostic workbook built around my 7-Factor Competitiveness Framework, grounded in 30+ real successful and fully funded postgraduate applications, and it scores where you genuinely stand across every factor that matters, then shows you the pathway from where you are now to a competitive application. It is the honest starting point before you spend months on a personal statement!

Get the Roadmap 👉 https://oxbridgeadmissionsclub.thrivecart.com/roadmap/?el=podcastep1-podcast

Come say hello 💌 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oxbridgeadmissionsclub (or DM me the word ROADMAP and I'll send the link straight to you)

Listen on the go: The Open Secret is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts.

]]> In my first application cycle I sent off eleven applications and got eleven rejections, without a single interview, and I thought that was my answer.

Then in the very next round, the same cycle where I collected nine more nos, Oxford and Cambridge both said yes, and both fully funded.

👉 Want to know exactly how competitive you are right now, before you write a single word of your application? Start here: https://oxbridgeadmissionsclub.thrivecart.com/roadmap/?el=podcastep1-podcast

This is the first ever episode of The Open Secret, and I wanted to open the show with the story I usually only tell in pieces. Not the tidy version where it all worked out, but the whole thing: the rejections stacking up one after another, the year I spent convinced someone like me was never going to be competitive, my twin sister Maegan and why she is the reason I do any of this at all, and the one shift in approach that changed everything between the round that rejected me and the round that funded me.

Same grades, same imperfect profile, a completely rebuilt approach.

If you have already decided that Oxford or Cambridge is for you, but somewhere between that certainty and the blank application everything starts to feel impossible, this episode is for you. My whole thesis is that how you apply matters more than the profile you walk in with, and that the game is far more winnable than the myth of the perfect applicant would have you believe.

The Oxbridge Postgraduate Roadmap 📍

Everything I actually did to turn things around lives inside the Roadmap. It is a £25 diagnostic workbook built around my 7-Factor Competitiveness Framework, grounded in 30+ real successful and fully funded postgraduate applications, and it scores where you genuinely stand across every factor that matters, then shows you the pathway from where you are now to a competitive application. It is the honest starting point before you spend months on a personal statement!

Get the Roadmap 👉 https://oxbridgeadmissionsclub.thrivecart.com/roadmap/?el=podcastep1-podcast

Come say hello 💌 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oxbridgeadmissionsclub (or DM me the word ROADMAP and I'll send the link straight to you)

Listen on the go: The Open Secret is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts.

]]> Dr Claire Bergstrom Johnson Buzzsprout-19544325 Fri, 24 Jul 2026 18:00:00 +0100 1317 1 1 full false