Which college in oxford offers the most places for biological sciences?

The question says it all.

Last year, Wadham accepted 9 biologists and LMH, Somerville, St. Catz and St. Hilda's accepted 8 (see here). However, this does vary year-on-year and the number of spaces doesn't tell you how likely you are to be accepted.

Reply 2

BioOx

I am planing to apply with the direct application. Is there a greater chance that I will be allocated and accepted by another college if I choose (for instance ) New college instad of Catz. I can definitely prove that some colleges send students to other colleges (for the second interview) such as St. Hilda or Somerville and that students still get accepted but not by their prefered college.
I know I am confuzing and confused. Is my hypothesis correct or I am totally wrong?

Reply 3

Plagioclase

Original post by BioOx

First of all, your chance of getting into the university should be pretty independent of your college choice. This is because you're interviewed by multiple colleges and tutors communicate with each other so your chance of being accepted onto the course should not be influenced by which college you applied to. This may not be 100% true in practice but it's probably close enough. What is true is that you're potentially less likely to be reallocated to another college by applying to certain colleges over others, for instance if your favourite college is always hugely oversubscribed but your second favourite college isn't, it may be worth applying to your second favourite college because you run a high risk of being reallocated by applying to the first. The issue here is that applications vary significantly year-on-year so very often, it really isn't reasonable to take the statistics too seriously.

So going off trends averaged over the past few years, you are very slightly more likely to be re-allocated by applying to New than St Catz but the difference is pretty insignificant. The colleges that appear to be the most oversubscribed for Biological Sciences seem to be Queens, St. Hilda's and Brasenose and the colleges that appear to be the most undersubscribed are Somerville, LMH, St Anne's and St Hugh's but again, I'd warn against reading too much into this.

Reply 4

BrasenoseAdm

Official Rep

Original post by Plagioclase

First of all, your chance of getting into the university should be pretty independent of your college choice. This is because you're interviewed by multiple colleges and tutors communicate with each other so your chance of being accepted onto the course should not be influenced by which college you applied to. This may not be 100% true in practice but it's probably close enough.

We would agree with this assessment.

We currently have 4 places for Biology but this may rise to 6 if a bid we are making for a second Biology Tutor is successful. There is also nearly always an extra Open Offer for Biology (NB about 1 in 4 of all offers for Biology are Open Offers). The success rate of candidates applying to us (ie % getting any offer) was 46% versus a success rate of 26% for those not applying to us. Last year's field was strong so more candidates than we had places for were above the entry standard. This does not always happen and in some years we have been allocated students applying to other colleges because fewer applicants have been above the entry standard than we have places for.

Reply 5

BioOx

[QUOTE="BrasenoseAdm;65943864"]

Original post by Plagioclase

First of all, your chance of getting into the should be pretty independent of your college choice. This is because you're interviewed by multiple colleges and tutors communicate with each other so your chance of being accepted onto the course should not be influenced by which college you applied to. This may not be 100% true in practice but it's probably close enough.

We would agree with this assessment.

We currently have 4 places for Biology but this may rise to 6 if a bid we are making for a second Biology Tutor is successful. There is also nearly always an extra Open Offer for Biology (NB about 1 in 4 of all offers for Biology are Open Offers). The success rate of candidates applying to us (ie % getting any offer) was 46% versus a success rate of 26% for those not applying to us. Last year's field was strong so more candidates than we had places for were above the entry standard. This does not always happen and in some years we have been allocated students applying to other colleges because fewer applicants have been above the entry standard than we have places for.

Thank you very much for the responses.

I have been searching for detailed statistics but I have not been able to find them. How many students apply to a college (ex. Brasenose) for a specific course (ex. Biology) and how many of them are sent to another colleges? Could you provide these data?

I am asking for this just out of curiosity.

https://public.tableau.com/views/UoO_UG_Admissions2/Courses?%3Aembed=y&%3Adisplay_count=yes&%3AshowTabs=y&%3AshowVizHome=no

Reply 6

Plagioclase

Original post by BioOx

I think this is what you're looking for. Select Biological Sciences in the drop-down menu. You can infer the number that were sent to other colleges by the difference in the number accepted at the college and the number accepted at the university. However, again, I would encourage you not to worry too much about these statistics, particularly on a by-college basis because the sample sizes are small and variable...

Reply 7

BioOx

Original post by Plagioclase

I think this is what you're looking for. Select Biological Sciences in the drop-down menu. You can infer the number that were sent to other colleges by the difference in the number accepted at the college and the number accepted at the . However, again, I would encourage you not to worry too much about these statistics, particularly on a by-college basis because the sample sizes are small and variable...

Some of my top choices are very unsubscribed with low acceptance rates and high percentage imports. Should I be worried?

Thank you!

Reply 8

Plagioclase

Original post by BioOx

Some of my top choices are very unsubscribed with low acceptance rates and high percentage imports. Should I be worried?

Thank you!

Probably not, no. As I've already said, your chance of getting into Oxford doesn't really depend on which college you choose to apply to. The only case in which I would recommend taking the entry statistics seriously is if you're stuck between applying to two colleges and one has a significantly greater percentage of first choice acceptances than the other.