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Swedish/Foreign student - applying to Oxbridge?

Yeah my teachers knew about my offer ...
getting 1,3 never was an issue, I was (almost) sure I'd better than that, but as I already said the 14 really scared me.

I think it would be pretty unfair to give offers like 1,0 or 1,1. Let's say a person applies for History and is excellent in all art subjects etc., but just doesn't do that well in maths and biology, but still has to do them in the Abitur. Then he/she simply cannot make that offer! But if the same person was doing A-Levels he/she just wouldn't be doing maths and would easily get AAA or even AAAA.
And as you said 1,3 was the best result at your school, I'd say it's just a fair and realistic offer and nothing like a EE offer for "geniuses".

Anyway I'm pleased to hear you consider my offer exceptional :smile:

What unis and courses are you two applying for or have you already applied?!?

And where in Germany are you from?
As we all know the Abitur is MUCH harder in some Bundesländer than in other and I wonder if Oxbridge know this.
I'm from BW, exams were not too hard but it's still Zentralabitur, which is usually valued higher.

Reply 21

Aimless2007

Well we have to differentiate between education in general and the quality of the Abitur, in different states. I know that BW and Bay have a very high level of education BUT Niedersachsen's Abitur is ranked #1. I know that Niedersachsen's education is not as good as, say, Bayern's but that does not change the fact that N's Abitur is more valued. I doubt that Oxbridge knows this kind of stuff. The Zentralabitur is IMO a joke, all of our 13 graders scored higher on it than they usually do, but our school is pretty competitiv and beat all the other schools in our region, ^^

Reply 22

Jammertal

3

pearfire

Well we have to differentiate between education in general and the quality of the Abitur, in different states. I know that BW and Bay have a very high level of education BUT Niedersachsen's Abitur is ranked #1. I know that Niedersachsen's education is not as good as, say, Bayern's but that does not change the fact that N's Abitur is more valued. I doubt that Oxbridge knows this kind of stuff. The Zentralabitur is IMO a joke, all of our 13 graders scored higher on it than they usually do, but our school is pretty competitiv and beat all the other schools in our region, ^^

*Di*, I applied last year to Oxford, Durham, Warwick, York, LSE and KCL for PPE or related subjects, but I feel that I didn't do myself justice during that application round: exceeded my predictions, wrote a BAD PS and had horrible interviews. That's why I consider a reapplication.

I'm from NDS as well... Since when is the Abi from NDS more valued than one from BW or BAY?
Anyway, I think the level of the education achievable and achieved depends on other factors than the Bundesland: it's a question of the economic conditions, the size of the town you live in, the popullation structure and the census.

Plus, you can't measure the quality of the education by looking at the obtained averages: every school has different grading policies: at my school for example you can't 15 points in a subject except Maths, Physics and Chemistry- and that's only possible if you're a genious.
As opposed to this there are other schools that are quite generous with 15s: my Biology teacher was before he came to my school head of Biology at a school where 3!! people got 1,0 this year. He said that there was no real difference in the quality of teaching except the fact that people there got approx. 4 points more for the same preformance. That annoys me since nobody asks where you got your Abi from, but what score you got.

Oh and pearfire: you know that it was the first round Zentralabi here and that it'll be much harder next year... the exams were easy, yes, but what lead to amazing results at some schools (not at mine: we were the worst year group EVER: only I didn't score lower in the exams than usual) was rather the fact that people revised MUCH more and tha there wasn't much expected from you in the Arts subjects at least.

You may have a look at the German Soc (link is in my sig) btw, *Di*. :smile:

Reply 23

*Di*

At my school there were 4 people with 1,0 this year :smile:

but that was an exceptional year ...

Anyway, I'm sorry this has turned into a discussion about German exam systems ... actually we wanted to help the Swedish person who wants to apply to Oxbridge: As you can see there are a lot of us EU students applying, getting interviews and even getting offers !

Reply 24

Jammertal

3

*Di*

At my school there were 4 people with 1,0 this year :smile:

but that was an exceptional year ...

Anyway, I'm sorry this has turned into a discussion about German exam systems ... actually we wanted to help the Swedish person who wants to apply to Oxbridge: As you can see there are a lot of us EU students applying, getting interviews and even getting offers !

Out of? At my school 10 people failed the Abi this year....

However, universities seem to prefer "real" internationals (those who pay higher fees) when there are two applicants who are both good enough. I think there was a thread about this in the LSE forum some time ago... well, back in December. :p:

Reply 25

*Di*

out of 67, nobody failed

Reply 26

Jammertal

3

Wow, yeah that's really good, but I imagine what you did say when somebody asked you "Well, what was your Abi score?" and you've to reply "I got 1,0 but I came only 4th in my year though". That has to be ind of depressing. My year was more interested in parties... :biggrin:

Reply 27

*Di*

Well, fortunately out of the 4 people with 1,0 I achieved the highest 1,0 so I'd rather be like "hehe my 1,0 is better than yours :p:

".

But please don't believe my school's somehow special or that we are all clever. Actually I hated it and my classmates and couldn't wait to leave. Some of our teachers were just quite generous with good grades and our drittkorrektor was from a really bad school so our abi results were amazing.

Reply 28

Aimless2007

Well... I got this funny story. One of our Abiturienten actually transfered to our school like 2 years ago. That school said he was a genius and that he needed something more challenging. Well he came to our school and his grades droped vom 1.0 to 2.0 and our teachers say he's one of the better students, thats all. I think he did not even make the top5. So yes, our school is ridiculously tough, and I think I'm the only person with 15 points. I wanna go Mecklenburg, cos their Abitur is ridiculously easy

Reply 29

Jammertal

3

*Di*

Well, fortunately out of the 4 people with 1,0 I achieved the highest 1,0 so I'd rather be like "hehe my 1,0 is better than yours :p:

".

But please don't believe my school's somehow special or that we are all clever. Actually I hated it and my classmates and couldn't wait to leave. Some of our teachers were just quite generous with good grades and our drittkorrektor was from a really bad school so our abi results were amazing.

My year wasn't amazing either: much cliqueness, absolutely no feeling of togetherness. My clique was/ is great though and we got 4/7 Abis with 1,. :cool:

Drittkorrektoren? Ours were just the Fachobleute from our school who didn't do anything at all
It's quite funny: I thought that my grades in my written exams would drop dramatically since my teachers were plain crap (didn't cover all the topics, etc.) and wouldn't mark the papers alone.
In the end they didn't despite the fact that I hardly mentioned anything that was on the Erwartugshoizont for German and English.

Reply 30

Jammertal

3

pearfire

Well... I got this funny story. One of our Abiturienten actually transfered to our school like 2 years ago. That school said he was a genius and that he needed something more challenging. Well he came to our school and his grades droped vom 1.0 to 2.0 and our teachers say he's one of the better students, thats all. I think he did not even make the top5. So yes, our school is ridiculously tough, and I think I'm the only person with 15 points. I wanna go Mecklenburg, cos their Abitur is ridiculously easy

Hehe, yes I also know one of those examples: a girl transferred with 1,5 or maybe even better from that school that produced 3 1,0s: she ended up with 2,5...

15 points appear only twice on my grade report: both in the LK subjects in the Abi. :proud:

It was the first time that my Politics teacher gave 15 points (which means PERFECT at our school, i.e. not even a spelling mistake) in his career: and he retires next year. Speaking of which: does anybody know if there's a chance to make a photocopy of the Abi-Klausur? I want to send it in as written work example if I decide to reapply.

pearfire, I really don't want to be a spoilsport, but if you want to get top grades, you've to give your best regardless where you take the Abitur.

Reply 31

Peter The Magnificient

To return to the main thread, I am a swedish student and although I did the International Baccalaureate and got an offer from Cam, I got friends that got in to oxbridge using swedih grades. An MVG is far from an A in A level, and that is why they usually ask you for all MVG's, which is also the offer all my friends that got in using the swedish system got. So i nshort, go to the interview, pass it and you will certainly get an unconditional offer. Lycka Till! :smile:

Reply 32

chinese in sweden

80 percent of the applicants in UK/EU will b invited for the interviews so dont worry :biggrin:

btw which school did u graduate from? a student from kungsholmens gymnasium here :tongue:

Reply 33

tinypony

You should seriously consider doing IB. If you're in sweden there are plenty of schools offering it, depending where you live.
I'm doing mine in Skåne, and it's fine down here.

Reply 34

nonpareil

Peter The Magnificient

To return to the main thread, I am a swedish student and although I did the International Baccalaureate and got an offer from Cam, I got friends that got in to oxbridge using swedih grades. An MVG is far from an A in A level, and that is why they usually ask you for all MVG's, which is also the offer all my friends that got in using the swedish system got.

I would have to disagree. After all, it says "MVG in appropriate subjects", not "MVG in everything" or "MVG overall". I didn't have straight MVG's, but I still got an unconditional offer for English. No two cases are ever the same. :redface:

Reply 35

JohannaMarie

You really should apply... just do your normal national qualification, the admissions tutors know what international qualifications mean. You don't need an English certificate either, they will find out at interview if your English is good enough. In fact, I was asked by none of the unis I applied to (those without interview) for an English certificate (like IELTS) because English is one of my Abitur subjects.

Reading all the posts by other Germans made me feel I was really quite lucky. My offer is 1.3 (PPE at Oxford) without any specific subject grades, which means I only need an average of about 7 or 8 points in my actual exams. And my school sounds much nicer. German lit. is the only course where it is impossible to get 15 points, I got nothing else in my other 4 LKs.

Reply 36

johan_89

9

It's very much possible that you will be offered a place at either Oxford or Cambridge. One of the possible things that talk against your application is the fact that Sweden has quiet an odd system with so many subjects, which means that the universities will have a hard time understand how the hell one can get MVGs in all subjects, and ask questions like: "Has the student studied math sufficiently in depth?" For example for engineering most universities demand IB HL Math, this course is way more difficult than the most advanced math courses given at the science orientated national programme, the same thing goes with the other science subjects.

However I have noticed that Swedish students might be positively discriminated in relation to for example an IB-student (or an A-level one). IB-students are given offers from Oxbridge most often in the 40+ region, 40 points is the equivalent to all MVGs in a national programme (according to the "Swedish UCAS"). E.g. King's suggested that their standard offer was "average grade VG with a few MVGs"´, even though their policy has changed just recently.

Take a shot, apply! Good Luck!