I am an American college freshman at a top 10-15 university in the U.S. looking to apply to Oxford PPE during my freshman year. Here are my stats:
SAT (two sittings):
2310
800 R
750 M
740 W
SAT 2:
800 Math 2
750 USH
AP
Eight 5s: European History, World History, United States History, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Computer Science, U.S. Government and Politics, Comparative Government and Politics
Two 4s: AP Physics C Electricity and Magnetism, AP English Literature and Composition
Two 3: AP Spanish Literature, AP English Language
Also, I skipped BC calculus at my school and got an A in Calculus II at Harvard Summer School.
However, my school forced me to take the AP to get into Multivariate Calculus (which I also got an A in) and I got a 1 in BC since I took it before I knew calculus. People tell me I have to send all of my scores on UCAS, but there is no way in hell I am sending the BC score, I will just send the Harvard transcript to Oxford.
So I have a few questions:
How risky is it to do this?
Chance me on getting into PPE
Should I register for the SAT 2 in Physics, World History, and retake US history to go from 750 to 800 or I am good?
Should I put on my application that I will be taking AP Physics Mechanics, and AP Statistics, and perhaps retake the English APs, in case they want to give me a conditional offer.
Why are you essentially trying to transfer from a top 10-15 US school to Oxford PPE in the first place? And why are you taking AP tests as a current college freshman? I didn’t even know that was possible.
The general admissions standards to Oxford are pretty straightforward:
Your SAT of 2310 is well above the 2100 standard, though I don’t know how Oxford treats superscores - they say they require all test scores. You have well more than 3 APs with strong results, plus 2 strong SAT IIs, so you have the basic test qualifications. Presumably if you got into a top 10-15 US university your high school GPA was also good. The strength of your current college transcript will probably be important as well.
This has been discussed before on CC to some extent:
I think that you might want to think about what college you would apply to, as you would be making application to a specific college, and write to them, and/or to Oxford admissions at large to get a sense for how feasible this is. I’m not sure it would be risky, as you have a spot at a strong U.S. school already, and unless you are not in good standing you wouldn’t be likely to lose it. But the bigger question I think is explaining why you are doing this.
To be clear: between Sophomore & Jr year of high school you took calculus through summer school at Harvard. At the end of Jr year you sat the Calc BC, in order to be allowed to take Multivariable as a Senior.[editorial guess: you were ticked off that you had to do it, so you purposely did badly]. You have now completed/graduated from high school. In September you will start university, and next May- at the end of your first year- you plan to take AP Physics Mechanics, and AP Statistics, and are considering retaking the English APs, in case Oxford wants to give you a conditional offer. Is that all correct?
Where to start…
Least important question: why, as a rising college sophomore would you be taking Physics & Stats APs in the first place?
You have more than enough 5s- why would you make yourself a hostage to fortune by taking more?
Why would you risk rejection / expulsion by breaking the explicit Oxford requirement to submit ALL your test scores, when you can so easily have your GC (or whoever writes your rec) spell out the circumstances. Oxford takes that very seriously, and no, the Harvard transcript will NOT count.
Oxford admissions is a series of hurdles. Hurdle one: your Personal Statement & Rec: are they credible? Hurdle 2: test scores: do you have credible evidence of ability? Hurdle 3: TSA score. If you pass these three hurdles then you are invited to interview, and the counter resets (except in very very close decisions, and then I’ve heard that sometimes TSA scores can be a tie-breaker).
So, nobody can chance you beyond this: your stats are credible, which is all they need to be.
Yes most of your interpretations are correct. I took AP Calc BC in May of my Junior Year before I learned calculus at Harvard during the summer before Senior years
I am trying to get into PPE because I want to be in the best position possible for Wall Street recruiting, and my school is decent at it, but Oxford is like the strongest target in the world lol.
Are you 100% sure that I must submit my BC calculus score?
I am going to probably take Honors Analysis and Statistics 101 as a freshman. Can I tell them this, and if they want to to, they can make my offer conditional upon high grades in these courses.
Also, I do not have a guidance counselor who can explain this to them lol. I am in college.
GC or no, you have to have somebody write a rec for you, and Oxford very very strongly and explicitly asks for it to be somebody who knows about your academic performance/strengths/etc, including relative to your peers. You can choose one of your profs from this year to write it, and they can reference it. Or, you can put it in your PS, though that’s a tight word count, and not the best use of space.
Yes, I am 100% sure that you must submit all your test scores. If there was more than 100% that’s how sure I would be.
Oxford will know your fall classes, b/c you will be putting it on your UCAS form, but you don’t need those classes for Oxford and imo they won’t help. You have more than enough Math in your test scores, and they generally prefer standardized test scores to classroom grades. Truly, the TSA is a much bigger part of the deal.
Btw, you said that your main reason for applying is to improve your chances of getting into a big name Wall Street company. I have seen a fair amount of the recruiting at Oxford, and know a fair few people who have gone and are in the process of going from Oxford to Goldman et al, but- that is for the London office. I honestly haven’t heard of anybody going to Wall Street (of course, there may well be people that I don’t know about). And for the London offices you obviously have to have the right to work in the UK (ie, an EU passport). It is possible that you could get a vac scheme internship at Goldmans, etc., and then use that as part of applying to Goldman NYC, but you might want to think through how you see being recruited by a NY firm from the UK.
@Crispin226, I’m confused. You will be matriculating at a top 10-15 school in a month or so, and you haven’t even experienced it yet. You may love it. Your main complaint appears to be that they are only “decent” at Wall Street recruiting. It isn’t clear to me that you won’t do just as well trying to get recruited from a top 10-15 U.S. university which doesn’t have such a Wall Street focus, and where you may stand out a bit more. Why don’t you see how things go, and consider transferring to a U.S. school that has a better Wall Street recruitment profile? I can’t imagine (as collegemom3717 notes) that Oxford has a better pipeline to Wall Street than top U.S. schools, so unless you want to be based in London I’m not sure it will be that much of an advantage.
Take a look at the transfer requirements for Wharton:
You already have 5’s in APs in micro- and macroeconomics, so you meet the Econ transfer requirement. Since you’ve already done multivariable calculus, I suspect you should be able to fulfill the math requirement fairly easily. If you really want to take more AP tests, just retake the BC exam, which should be pretty basic for you. Regardless, your focus should be on doing well at your current university this year, whether to transfer, apply to Oxford, or stay there.
How risky is it to do this?
Very. If it is found out, you will be rejected instantly. They can find out by contacting your high school e.t.c
Chance me on getting into PPE
Tbh, very low with a 1 in BC Calc, as BC Calc is an actually relevant subject to PPE. You do fill the score requirements otherwise, but then Oxford admissions is like admissions to Ivies; there are a lot of other students who do. It’ll come down to your TSA score and Interview if they don’t see your BC Calc.
Should I register for the SAT 2 in Physics, World History, and retake US history to go from 750 to 800 or I am good?
You’re good. They probably know that SAT2s are a joke (compared to the AP, and especially the IB, anyways)
Should I put on my application that I will be taking AP Physics Mechanics, and AP Statistics, and perhaps retake the English APs, in case they want to give me a conditional offer.
Sure, but I don’t see why they’d condition Physics, Stats, English for PPE. I’d say you might as well, but it would not matter much.
Btw, I am a rising Senior (applying to UK and US, including Cambridge) from a small private school in Europe which sends a few students to Oxbridge every year. UK is a lot more of a numbers game than the US with IB/AP/A-levels, and I’ve seen more qualified students than you get rejected from Oxford from our school, so I would not have high hopes on getting accepting by any means. But good luck!
Unfortunately, there is one anomaly on my application that I would like to clarify to the admissions committee. During high school, I did not take Calculus at my high school- instead I took it at Harvard Summer School. Nevertheless, as a student who wanted to place into Multivariate as a Senior in September 2014, my school required me to take the BC Calculus exam in May 2014. However, I did not learn Calculus until I attended summer school at Harvard in July 2014. Thus, I was required to take the BC Calculus exam two months before I learned calculus, which is why I received a 1 on the exam.
Nevertheless, at Harvard Summer School I received an A in Calculus II. I took Multivariate as a Senior, and during the mathematics placement test at [insert name of my top 15 university] I was able to place out of Calculus I - III, and was invited to take Honors Analysis as a freshman, a rare and difficult accomplishment. Thus, I believe that my mathematics background is strong enough for me to succeed in my studies of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford.
Sincerely,
[Name]
Class of 2019 Applicant
Or should I just risk it and not put in the BC Calc.
Dam this situation is so absurd lol I am probably better at math than most of their students.
Is there anyway that your HS GC would write a letter that says something along the lines of:
“It is school policy that in order to enroll in Multivariable Calc the student must first sit the Calc BC exam. [Name} sat the exam to fulfill that requirement, although he did not actually take Calc until after the exam. The result was a score that is not reflective of his level of math competency, as demonstrated by his subsequent performance in Multivariable.”
You have an 800 on Math 2, which is fine for your math credibility. A short statement to explain the anomaly makes it easier, and has more credibility coming from somebody else. If you have to send a letter yourself, I would edit it down at least half.
Truly: the TSA is going to matter more than all this kerfuffle.
Oxford is a lot more selective than the usual college stats would suggest. The school’s acceptance rate is just under 20%, but that’s not because it’s as selective as a school like Carleton (21%). It’s because applications to Oxford are mostly from British students under the UCAS system, which only allows you to pick 5 schools, and you can’t apply to both Oxford and Cambridge. This screens out both the one-in-a-million kids, who can’t waste one of their 5 schools on a pipe dream, and Cambridge applicants.
TL;DR: Ivies’ acceptance rates would be a lot more like Oxford’s if US students could only apply to 5 schools and a single Ivy.
@renaissancedad -Whatever the Oxford site may say about minimum requirements, the actual boundaries are higher. My school (predominantly IB) tends to send 2-3 kids a year to the Oxbridge schools, and the admissions officers who visit yearly all say the same thing: Despite their official minimum of 38-40 with 7/6/6 in your HL subjects, a typical student accepted at Cambridge will have something along the lines of 43 and 7/7/6. Oxford is a little easier (42 with 7/7/6 is often enough) but the guidelines on that website aren’t to be taken seriously.
Just one kid at our school has been told that he’d get in with 38 points-the minimum given by the Oxford site-and he’s one of about 150 people in the entire world taking IB further math HL. Oxford students with 2100 on the SAT or 38 IB points are like white rhinos.
@Crispin226 -Do not, I repeat do not fail to report that score. Oxford and Cambridge have the “apply to a single one of the two” rule so they can spend a great deal of time on each student-including an interview for 8000-9000 applicants. They will certainly do their due diligence in checking test scores.
Since you probably do meet their grade benchmarks, your personal statement and especially the interview will be huge in determining whether you’re accepted. Focus on those and hope for the best.
@NotVerySmart, thank you for your input. I certainly wasn’t suggesting that the OP’s scores promised admission, just that he met the stated benchmarks, as you note. As I understand it - and please correct me if I am wrong - Oxbridge is very different from U.S. schools in that they hold quite rigidly to their threshold test score criteria, which may vary depending on the course of study. Failure to meet those criteria is essentially an absolute barrier to admission. I don’t have enough experience with Oxbridge to know how much better scores play a factor, vs. the interview and personal statement.
One of my biggest questions with the OP is why he didn’t retake the BC calculus AP exam a long time ago. With his multivariable calculus background, I would think he could easily get a better score and make the original score less significant.
You have the credentials in terms of AP and SAT II scores. I wouldn’t worry about that. I would focus on studying for the TSA and on your application. Your recommendation can be from a high school teacher or a professor.
I wouldn’t go there because it would help you get a specific job, but an Oxford degree is very impressive, probably more so than a degree from a 10th-15th school. It is more if you want that type of education. You can also decide if you get accepted whether to stay or go.
@renaissancedad I had no need to. All US schools had score choice for APs, and would accepted my A from Harvard SSP for credit. Also, my school has a placement test for math which can give me credit.
I was only considering HYPSM transfers until I learned more about Oxford a few weeks ago.
@renaissancedad -Ok. I just feel people are putting too much emphasis on the benchmarks, when the benchmarks are really just the “laughed out of the building” minimums. Below those, a student won’t even be considered. But Oxbridge actually makes offers tailored to individual students-they offer acceptance conditional on a certain score in examinations. This means there is no benchmark even for a specific program.
Typically, an offer will be a bit lower if Oxford really likes a student’s personal statement* and he/she does well in the interviews (think 42), while a student who fares poorly in both will either get a very high offer (e.g. 44 IB points out of a possible 45, with 7/7/7 in HL subjects) or be turned down altogether. An offer usually includes requirements for individual subjects as well-an applicant for the (fiercely competitive) medicine programs at Oxbridge, for instance, would likely be expected to score a 7 in chemistry and biology.
*If OP’s reason for going to Oxford is to get a job on Wall Street, setting aside the waste of an elite education that would represent, OP had better be a very good liar. A desire for money does not a strong personal statement make.
The final factor affecting an offer will be the intended course. PPE, unfortunately for OP, is perhaps the toughest course at Oxford from an admissions standpoint. While the typical Oxbridge applicant gets an offer of 43 points (or sometimes 42), for PPE a candidate with a perfectly average personal statement and interviews (by Oxford standards) would likely need 44 IB points with 7/7/7 at HL.
OP, of course, doesn’t have results pending from exams at the end of high school. He’s applying from college. I can’t say I’m as familiar with this process as with regular Oxford admissions, but seeing as Oxford doesn’t accept transfer applicants at all, I can’t imagine it’ll be easy to get in as a college freshman. When Oxbridge accepts students with unusual circumstances like this, they tend to be really special-the top 0.001% of students in their cohort. Best of luck to OP, but I’m not optimistic.