Do you apply to the specific college after you get accepted generally. I knew an Englishman who went to Trinity College, Cambridge. He said that it had a zillion Nobel Prize winners and Prince Charles went there but studied an easy subject. There are ratings for Oxford and Cambridge colleges, so I assume some are more elite and hard to get into to.
How does the college you go to effect your instruction? Do you only study from tutors at that college?
No, you apply to a specific college. However, as many as 1/3rd (exact number varies by year) of applicants are 're-allocated' to another college (Oxford) or 'pooled' (Cambridge). No college is easier or harder to get into per se. Some subjects are harder to get into than others, though. For example, History at Oxford is somewhat 'easier' to get into than History + Politics- not least because there are only
It would be unusual to have only tutors from your own college- most students have at least some modules at other colleges. Of course, it varies by college: if you are at a small college, with a small number of students in your subject you will spend more of your time in other colleges than somebody who is at a large college with a lot of students in your subject.
I'm not sure I understand your question about "ordinary state schools" - there aren't separate requirements depending on what type of school you go to. The British press regularly turns up extremely talented students whose rejection is supposed to demonstrate the 'elitism' of Oxbridge. I can give you a home-grown example of an American student who was an equivalently academic superstar who was also rejected from Oxford after interview. She went on to graduate summa cum laude from Yale and is now at Cambridge for graduate school. It is, of course, impossible to prove that there is no 'elitism'- no preference for one accent over another, for example.
However, there are other explanations for why a student with top grades would not get the offer of a place. The biggest one is that Oxbridge really is a different sort of learning environment, that really doesn’t suit everybody. It’s not a matter of how smart you are- it has a lot to do with how you handle the tutorial format. I know of one superstar applicant who was turned down because when the tutors who did his interview compared their notes they had both written ‘unteachable’ at the top. What they meant was that the back-and-forth teaching style of a tutorial didn’t work with him- not that he wasn’t ‘good enough’. He went on to do great things- in a ‘traditional’ university setting.
Although I think it’s a small point, remember that most UK applicants apply with predicted scores, and virtually all Oxbridge applicants apply with predictions of As or A*s. Imagine if the rule was that you could only apply to one of HYPS (as it is in the UK- you can only apply to either Oxford or Cambridge), and that all the applicants applied with 2400 SATs and GPA ranges of 3.9-4.0.
Finally, with regard to state schools v independent (ie, public v private) admissions, there is some variability by subject but overall from 2008-2011 Oxford applications v acceptances was overweighted towards independent/private schools by about 8% in sciences and 10% in humanities. Not perfect, certainly, but (imo) not bad either.
The guy in the article had 7 As, all in math, science, or classics, presumably the hardest subjects. I would assume that is really strong. Maybe they give too many As.
The article implied it was because they accept upper class or private school applicants with lower scores, but that can’t be the only reason those students were not accepted.
IMO, it is harder in the US to attend top Ivies from an ordinary background. In the US, they are looking at grades, and won’t value grades from mediocre schools. Also, the colleges are very expensive, and it is much harder to get in looking for financial aid, whereas contributions can get you in. Top liberal arts colleges are considered “preppy”, which presumably means admission is more determined by class, money, the high school you attended, and perhaps ethnic background.
In Britain, you have objective standards with the A-levels, and I don’t think money is such as issue.
They only ask for three A levels, because many students don’t have the opportunity to take more. Taking seven seems ridiculously OTT, and wouldn’t have got him any special points at Oxford. The Latin and Greek would have been irrelevant in any case for a science student. It’s possible that this student did better in the actual exams than his teachers’ predictions, or that his personal statement was poor, but most likely, if he got an interview (which isn’t clear from the interview) that’s where he failed to impress.
sattut, you are naive if you think that money isn’t such an issue in the UK. I live in a city in the UK that houses one of the most famous, and expensive, boarding schools in the country. They send dozens of students to Oxford and Cambridge every year. The teaching, facilities, opportunities and careers advice available to the students at this school are lightyears away from what I experienced at my ‘normal’ state school. No, you can’t pay to get into Oxford or Cambridge - but you can pay for a school education that gives them a much better shot at getting in.
Every single year some newspaper runs a story about a prodigy with a million A* grades who didn’t get in to Oxford or Cambridge. Google ‘Laura Spence’ for an example. It’s the interview that makes or breaks applicants, not a string of A* grades.
I guess if all they are looking at is A-levels and you can easily get A*s on 3 exams, all you can do to enhance your application is take more A-levels and that won’t help much anyway.
I meant that in the US it is even more difficult for someone from an ordinary background to get into top schools, because of the lack of the objective standard of A-levels and you have to be relatively well-off just to pay the tuition.
I read about that Laura Spense. She applied to study medicine at Magdelan, which might be more difficult than some choices. It seems like there were class and preparation issues in her rejection.
The article I read in the Daily Mail seemed kind of glib. Presumably, it’s readership is not the types who went to Oxbridge, and maybe they feel better to think it is due to class prejudice.
As compared to the US, there are more clear class lines in Britain. However, Britain has national exams in nationialized universities. In the US, in some ways, top schools do things more like in earlier times, and there are more subtle obstacles to poorer students.
I knew someone who studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was from a factory town where the factory closed. He was middle class in that his father was a physical therapist. He had A*s on his A-levels. Seemed to me it wouldn’t be as easy to get into Harvard or whatever from that type of school without much money.
You may be right about the tuition fee issues in the US - certainly, it’s much cheaper here in the UK and we don’t pay our fees up front (we just graduate with debt instead…). I went to Oxford from a normal state school - I remember looking at the tuition fees for US colleges back when I was applying and thinking “no way!”
Re Laura Spence, she went to Harvard after Oxford turned her down
So I think in her case, the more holistic approach to admissions in the US was effective; she was from a (relatively) poor family and excelled relative to her peers. Also, you guys do have standardised exams - SATs, APs etc. As far as I understand it they aren’t as important to US universities as A-Levels are here, but they do give some general indication as to a student’s abilities relative to others.
I actually like the holistic approach that US universities seem to take. I like the fact that academic achievement isn’t the be-all and end-all; I think it leads to a student body with a greater diversity of experiences.
This was about 15 years ago, yet gets dragged up (usually by the Daily Mail) every year.
As I understand it, Laura applied to Oxford to study medicine with only two science A levels. I think she did something like Biology, Chemistry, English and French. She must have been an amazing student to even get an interview. That's a great broad span of such subjects for admission into a US college where they value being well rounded, but a really poor choice of subject for admission into UK u dergraduate medicine. Everyone she was competing with will have had four sciences. Her teacher s gave her extremely poor advice.
Laura's head teacher was apparently a Harvard graduate (who clearly had no clue about UK admissions otherwise why the poor A level choices). She complains others have Oxford admissions help, but she had expert help in Harvard application.
She didn't get to do what she wanted at Harvard, which was medicine. A few years ago she graduated from the Cambridge graduate medicine course. So this system which was so cruel to her is suddenly OK.
So hypocritical.
Do not let this spoilt brat case from almost before you were born affect your applications!
The reason people with great grades get rejected from Oxbridge is because the interview is VERY important. Exam results tend to be slightly more important at Cambridge than Oxford though.
Oh no, I wasn’t suggesting that Laura Spence is a typical case, or that you should let it affect your applications OP! Just using it as an example as to how the Oxbridge applications system differs to the model used in the US - that is, the interview being of prime importance at Oxbridge, compared to the “whole application” approach taken in the US.
You can’t get into medical school in the US directly out of high school. There are 6-year BS/MD programs and so on, but most people get a 4-year degree as a pre-med in Biology or whatever and then go to medical school for 4-years. In the UK, do you directly get admitted to a medical program, and how many years does it take?
Someone from a school in a working class area might not have the best advice as to what A-levels to take, and might not have friends taking similar courses or have relatives who understood the process.
It seems like Laura Spense got into a 4-year medical program at Cambridge that required an undergraduate degree, which is similar to what is available in the US. I assume there are non-Oxbridge medical programs in the UK she could have gotten into rather than going to Harvard.
Seems kind of silly, didn’t get into Oxford, so has to go to Harvard. How sad.
I think Laura did get accepted into undergraduate medicine elsewhere (Nottingham maybe?). But that wasn’t good enough for her as she’d rather have a rant in public. She did not HAVE to go to Harvard (Poor Laura, how very terrible for her!), It’s actually quite common for medical applicants to get rejected several times and spend 1 or 2 years out getting work experience. It’s that competitive.
Normally medicine is a 6 year undergraduate program in the UK and has forever been this way. However, there are some 4 year intense programs for graduates. Usually these are limited to EU students only. There us no such thing as “pre-med” study and that term is meaningless.
Teachers have been to university themselves, regardless of where they teach. Therefore they are entirely aware of what A-levels are needed fr admission and that in general it is better to study at least 3 related subjects (something which anyone could find out from Google in a few seconds). However, many students take the “study what you like” option and no-one stops them, even if this destroys their admission chances,
I am sorry sattut if Laura is your hero and very sorry if this (distant history story) affects your applications but you are choosing to make it do so.
She is not my heroine and I am not applying anywhere. I am a private tutor. Don’t know that much about the British system and was trying to understand what happened.
I would guess that getting into a medicine program at Magdalen College, Oxford would not be easy.
It is hard to get into medicine at any of the colleges- medicine, as most subjects do, reviews applicants across all colleges. So, Magdalen is not any harder than Merton or Trinity and so on. It is ferociously competitive, and as another poster pointed out, virtually all successful candidates will have all A*s/As in at least 3 science/math courses, and usually more. They will have done well on the aptitude test, and have had some exposure to medicine (usually by volunteering). And, crucially, they will have done well on the interview.
Whatever, I would assume that it would be difficult to get into Oxford in medicine. That would be like getting into Harvard Medical School. There is more money in medicine in the US. However, most people going to top US medical schools have high grade averages at top colleges, plus very high MCAT scores. In addition in the US, admission to top medical schools is heavily based on money and connections.
“…admission to top medical schools is heavily based on money and connections”
Sattut, you seem to have very set ideas about access to US education, which are at odds with your role as a tutor. The above is simply wrong. For the view from the horse’s mouth, take a look at this article:
It refers specifically to legacies/connections, and makes it clear that even with connections, an unqualified applicant is unlikely to get through. Do money & connections help? well, of course- indirectly (if you are the child of smart, educated, well-off people you are likely to have had every opportunity to make the most of whatever abilities you were born with) and directly (giving huge money does get attention and having a dean as a friend can get you application looked at a little more kindly). But I have never seen any data that suggests that more than a relatively small % get admitted this way (perhaps 10-15%). If you have data that says otherwise, I would be very interested to see it.
Oxford struggles with just this sort of preconception: that everybody who goes there is a ‘toff’. That perception is a hindrance: people are afraid that it is true, so don’t even apply. But although it was true 80 years ago, it is not now. Nowadays- for Oxbridge & Harvard Medical School- the standards are too high and too public. Even as long ago as when Prince Charles attended Cambridge there were eyebrows raised, as it was clear that his academics would not have qualified him. These days, even being the Prince of Wales would not override his marks.
