Official Oxford Applicants 2015 Entry, including Interview Chat

23% of applicants being offered admission to Oxford is very different from having a 23% chance of getting in lol. It's unlikely that, if you were to apply a hundred times to Oxford, selecting Somerville every time would get you accepted more than a couple times more than if you selected Harris Manchester every time.

Why do people, and the media, use the predicted grades of those rejected as some kind of shocking statistic? Firstly, predicted grades are pretty much the least relevant aspect of any application and secondly, pretty much everyone applying will have the same predicted grades (when you factor in that universities don't really differentiate between an A*AA and A*A*A* prediction). Then for those subjects with an admissions test, if someone falls in the bottom 30-40% of the cohort their application pretty much doesn't even get looked at, making near enough every aspect of their application irrelevant.

I am sorry but you seem to have a fundamentally erroneous understanding of mathematics.

So long as one knows nothing about any applicant save that they have applied to a particular college, then 23% of applicants being offered admission is exactly the same as having a 23% chance of getting in.

However, once one knows other information about the applicants then that ceases to be the case.

If you know that there are 10 horses in a race but you know no other information about their breeding, form or riders, then as far as you are concerned each has a 10% chance of success.

However, in reality one horse will win and nine will lose.

The bookmaker who does know something of the backgrounds of the horses and riders will assess the chances of success differently because he has access to more information about the the backgrounds of horse and rider.

In the present case the OP (and we) knows nothing of the relative strength of his application, so we can do no more than say he has a 23% chance of getting in. If the OP is offered an interview then he knows his chances are better than that because al those not offered interview have 0% chance of getting in. If we know more about the relative standard of each applicant we can form a better view of the OP's prospects.

I edited a typo in my response which definitely changes the meaning, but my idea was that I don't think the colleges are that different in terms of acceptance standards. The admissions officers write that your choice of college should have a minimal effect on whether you are accepted to Oxford as a whole. Your argument about horse racing is certainly legitimate, but I was addressing something slightly different. We can say that students who applied to Harris have a 15% chance of getting in, and students who applied to Magdalen have a 23% chance, but I don't think that students who applied to Harris necessarily would have been better off if they had applied to Somerville or Magdalen.
It would be interesting to look at whether certain colleges attract stronger students. For example, 20% of Brasenose applicants are accepted to Oxford, but only 11% are accepted within Brasenose. 15% of Harris Manchester applicants are accepted, and 14% are accepted within Harris Manchester. Does this mean that Brasenose applicants are generally stronger than Harris Manchester applicants? I have no idea.

Why are there more interview acceptances than rejections apparent on TSR for Oxford? Is it because most members on here who get rejected will most likely not share this news, or because TSR attracts over-prepared, more academic/perfectionist people?
Opinions please

The difference between the success rates of different colleges is largely due to the difference in quality of the applicants (it also relates in part to the different course mix at different colleges).

Look if you applied for Magdalen you have a 23% chance of getting into Oxford (all subjects). That is better than anywhere apart from Corpus, New and Somerville.

Feel sorry for the poor souls who applied to Harris Carpetright. They only have a 15% chance of getting it.

Harris Manchester almost certainly has more weak applicants because it is harder for mature applicants to judge their relative strength against the brightest and best of the current crop of VIth formers.

The difference between the success rates of different colleges is largely due to the difference in quality of the applicants (it also relates in part to the different course mix at different colleges).

However each applicant is a participant in the process not a spectator. He doesn't have a God's eye view. He forms part of a cohort of a particular quality. He has a good change of admission because Magdalen in fact attracts not a lot (for its size) of candidates who tend to be of good quality.

The particular applicant who raised this thought that Magdalen was a very competitive college but that is due to an absence of a God's eye view. He or she could no doubt see lots of applications from a similar social background but was not able to appreciate that this was unrepresentative of applications to the university as a whole.

That's also wrong, the highest College last year was Worcester unless I am incredibly mistaken at 25%.

https://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/Undergraduate-Admissions/2013-Admissions-Report

If the difference really is almost fully due to applicant quality, then we shouldn't "feel sorry" for Harris Manchester applicants, right? Their 15% acceptance would be because more of them are unqualified, not because they selected a harder college.

I left on Friday as I was sure very little offers would be made, plus I mostly read this thread during the week to avoid doing work, I just came back and have been reading through, this thread has gotten hella weird...

Anyways, I havent heard yet, and I'm nervous i may get a rejection on Thursday which is Thanksgiving, that would suck!

American? me too I have been waiting nervously for Corpus

Many people for my subject have already gotten offers so preparing for rejection.

Yep, american. I'm trying for His/Pol at Oriel, what major for Corpus Christi?

Btw, dont worry about it you havent gotten a rejection yet so you're every bit in it

so great to see a fellow American! I applied for law and was allocated to Corpus. I hope I hear some news this week.

Where are you from? I am from San Francisco/Bay Area!

Aw no way, I am too! Which school? I'm from San Jose

Interview for Law at Christ Church.
Anyone else get the same?

Aw no way, I am too! Which school? I'm from San Jose