The information on this page is specific to Christ's College.
All applicants to Christ's in History & Modern Languages and History and Politics are asked whether or not they would consider an offer for one of our single subject courses (History, Modern and Medieval Languages, Human, Social and Political Sciences) if their application for the dual course is not successful. We ask this on one of the additional forms that you complete after applying (in this case the AAIF - all candidates are asked to complete it by early November).
If you say no, we will only consider you for the course you have applied for.
If you say yes, it doesn't affect your chances of getting a place on the course you applied for at all, since we first of all consider all applicants for the course they have applied for and admit for your preference course if you are a strong enough candidate.
It is quite common, however, that applicants for dual courses might be much more suitable for one half of what they are applying for than the other! Unfortunately we cannot admit you for a dual course unless you have the right potential in both subject areas, no matter how strong your potential might be for one of them! Rather than rejecting a strong candidate who is not suitable for their target course, we consider those candidates who have agreed to be considered for singe honours courses for the relevant course, and in a very small number of cases (tiny), when considered only for their stronger subject alone, the picture then looks quite different and they are good enough to be selected for an offer in the single honours course.
Note that we only do this additional consideration for specific overlapping courses - we do not do it for every course. So if you apply for Medicine, for example, you will only be considered for Medicine.