I’m looking into applying to Oxford this year, specifically into the History and Economics course. The course requires AAA, meaning 4 APs with 5s or 3 APs with 5s and a 31+ ACT. I plan on applying with the latter. Would AP US History, AP European History, and a conditional offer of AP Calc BC be adequate for the recommended subjects (34 ACT highest composite)? I can’t find information on this online.
If I understand your question correctly, you should be looking at the US section here:
As it says there:
For courses requiring AAA:
Either Four APs at grade 5 (including any subjects required for the course you are applying to)
OR
Three APs at grade 5 (including any subjects required for the course you are applying to) plus a score of 31 or above in the ACT or 1460 or above (out of 1600) in the SAT. We do not require the optional essay for either the ACT or the SAT.
Please note that Calculus AB and Calculus BC cannot be counted as two separate subjects for the purposes of meeting your offer, whether taken as separate tests or by receiving the AB sub-score when taking Calculus BC.
If you are applying for a course that requires Mathematics you should take Calculus BC if you are able to do so. However, courses will accept Calculus AB if you are unable to take Calculus BC.
OK, and then the History and Economics course page says History and Maths are Recommended subjects for that course:
Although not required, my understanding is it is usually not a great idea to apply without the recommended subjects.
So applying the italicized parentheticals above, they recommend History APs, as well as Calc, which they would prefer to be BC.
Given that, I think your AP plan looks solid. I note you may only get a conditional offer subject to getting a Calc BC 5, but that is up to them.
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Adding the recommended reading resources by subject:
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Those are the right subjects but fulfilling the minimum requirements just means your application won’t be put in the trash immediately. You need more than this to be a credible applicant (and to work hard on TSA practice and interview prep). What are your other AP scores? Hopefully you have 5s in AP Lang, AP FL and an AP science as well and not a bunch of 3s and 4s.
For reference my S18 got an interview for PPE but not an offer, with five 5s and one 3 at the end of junior year plus four more projected 5s, and a 1540 single sitting SAT/4.0UW. His downfall was the interview, but the American applicant that did receive an offer at his college had more APs with all 5s and a 1580 SAT.
Also note that doing two subjects means that both departments have to accept you, so acceptance rates are generally lower. You really need some economics background (it’s not formally required since Econ is not a common A level) to answer the interview questions: if your school offers it as an AP then take micro and/or macro, and do a lot of background reading.
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I note our feederish HS periodically sends kids to Oxford, but we offer very few APs. Apparently our successful applicants still do the minimum required/recommended APs (including self-studying if necessary), but then rely mostly on just describing their advanced coursework in the personal statement. So, like, we offer some Econ classes, but not as APs, that sort of thing.
Of course if those were AP classes at our HS, you would probably want to take them anyway. My point is just that my impression is Oxford is open to alternative forms of credentials from US applicants besides APs, but as you point out just getting to the interview is only part of the battle. And the sorts of things people recommend doing to be really well-prepared for the interview also tend to go well beyond just APs.
With no real math qualification in hand other than the ACT sub-score, getting shortlisted for interview will likely hinge on your HAT and TSA scores. I would be be prepping for those as well as sorting out where you will take them.
In addition, give some serious thought to whom you will select as your UCAS “referee” as the Oxford letter of reference expectation is very different from a US college recommendation.
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I agree. But its really important not to have a bunch of 3s and 4s in APs. 10 APs with only six 5s looks much worse than 4 APs that are all 5s. Likewise, taking the SAT three or four times to get a 1560 would be much worse than taking it once and getting 1530.
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Agreed, and in fact it was suggested to me it was actually a good thing applicants from our HS did not have so many APs since that reduced the chances you would have extraneous sub-5 scores that were not necessary for Oxford, but could still hurt you with Oxford since they look at everything. And I heard the same thing about multiple test scores, as you also suggested.
Though Americans don’t really understand how many high stakes, one-shot exams students take in the UK and how experienced they are at studying for them. My nephew just did GCSEs (national exams at age 16). He took 10 subjects and had 23 two hour exams over the course of 4 weeks (you don’t have class, you just go into school for the exams). That makes for fierce competition if you actually attend a UK university where your degree result depends almost entirely on end of year exams.
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The interview is very, very important. Read a lot. Then read some more. Practice your interview skills. There is a lot of good advice out there about Oxford interviews.
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In one of my son’s CS interviews, he was actually asked one of the sample logic problems that they had posted on their website!
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In the cases where I have heard of kids transferring back to a US college, this seems to be the most common cause. Just a different system with a lot less feedback before the definitive assessment.
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I took the ACT 3 times in order to get a 35 superscore, scoring a 33, 32, and 34 respectively. If all the scores are above the requirements, will it still be looked down on?
They’ll just think you are a bit odd, because 33 is good enough. They don’t really care that much about 33 vs 34 and they don’t superscore anyway.
What’s really to be avoided is a sequence like 30 then 32 then 34.
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