Sorry Guys not been following the CC regularly now. My son did not get offer from Oxford. He did do quite well in MAT (in top 10 %) but the candidate pool was just too good. We don’t have to worry about ED issue. He is committed to UChicago. I want to thank everyone from bottom of my heart especially
@HazeGrey
@PurpleTitan
@Conformist1688
@Twoin18
@collegemom3717
I got some of the best advice absolutely for free here. I hope this thread will give more concrete data points to future applicants.
@sr55662 Sorry to hear that news. A complete head scratcher to me given your son’s background and MAT score. If he’s interested, your son can ask for feedback by contacting Balliol’s admissions staff. It normally isn’t very detailed, but if he wants to know, he can ask. FWIW, my son had a similarly strong friend from his HS who applied this year to his college and he was rejected as well. Worcester has an new interim provost who appears to have quite a different philosophy. There’s a lengthy post on the college website about the approach they took to admissions this year. “Access” seems to be receiving more and more focus in the process.
@HazeGrey Thanks. There is only one in three chance of offer for invited candidates but, I also feel something is changing. Another very qualified candidate from our school with 5 in more than 8 AP test and a top 10% in MAT did not even get interview invite. We also noticed that quality of other US candidates were top notch ( multiple of them from Thomas Jefferson ).
That’s interesting. Just taking a look from the published Oxford results from this cycle’s MAT, 90%+ of the MAT takers scoring in the top 10% got an interview. I wonder if most of the <10% who didn’t get an interview are international.
Hmm. It’s not so much yield-protection as yield doesn’t really matter for anything over there. But Oxbridge still do not like to be turned down and I would hazard a guess that the Americans that do go there for undergrad transfer back home at a higher rate than students from almost any other country.
“That’s interesting. Just taking a look from the published Oxford results from this cycle’s MAT, 90%+ of the MAT takers scoring in the top 10% got an interview. I wonder if most of the <10% who didn’t get an interview are international.”
Those who don’t get an interview likely have relatively poor references. It wouldn’t be surprising if more international students don’t have such good references because their referees have less experience in writing one.
Also possible that there is a red flag in the PS that indicates they don’t really understand what an Oxbridge degree really involves.
Right. I daresay most applicants to Oxbridge (even the overseas ones) are more knowledgeable of and are more comfortable with the whole system over there than most American applicants are.
My two cents is that the admission to read CS or Math@Oxbridge is becoming more and more competitive for US students as it is increasingly attracting more highly academically qualified candidates from US. Oxbridge may not be willing to increase the offers in the same ratio as many of these candidates will have quality options back home and may choose US schools over Oxbridge. Hence applicants need to have every part of their applications (including PS and reference) in top order.
Interestingly Oxford was the only rejection my S had (in early round), His results are
Acceptance:
UChicago
UMich
UIUC (CS+Math)
Case Western (25000 merit)
Defer:
Caltech
MIT
Rejection:
Oxford
I think this blows the theory of the other thread that PS doesn’t matter.
If students have multiple AP fives, high MAT, the only things left to distinguish them is reference and personal statement.
I would still tend to think that the reference is a much bigger deal than the PS. No Oxbridge college is likely to admit more than a handful of Americans or more than one per subject. I’m pretty sure that my S18 was being compared against the other American interviewee at his college.
In that context if your teacher can’t say you are their best student in the subject in the last 5-10 years then (unless they say something like you are comparable to a prior student who was an IMO participant) you won’t be that impressive, given how relatively easy the APs and SATs are compared to A levels.
It’s a big difference to the UK where there is more of a track record of references. If my school said X is the best student in math or science, it was meaningful because they sent lots of kids to Oxbridge In that subject every year.
And the US applicants are being compared to kids from the Far East who are a) very impressive and b) likely to attend (because they have usually chosen to pursue either the UK or US systems but not both).
I do wonder if the high risk, high reward strategy in the future for math applicants will be to take STEP at the end of their junior year. That not only demonstrates skill, but also shows commitment and planning for attending a UK university.
Also, even in Math the interview is important. Sometimes tutors turn down students who are brilliant on paper but who they don’t think well-suited to Oxford tutorial learning.
Though I would mention that the results were virtually in line with each other. For HYPSM, an unhooked applicant nearly has to be a unicorn. For Oxford and Caltech, they would have to be one of the top students in that subject in the world that year.
For U of C ED, UMich, and UIUC CS+X, being merely exceptional is enough.
The good news (IMO) is that there is essentially no difference in opportunities/outcomes regardless of which of the U of C/Caltech/MIT/Oxford you go to (UMich and UIUC offer a lot of opportunities too but they are more gigantic so you have to be more of a go-getter).