Oxbridge

Is not exceptional. The AHRC doesn't recognise their undergraduate MAs.

"If a student does not have experience of formal postgraduate study, they may
be eligible for a studentship only if they can demonstrate evidence of
sustained experience beyond undergraduate degree level that is specifically
relevant to their proposed research topic, and could be considered equivalent
to Master’s study. A student and their RO will need to be able to justify why
this experience qualifies them exceptionally as prepared for doctoral
research without prior formal postgraduate training. On their own, the
following are not considered as ‘exceptional’ in terms of qualifying a student
for doctoral study:
• An undergraduate MA from Oxford or Cambridge
• An undergraduate MA from a Scottish University
• A four-year undergraduate degree
• The completion of a dissertation as part of an undergraduate degree."

I'm a little bit bitter.

Just as an amendment to that, this is also quite interesting:

"Certain departments or ROs are ineligible to hold doctoral awards on behalf
of students in 2009 because of their low doctoral submission rates in past
years. Those concerned are listed below:
• School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool
• Manchester Metroplitan University"

And a second amendment, the AHRC details which subjects it accepts:

"Librarianship, Information and
Museum Studies
• Archives
• Computational Studies
• Conservation Science
• Heritage Management
• Information Management
• Information Retrieval
• Information Science
• Journalism
• Library Studies
• Management
• Museum and Gallery Studies
• Publishing
• Records Management
• User Studies"

.....what exactly is user studies?!