I’m American but I’ve been working as an aerospace engineer in the UK.
I want to know if I have any serious shot at being accepted to these elite schools: Oxford and Cambridge. Honestly, I have no idea what is considered a competitive portfolio in the UK.
BS: Civil Engineering GPA: 3.6/4.0
Institution: Arizona State U.
MS: Aerospace Engineering GPA: 3.8/4.0
Institution: Georgia Tech
MS: Computational Engineering GPA: 4.0/4.0
(Plus a thesis!)
Institution: Georgia Tech
Publications
- 2nd author of conference paper
- 1st author of journal paper
Race/gender:
White male. 
Citizenship:
US
GRE:
Don’t remember but it was kinda bad (75-ish percentile for math). I doubt they consider GRE anyway.
LORs
Should be able to get some great ones from top profs once I reconnect with them
I don’t want to apply for these schools if I stand no chance. I know at the undergrad level these schools are irresponsibly competitive (resulting in an ugly rat race), and I wonder if that philosophy applies at the graduate level. For example, Harvard undergrad is seriously competitive but the grad level admissions are a bit more relaxed/sober (I know many ppl who went to grad school at Harvard so I can make this claim)
I am more familiar with UG for Oxbridge, but did my PhD in the region, so may have some useful bits to add.
While I agree that there is a rat race and that it is ugly, I don’t agree with your point that Oxbridge are “irresponsibly competitive” at UG level. I’m not sure that they- or HYPS or any other highly desired finite resource can stop the rat race. Grad school in non-preprofessional fields (ie, leaving out medicine and law) tend to be somewhat more sober/relaxed, mostly because of the people in them and their overall objectives- they tend to be a little older, tend to have a better idea of what they want to do.
The PhD process for me was pretty different than it would have been in the US, and it appears that Oxford at least has a similar system. First and foremost, you need to identify the area in which you wish to do your research. In my case, I searched online for all the current research areas in the relevant department, highlighted the ones that looked interesting and looked up the researchers on those projects. Almost all of the ones that were interesting to me had the same lead investigator, so I contacted him directly and went and met with him. We had a good conversation, he told me about the research- funded and not funded- that they had going on. We got on, had similar research interests, etc. There was one that had space for a PhD researcher that was interesting to me, so I proceeded with the application. It was (by US standards) simple and informal. I had to provide transcripts, LOR, and have other interviews, but really it was mostly decided in that first meeting.
Here is a link to the process at Oxford:
http://www.eng.ox.ac.uk/study-here/postgraduate/admissions-criteria
Most of the professors that I have had contact with at Oxford and Cambridge genuinely love their subject, and really are looking for students- UG & G- who share that love. Nobody here can say how good your chances are, as the single biggest piece will be how good the fit is between your research interests and theirs. But it seems unlikely that with your very strong Masters from Georgia Tech and some amount of relevant experience you would “stand no chance”, especially if the chip that seems to be on your shoulder is a mirage 
Thanks for the very helpful advice.
I’m glad they look at each individual as a researcher, rather than just the numbers/GPA (which are common at top US schools for undergrad). I was originally afraid that my undergrad GPA would disqualify me, which would be frustrating. I looked at some of the potential labs/groups with similar research to me. In my opinion, I’m a decent fit. But there could be thousands of others with that same argument.
Good idea, I’ll continue to look for Profs at these schools that have similar research to me. I suppose I’ll apply for the 2016 Fall year and see what happens.
Does anyone else have experience with these UK schools? What credentials did you have?