Undergraduate Online Summer School

Teaching hours

Undergraduate Online Summer School modules comprise 150 study hours over three weeks, which includes 45 hours of online learning activities and live classes, as well as independent study, team project work and assessment preparation.  

Live classes will begin at either 9am or 3pm (only on selected modules) each weekday (British Summer Time), and students will be grouped into the session based on availability and operational requirements of the module. In addition, some of the course material can be studied flexibly and at your own pace. 

Teaching is through a variety of formats adapted for effective online learning by our digital education team, such as lectures, seminars and e-learning resources. 

Attendance

Attendance is vital to success on the module, and you are required attend at least 80% of your lessons in order to pass the module.  

Assessment and grading

All students will receive a final mark on their Record of Agreed Results (transcript). The UK grading system may be very different from what you are used to. Please note in the UK anything above 70 is considered excellent; it is not usual to receive much above 80 even if this is what you are used to at your home university. 

King's College London's Undergraduate Marking Criteria is categorised by the following breakdown of marks: 

• 90-100 (First) Grade A++
• 80-89 (First) Grade A+
• 70-79 (First) Grade A
• 60-69 (Upper 2nd) Grade B
• 50-59 (Lower 2nd) Grade C
• 40-49 (Third) Grade D
• 33-39 (Fail) Grade F
• 0-32 (Fail) Grade FF

Credit value

Classes can often be taken for credit towards degrees at other institutions and are examined to university standards. To receive credit for King's summer classes, contact your home institution to ask them to award external credit. This class is equivalent to an undergraduate degree module and usually awarded 3-4 US credits or 7.5 ECTS.

Here is what you might expect on a typical day on one of our Undergraduate Summer School modules. Please note that different modules may vary somewhat in teaching approaches, and the information included on this page is included as a guide only.

Online learning

You will spend your morning* accessing online learning resources prepared specially by your tutor, who will have carefully selected the best kind of resource for each topic or skill. For example, on one day they might have prepared two short video lectures on academic topics, a quiz, a short piece of reading and a question for you to discuss in the class forum. This might take you between 90 and 120 minutes.

(* Note that, depending on time zones, your live teaching sessions may in fact take place in the morning, in which case you will access the online learning resources in the afternoon of the previous day.)

Live teaching

After lunch, you will have a live session of one hour or more with your course tutor, an academic from one of King’s College London’s world-class faculty teams, who will lead you in discussion, debate or collaborative investigation around the themes from the morning’s online learning, or other key topics from earlier in the week. These sessions are convened on the College’s Microsoft Teams software, which allows all participants to participate in a highly interactive video call, sharing materials as required. There will also often be opportunities to break out into smaller groups as needed.

Teamworking and independent study

A fair portion of each day will be spent working independently either individually or in small groups. This can be done through live chat or team video meetings, again through Microsoft Teams. You can do this at any point during the day – for instance, if during the morning’s online learning you are unclear about a challenging concept, you can open up Teams and start chatting with others on your course.

The Summer Society

After an intensive, mind-expanding day of study, as evening arrives you will be in the mood for social activities, and that is where the King’s Summer Society comes in. A whole host of different sessions will be organised, from academic challenges to film clubs, from online live music streams to cultural exchanges, in order to allow students to connect with one another and make the most of the summer experience. Read more about the Summer Society here.

We require applicants to be working at or above, or have obtained, a 2:1 level (or equivalent) in their degree programme. Equivalencies for some countries are listed below. If your qualification is not listed please contact us for advice, indicating the country in which you are studying and the name and level of your current qualification.

We may consider qualifications which are different to those below on a case-by-case basis.

Tuition fees for the Undergraduate Online Summer School are displayed below. Students from King’s College London partner universities and King’s alumni are entitled to a 10% discount*. 

*Please note that this does not apply to our Ancient Languages modules.

We operate on a first-come, first-served basis. Please refer to our terms and conditions. If you would like to apply for more than one session, please contact summer@kcl.ac.uk with your request.

Places in our summer schools can only be confirmed once full payment of the fee is received. Please visit our How To Apply page  for information about how to apply and pay.