Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Oxford Chemistry or Cambridge NatSci?

post removed

You're going to get an amazing education either way, and you said you liked both courses so it boils down to which city you will prefer to live in. Personally I'd go for Oxford - it'd be utterly silly to select Cambridge over Oxford because Cambridge is doing slightly better than Oxford in league tables...Employers know full well that both universities produce graduates of the same, high standard so really, it's trivial.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

dragonkeeper999

Obviously Cambridge :tongue:

Seriously, the courses are very different - have a look through them online and try and make a decision based on this. Personally, I picked Cambridge because I wasn't sure which science to specialise in and so NatSci gave me the option to try out several options and delay the decision by a couple of years. Also, I feel that having a broader knowledge of science could be very useful :smile:

However, if you really love Chemistry and aren't interested in the other modules you would have to do with NatSci (as a minimum: first year: Maths + two other experimental subjects e.g. physics, materials, a biology module, compsci; second year: one other module from a whole range of options - you could pick e.g. Biochem though which is pretty chemistry based) then Oxford might be a better option for you.

Employment-wise, employers will probably not differentiate between Cambridge and Oxford graduates - Cambridge ranks slightly higher in league tables but that doesn't really mean anything much.

If you really can't decide, go for Cambridge - your high UMS scores mean that you've got a good chance of an offer, whereas Oxford may rely more on e.g. GCSEs, entrance test, interview, etc. where you may fall back a bit perhaps...

Reply 3

BJack

If you only like chemistry, apply to Oxford. If you'd like a broader scientific background and the chance to change your focus in later years, go for Cambridge. There's a lot to be said in favour of keeping your options open. I did chemistry at Oxford and enjoyed it but I realised quite early on that I was much more interested in particular areas of chemistry. At Cambridge, I could have taken some modules in other sciences to complement this but at Oxford, there's no flexibility within the degree and I had to study topics I wasn't so interested in.