DS has decided to apply to do history at Oxford. He is in Y12 and has been researching the process. There is limited support from his school, which is a decent state school but sends the odd student every couple of years or so, though they tend to have around 10 applying each year.
DS has been passionate about history pretty much all his life, but his specific areas of interest change. He is aware that he needs to show interest in the subject beyond the GCSE and A level syllabi and has recently become more interested in economic history and the emergence of capitalism in different countries. His school doesn't have much of a library and so he has been buying books on that topic (they aren't cheap...). However, he has now realised economic history is a separate degree at Oxford (and one for which A level maths is recommended, which he won't have).
He's now worried that the reading he's doing, and the genuine interest he does have, are not relevant. Any insights or advice would be great. We have no experience to draw on, school support is encouraging but not really informative and we don't qualify for any of the out-reach stuff, so we do feel quite clueless.