Official Oxford Applicants 2015 Entry, including Interview Chat

I'm applying this October to Jesus College to read Chemistry and wondered if these are good enough grades?
GCSE: 4A*, 6A, 1B
AS: E in ethics (a year early taken in 07/13), A, A, A (maths, chemistry , physics) and a B in German
A2 (Predictors): A* (Chemistry) A, A (in maths and physics)

What'd you think? Also I'm partially sighted - would that disadvantage me at all?

werent you in the cambridge thread?

Yes but now more focused on Oxford as prefer Chemistry over natural sciences!! So what'd you think?

Course: PPE
College: Brasenose/Pembroke
GCSEs: 7A* 4A
AS Levels: aaaab (maths, fm, physics, history, spanish)
A2 predicted: A*A*A*A (maths, history, physics, spanish)
Anything else relevant: A lot of wider reading, member of several societies, Grade 8 piano (yes I know this counts for not a lot), will be travelling/volunteering on gap year
Was rejected last year due to poor TSA performance

Another question, my AS ums is poor in places but I think my A2 ums will be much better, will that be a significant hindrance?

Oxford doesn't ask for UMS

oh fair enough. Honestly the chances of getting in are almost exactly the same as cambridge, and I imagine the differences between partially sighted people are minimal too

Oxford doesn't ask for UMS

So, when you're putting your grades down on the UCAS form, can you leave out AS and A2 unit grades, and just put down A2 and AS final grades?

Correct, you don't need to put down module grades - just the overall grade.

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Sorry, but where did you get this data? Can't find it anywhere. Could you please provide a link?

I don't think it's either reason, that Univ is especially selective or that applicants are weaker, just that maybe they received a huge number of applications that year. I remember from fluteflute's amazing spreadsheet, for example, that in 2010 Brasenose's "oversubscribedness" was 700% but when averaged out over 2007-10, it was 435%. That represented a sudden spike over the past two years. The same might have happened to Univ medicine.

Here's the link:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/college-success-rates
I also thought it may be due to an anomaly, but if you look for individual years rather than the average you can see that every year it's around 4-6%.

Quick reminder though that if Oxford thinks you're a good enough applicant you'll be pooled and will get an offer from somewhere at least. If numbers really provide you with so much comfort, as they do to me, don't pick Univ. But that's a pretty irrational decision so it's good to just go with Univ.

This is quite an important point to make, and you've made it pretty well.

It may just be that Univ has fewer places which it gives to Medicine students, thus the lower success rate for direct applicants.