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Most/least competitive course at Oxford?

A while ago I stumbled across a list of undergraduate courses at Oxford in order of competitiveness. I've been trying to find it again, and trawled through my browser's history, but can't seem to find it anywhere. :mad:

Does anyone have a link to one? I seem to vaguely remember that Material Science was near the top and Law near the bottom....(order of % of successful applicants)

Or does anyone have any unofficial opinions? :p:

Thank you! :smile:

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Reply 1

victoire

http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/courses/index.html

The oxford website lists % of successful candidates and also those invited for interview, you could work it out from that.

Alternatively you could look at this thread, someone asked the same question a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1234938

Tis a pretty pointless question, tbh. But there we go.

Reply 2

bluesky42

victoire

Thanks, but I was looking for a list that put them in order.
Yes, pretty pointless I suppose, in that it's not going to change my mind. Just one of those little things that are bugging me, because I can only half remember it.

Reply 3

BJack

Detailed admissions statistics can be found here. Below is the list of all subjects sorted by success rate, high to low, for 2009 entry. Note that the numbers can change a lot from year to year, especially for smaller subjects. (Though even larger subjects can have big changes too, e.g. chem dropped from 40% to about 33% this year.)

List as requested

Reply 4

Tom999

norse and anglo saxon studies is something like 0.9 applicants per place or something ridiculous like that lol

Reply 5

CocoPop

Medicine for international students was around 2% (this is to do with NHS funding - priority on domestic students).

Reply 6

BJack

CocoPop

Medicine for international students was around 2% (this is to do with NHS funding - priority on domestic students).

Yes, the university can only accepted half a dozen or so international medics a year.

Reply 7

Elles

BJack

CocoPop

Medicine for international students was around 2% (this is to do with NHS funding - priority on domestic students).

Yes, the university can only accepted half a dozen or so international medics a year.

Doesn't the data suggest it's more that international applicants to medicine are weaker rather than the quota being a limiting factor..?

6 quota places (though elsewhere on the website it says 7) but only 4 they thought were worth offers in 2009, AFAIK that trend of not using up the quota was shown in other years previously too.

University of Oxford Medical School

http://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/courses/preclin/statistics
International applicants

There were 202 international applicants. Following short-listing, which is conducted in line with quota imposed on the Medical School by the UK Government for the available international quota places, 4 candidates received an offer.

[Prospective candidates are reminded that the Medical School is required by the Higher Education Funding Council to limit the number of international (non-EU) medical students admitted to six each year - see our page for international applicants]

Reply 8

AnonymousPenguin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2009/mar/12/oxford-subject-tables

something like this? Seems to be the exact thing you've asked for.

Reply 9

bluesky42

AnonymousPenguin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2009/mar/12/oxford-subject-tables

something like this? Seems to be the exact thing you've asked for.

that's perfect, thank you. exactly what i was looking for :smile:

Reply 10

BJack

bluesky42

that's perfect, thank you. exactly what i was looking for :smile:

What was wrong with my post? :hmmm:

I spent ages writing it out. :frown:

Reply 11

CocoPop

bluesky42

that's perfect, thank you. exactly what i was looking for :smile:

Yeah, actually BJack's post has the most recently updated list of admission rates (from the 2009 admissions stats file). You'll find that the one on the Guardian is a bit outdated.

Reply 12

bluesky42

BJack

What was wrong with my post? :hmmm:

I spent ages writing it out. :frown:

haha, sorry, but although a lot more thorough, it went into too much detail for me, and didnt actually put the courses in order :p:

but thank you for your time :smile:

Reply 13

AnonymousPenguin

BJack

What was wrong with my post? :hmmm:

I spent ages writing it out. :frown:

Do you by any chance know when those get published every year?

And he kind of did put them in order...

Reply 14

BJack

bluesky42

haha, sorry, but although a lot more thorough, it went into too much detail for me, and didnt actually put the courses in order :p:

Same level of detail as the Guardian list; all subjects in order. You can save your sticky-out tongue. :h:

AnonymousPenguin

Do you by any chance know when those get published every year?

No idea, but I think the latest ones (for 2009 admissions; the ones I linked to) have only recently been published. :dontknow:

Reply 15

bluesky42

BJack

Same level of detail as the Guardian list; all subjects in order. You can save your sticky-out tongue. :h:

The link you sent me clearly has a lot more detail than the Guardian, such as lists of nationality, gender and domicile of applicant as compared to success rate whereas the latter is just one list of subjects in order of success.

And I am yet to find the list in your document which has the subjects in order of success rate.

As I said, thank you for your help, but the Guardian link was a lot more helpful for my purposes. And I'll save my sticky-out tongue.

Reply 16

BJack

bluesky42

The link you sent me clearly has a lot more detail than the Guardian, such as lists of nationality, gender and domicile of applicant as compared to success rate whereas the latter is just one list of subjects in order of success.

And I am yet to find the list in your document which has the subjects in order of success rate.

So what you're saying is, you didn't bother to read the whole of my post. :eyebrow:

Reply 17

kuntimagee

Of course, the interesting thing about these highly competitive JH courses...

Spoiler

...which the data doesn't reflect, is that you are automatically considered for both subjects on their own. So you might apply for History and English and then be offered a place to study just History or just English. :yy:

Reply 18

AnonymousPenguin

kuntimagee

Of course, the interesting thing about these highly competitive JH courses...

Spoiler

If you apply to Law/LSE you also get considered for straight Law. Those who apply for EEM (engineering economics management) get considered for Engineering (I think).

That leaves the most competitive courses as following:

Mathematics & Statistics 13.9%
Fine Art 12.9%
Computer Science 12.7%
Medicine 12.1%
Economics & Management 7.9%

Reply 19

hobnob

kuntimagee

Of course, the interesting thing about these highly competitive JH courses...
...which the data doesn't reflect, is that you are automatically considered for both subjects on their own. So you might apply for History and English and then be offered a place to study just History or just English. :yy:

Does that really happen that often, though? :confused:

Anyway, what I think is perhaps more relevant here is the fact that the actual intake for most of the courses on the "most competitive" list, specifically the joint-school ones, is very small. As in: out of the top 20 on that list just four subjects (E&M, Medicine, PPE and Maths) take in 30 or more students each year. The average intake for History and English, for example, is 8, and it's not a terribly out-of-the-way combination, so it's pretty obvious that the success rate will be low.

Yes, I'm bored. :p: