fluteflute's bumper thread of Oxford admissions statistics
Quick links to statistical stuff:
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I've put together a spreadsheet with admission stats broken down by college based on a Freedom of Information request. Originally posted about it in the 2012 applicants thread but I wanted a wider range of people to be able to see it.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdERINU5BSjJXdVN1dEs5eVl2cFVyaWc&hl=en_GB#gid=0
I would strongly advise people against making a college choice because they're trying to play the numbers. I imagine the differences in this spreadsheet are mostly to do with the different subjects offered by colleges, and how many good students apply to which colleges.
However there are some vaguely interesting facts in all those columns. For example Column D shows the percentage of applications to that college that were originally open applications. This is one indicator of popularity. Another similarly interesting column is Column O, which is the percentage of applicants to a college and got an Oxford offer, who got a place at that college. For Worcester it's only 50%, Magdalen is 55%, Brasenose 60% and Balliol 64%. Contrastingly for Harris Manchester and PPHs you see 100% meaning that no-one who applied there got an offer from another college.
As for the overall success rate of applicants in Column I (if you don't care too much which college you'll get into) it seems your best chances are gained by applying to a PPH (29% of applicants get in), New College (27%) or Magdalen (26%). On the other hand, only 14% got in! Of course the figures here and in Column J (and perhaps the whole spreadsheet) are skewed by the relative quality of the people that decide to apply to a college, so aren't particularly conclusive!
Anyway, just some stats for you to play with. Once more: don't make decisions based on this. Apply where you want for any rational reason (or make an open application) because Oxford tries incredibly hard to make the admissions procedure fair, wherever you apply.
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Admissions stats broken down by college (number accepted, pooled, etc) (2007-2010)
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Change in number of applications to colleges (2007-2010)
Admissions statistics by Home/European/International (2008-2011)
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For each subject, number of applications/interviews/offers/accepts (2007-2010)
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For each subject, the percentage of current students who are from independant schools (admitted 2008-2010)
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For each subject, how many maintained/state school people end up at Oxford for a degree compared to the number you'd expect from the number that applied (admitted 2008-2010)
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The Norrington table averaged over recent years (since Oxford started publishing an official one, 2006-2011)
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Correlation between college endowments and norrington table position (Norrington table from 2006-2011, estimated 2006 endowments)
---------
I've put together a spreadsheet with admission stats broken down by college based on a Freedom of Information request. Originally posted about it in the 2012 applicants thread but I wanted a wider range of people to be able to see it.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdERINU5BSjJXdVN1dEs5eVl2cFVyaWc&hl=en_GB#gid=0
I would strongly advise people against making a college choice because they're trying to play the numbers. I imagine the differences in this spreadsheet are mostly to do with the different subjects offered by colleges, and how many good students apply to which colleges.
However there are some vaguely interesting facts in all those columns. For example Column D shows the percentage of applications to that college that were originally open applications. This is one indicator of popularity. Another similarly interesting column is Column O, which is the percentage of applicants to a college and got an Oxford offer, who got a place at that college. For Worcester it's only 50%, Magdalen is 55%, Brasenose 60% and Balliol 64%. Contrastingly for Harris Manchester and PPHs you see 100% meaning that no-one who applied there got an offer from another college.
As for the overall success rate of applicants in Column I (if you don't care too much which college you'll get into) it seems your best chances are gained by applying to a PPH (29% of applicants get in), New College (27%) or Magdalen (26%). On the other hand, only 14% got in! Of course the figures here and in Column J (and perhaps the whole spreadsheet) are skewed by the relative quality of the people that decide to apply to a college, so aren't particularly conclusive!
Anyway, just some stats for you to play with. Once more: don't make decisions based on this. Apply where you want for any rational reason (or make an open application) because Oxford tries incredibly hard to make the admissions procedure fair, wherever you apply.
(edited 12 years ago)
Scroll to see replies
Original post by BJack
What on earth happened to Brasenose between 2008 and 2009? (467 applicants rising suddenly to 755.)
Somebody on the other thread noticed a huge increase in applications at Brasenose (based on the raw data) so I did some calculations on the change of applicants (relative to the general increase across the university):
I thought I'd run some calculations... so taking only the 2007 and 2010 figures (taking just two random years means you can't read huge amounts into these figures, but..) for direct applications:
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Overall Oxford saw a 20% increase in direct college applications
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Relative to what you'd expect given a 20% increase in applications, Brasenose saw a whooping increase of 118%!
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Harris Manchester was next, but a long way behind, with 44% increase
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St John's, Univ and Balliol are at about 20%
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Another five have at least 8% relative growth
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Ten colleges have approximately static relative growth
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Twelve colleges are getting less and less of a share of the applicants
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PPHs are the worst off, with slowly declining applicant numbers, but relatively a rapid 46% relative drop!
•
Bear in mind a percentage drop doesn't always mean a decrease in actual numbers though. Christ church went up two applicants, but it had 25% less applicants than you'd expect it to if it had risen in line with the university average.
My figures/calculations: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdDRTeEU5QnlRMV9qZWUtaEJGZnNiMVE&hl=en_GB
So... I've gone on another spreadsheet making rampage!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_GB&hl=en_GB&key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdHV2SWVVTTRrbVF0RnpzUFlVMDhka2c&output=html
It's all unsurprising data, but here are the highlights:
Anyhow, I like statistics (as you can tell). But these don't tell you anything very exciting. The more interesting statistics will be from other universities...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_GB&hl=en_GB&key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdHV2SWVVTTRrbVF0RnpzUFlVMDhka2c&output=html
It's all unsurprising data, but here are the highlights:
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26% of Home applicants get an offer, compared to only 13% of EU and International applicants
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98% of Home offer holders make Oxford their firm, compared to 93% of EU students. Only 85% of International students do.
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A tiny number of people make Oxford their insurance each year, and none of these (in the last four years) have ended up coming to Oxford.
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90% of people who firmed the offer end up coming. I don't know how many of these missed the offer and how many chose not to come for whatever reason.
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A tiny tiny number of people get in each year despite not applying by October 15th. They have "very strong mitigating reason
why they had been unable to apply by the deadline" - I wonder what counts? Being in a coma?
Anyhow, I like statistics (as you can tell). But these don't tell you anything very exciting. The more interesting statistics will be from other universities...
I think it's pretty hard to try to conclude much from one year's data. It's probably worth highlighting the fact that there are several years' data behind the "Freedom of Information request" hyperlink if people want to see more of the data for themselves.
You say that "I would strongly advise people against making a college choice because they're trying to play the numbers" but then also say "it seems your best chances are gained by applying to a PPH (29% of applicants get in) or Magdalen (26%). Don't apply to Somerville, only 14% got in!"
Only looking at one year's data, and not knowing anything about the relative quality of the applicants, it's pretty dangerous saying these things. Somerville only made 54% of their offers from their "direct" applications which seems to suggest that they did a fairly good job of looking around other colleges for the best unplaced applicants to make the remaining 46% of their offers, which is surely the point. And why did you pick out Magdalen when New did better (27%) but in any case there were a lot of other colleges with very similar percentages. And PPHs aren't for everyone (either because of their size or their society or what subjects they offer).
It's the sort of misleading reputation "the college with the highest fraction of its applicants getting in last year was college X" which led to the Admissions Office no longer publishing these stats. A college could guarantee holding this dubious title by only offering places in the less competitive subjects. For all we know that might be why Magdalen and New are top. More likely it's just an everyday part of statistical to-and-fro.
I realise that you later reiterate the line about not taking these data too seriously, but I thought I should point out some other reasons why the data might be so.
You say that "I would strongly advise people against making a college choice because they're trying to play the numbers" but then also say "it seems your best chances are gained by applying to a PPH (29% of applicants get in) or Magdalen (26%). Don't apply to Somerville, only 14% got in!"
Only looking at one year's data, and not knowing anything about the relative quality of the applicants, it's pretty dangerous saying these things. Somerville only made 54% of their offers from their "direct" applications which seems to suggest that they did a fairly good job of looking around other colleges for the best unplaced applicants to make the remaining 46% of their offers, which is surely the point. And why did you pick out Magdalen when New did better (27%) but in any case there were a lot of other colleges with very similar percentages. And PPHs aren't for everyone (either because of their size or their society or what subjects they offer).
It's the sort of misleading reputation "the college with the highest fraction of its applicants getting in last year was college X" which led to the Admissions Office no longer publishing these stats. A college could guarantee holding this dubious title by only offering places in the less competitive subjects. For all we know that might be why Magdalen and New are top. More likely it's just an everyday part of statistical to-and-fro.
I realise that you later reiterate the line about not taking these data too seriously, but I thought I should point out some other reasons why the data might be so.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by RichE
...
Interestingly, Cambridge routinely publishes far more detailed information that this on a course-by-course basis, for example: http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/statistics/docs/cs.pdf
Original post by RichE
I think it's pretty hard to try to conclude much from one year's data. It's probably worth highlighting the fact that there are several years' data behind the "Freedom of Information request" hyperlink if people want to see more of the data for themselves.
You say that "I would strongly advise people against making a college choice because they're trying to play the numbers" but then also say "it seems your best chances are gained by applying to a PPH (29% of applicants get in) or Magdalen (26%). Don't apply to Somerville, only 14% got in!"
Only looking at one year's data, and not knowing anything about the relative quality of the applicants, it's pretty dangerous saying these things. Somerville only made 54% of their offers from their "direct" applications which seems to suggest that they did a fairly good job of looking around other colleges for the best unplaced applicants to make the remaining 46% of their offers, which is surely the point. And why did you pick out Magdalen when New did better (27%) but in any case there were a lot of other colleges with very similar percentages. And PPHs aren't for everyone (either because of their size or their society or what subjects they offer).
It's the sort of misleading reputation "the college with the highest fraction of its applicants getting in last year was college X" which led to the Admissions Office no longer publishing these stats. A college could guarantee holding this dubious title by only offering places in the less competitive subjects. For all we know that might be why Magdalen and New are top. More likely it's just an everyday part of statistical to-and-fro.
I realise that you later reiterate the line about not taking these data too seriously, but I thought I should point out some other reasons why the data might be so.
You say that "I would strongly advise people against making a college choice because they're trying to play the numbers" but then also say "it seems your best chances are gained by applying to a PPH (29% of applicants get in) or Magdalen (26%). Don't apply to Somerville, only 14% got in!"
Only looking at one year's data, and not knowing anything about the relative quality of the applicants, it's pretty dangerous saying these things. Somerville only made 54% of their offers from their "direct" applications which seems to suggest that they did a fairly good job of looking around other colleges for the best unplaced applicants to make the remaining 46% of their offers, which is surely the point. And why did you pick out Magdalen when New did better (27%) but in any case there were a lot of other colleges with very similar percentages. And PPHs aren't for everyone (either because of their size or their society or what subjects they offer).
It's the sort of misleading reputation "the college with the highest fraction of its applicants getting in last year was college X" which led to the Admissions Office no longer publishing these stats. A college could guarantee holding this dubious title by only offering places in the less competitive subjects. For all we know that might be why Magdalen and New are top. More likely it's just an everyday part of statistical to-and-fro.
I realise that you later reiterate the line about not taking these data too seriously, but I thought I should point out some other reasons why the data might be so.
Agree with your concerns, but ironically I think that fluteflute's spreadsheet might also help candidates to see beyond stats in making their college choice, because the figures do not provide on a plate the simplistic 'best college' or (even more infuriating) 'easiest college to get into' narrative that applicants might expect. It's possible that, confronted with a barrage of interesting but seemingly contentious and contradictory information, more candidates may think 'you know what, I'm just going to apply for the college that I like best'.
Nice! I've wondered about this stuff for a long time. It's good to see that the often made claim that which college you apply to doesn't affect your chances of getting into the university given some justification in the data, given how many applicants to Magdalen and Worcester still got in elsewhere.
I've just added a new column named "oversubscribedness". So despite the whopping numbers of applicants, Brasenose is not as oversubscribed as Worcester and Magdalen (no surprises there). Balliol, Keble, Hertford, Jesus and Trinity are next in line.
Also it's probably worth mentioning that at the bottom of the spreadsheet you can toggle between viewing the data for 2007-2010 averaged (the default view) and seeing only 2010's data.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdERINU5BSjJXdVN1dEs5eVl2cFVyaWc&hl=en_GB#gid=4
Also it's probably worth mentioning that at the bottom of the spreadsheet you can toggle between viewing the data for 2007-2010 averaged (the default view) and seeing only 2010's data.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdERINU5BSjJXdVN1dEs5eVl2cFVyaWc&hl=en_GB#gid=4
Thanks for this info.
But could I please ask where you got it from? Is it from an official Oxford University website?
And is there a more detailed breakdown of the 2007-2009 numbers?
But could I please ask where you got it from? Is it from an official Oxford University website?
And is there a more detailed breakdown of the 2007-2009 numbers?
Original post by adrienne_om
Original post by adrienne_om
Thanks for this info.
But could I please ask where you got it from? Is it from an official Oxford University website?
And is there a more detailed breakdown of the 2007-2009 numbers?
But could I please ask where you got it from? Is it from an official Oxford University website?
And is there a more detailed breakdown of the 2007-2009 numbers?
It is from a Freedom of Information request, so the data comes directly from the University. But it's not somewhere on their website, I'm afraid you have to take my word for it. (Hmmm I should have changed the data to make my chosen college appear very very hard to get into...)
This is the data as I was sent it, it comes as 2007-2010 broken down (but not analysed like my spreadsheet):
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asg7Ze9sc7PfdDBiQWEzdjBUSnBXNlhqN1NUTUhPMHc&hl=en_GB#gid=0
Basically apply for a PPH if you want to know for sure where you will be going!!
(edited 12 years ago)
I told myself to ignore this, but it's very difficult to 
I really want to apply for Exeter but the figures look scary.
I really want to apply for Exeter but the figures look scary.Original post by la-dauphine
Original post by la-dauphine
I told myself to ignore this, but it's very difficult to I really want to apply for Exeter but the figures look scary.
I really want to apply for Exeter but the figures look scary.Apply to Exeter! Column I is what really counts and for Exeter that figure is 19%. With the university having an average of 20% then there's no reason not to apply to Exeter!
Original post by la-dauphine
I told myself to ignore this, but it's very difficult to I really want to apply for Exeter but the figures look scary.
I really want to apply for Exeter but the figures look scary.Exeter wasn't particularly oversubscribed at all
Original post by nexttime
Exeter wasn't particularly oversubscribed at all
I suppose so but it's more oversubscribed than Lincoln and it almost persuaded me to apply to Lincoln :P
Original post by la-dauphine
Original post by la-dauphine
I suppose so but it's more oversubscribed than Lincoln and it almost persuaded me to apply to Lincoln :P
22% of people who apply to Lincoln get into Oxford. 19% of people who apply to Exeter get into Oxford!
It's true that a very slightly smaller percentage get into the college of their choice at Exeter, but if you want to go to Exeter, apply to Exeter.
What on the earth happened with Brasenose?
Possibly a Cameron effect lol?
Possibly a Cameron effect lol?
(edited 12 years ago)
Thank you for the really interesting information ... 
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