<p>It looks like you’ve got a sufficient level of all-roundedness and depth to have a decent enough chance with Harvard - my view towards Harvard has always been that, once you achieve a certain level of sufficiency (i.e. strong test scores, grades, co-curriculars, some sort of state/national level activity, and some sort of real world research/job/charity etc., plus a good essay) then it’s pretty much down to chance and variables you can’t control - i.e. ethnicity, what sort of demographic the admissions committee want, so on so forth.</p>
<p>As for Oxford, I’ve been accepted to start there from this year (October 2011). It’s a lot harder to ‘chance’ people who want to apply there from the US (I’m from Australia, but also was going to apply to HYP etc. until I got my Oxford offer, which I decided to take and therefore didn’t complete my Common App) since it’s far less concerned about ECs. I guess with Oxford it really depends what you want to apply for. Where Harvard want the typical kid who plays in ten varsity teams, scores 2400 on their SATs and has raised a million bucks for their own charity, Oxford really just want people who are PASSIONATE and GOOD at their subject.
So, say you were going to apply for Biology, Oxford would be looking at a) your grades in the relevant subject (as well as your other subjects), b) what reading you’ve mentioned in your personal statement related to the subject and, from that, what ideas you found interesting, and c) any ECs you’ve done THAT RELATE TO BIOLOGY (e.g. they’d love someone who’s done research in biology, because it demonstrates that you’ve acted on your interest in the subject, but really couldn’t care if you’d played in thirty varsity teams).
The last piece of the Oxford puzzle is the interview, if you get to that final round of the admissions process. There, they’ll ask you all manner of obscure questions specifically related to your subject to see how well you can think about it on the spot, and apply what you know to unfamiliar material. So, where in a Harvard interview they might ask something relatively mundane like “What could you contribute to our university?”, an Oxford biology interview would involve questions like “Tell me about a banana”, and you would then be expected to react to a really obscure proposition like that by applying your knowledge of biology to it (e.g. talking about how the banana’s properties, such as having a skin/softness/etc., are a reflection of how it operates in the food chain or in its environment or whatever).</p>
<p>So, yeah, long story short, it’s hard to compare the two. I would say, though, that for undergraduate, if you are certain of the subject you want to do (i.e. you would be content with declaring your major before you even got to college) then Oxford is a better choice. The undergrad experience at Oxford is far suprerior to HY because you get at least a couple of hours of one-on-one or two-on-one time with a world-leading academic in your field every week (via the famous tutorial system, which you should read about on their website); at Harvard, a ‘tutorial’ can have over twenty people in it, and you’ll barely get the chance to actually interact with the famous and renowned academics they have. Harvard is great for post-grad, but not so much for undergrad. That said, if by the time applications come around you’re not totally sure about what you want a degree in, then it may be a better choice.</p>
<p>You should google ‘The Student Room forum’, which is the UK version of CC. Good luck!</p>