Computer Science: Oxford or Cambridge?

Agree with @thecsstudent . Cambridge (in my opinion) has a greater reputation for this, and related, subjects. Plus I know many very good compsci applicants who applied to Oxford- all of which rejected because of the MAT exam (which I dont know if is still required). But this is mainly a test of crap maths in order to select for interview. Id say its much easier to impress at interview at Cambridge and then get some mediocre STEP grades as apart of the offer.

Cambridge for sure. Oxford has a really really small Computer Science department so smaller chances of getting in and lower quality.

Cambridge is regarded as better for Computer Science out of the two

Cambridge is better than Oxford for CS. Oxford is comparable to Imperial College London and UCL.

None of that matters once you fail your A Levels, especially the subjects that aren't maths or computer science. So put them first if Oxbridge is your aim

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Thank you very much everyone for your responses. They have been very useful in making me consider Cambridge more than I had. My only concern however is that my brother may be applying for Maths at Cambridge at the same year as me and so may be problematic. Should I let this influence my choice? And would Oxford be quite a bit worse than Cambridge or would it be marginal? Thanks

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No it won't affect it at all- Ill be a 1st year mathmo at king's this year and there is one guy also doing maths there, and his twin will also be doing maths at Trinity.

Cambridge has a slightly better reputation, but Oxford isn't exactly bad. It is still certainly a top 3 university for CS (the other one being Imperial). One significant difference between them is that Cambridge doesn't offer joint degrees in CS, but it does let you study another subject (maths or science) in your first year. Oxford is the opposite. Allegedly, Oxford have more good applicants than they can take in, whereas Cambridge don't actually fill their capacity (in terms of how many students they can fit in a lecture theatre etc.) because they don't have enough applicants that meet their standards.

You seem to have a pretty good handle on the difference between the courses, but I would mention that the Cambridge course (and indeed most decent CS courses) will cover automata and other aspects of theoretical CS, and one of the main languages used is ML, which is functional (although not quite as much as Haskell). Also, Oxford has far fewer CS students than Cambridge -- ~30 per year rather than ~100. Oxford has a lower success rate, but that might be misleading as it may have weaker applicants making the difference in numbers (i.e. the success rate might be the same for people with the same grades). It's also worth considering whether you would prefer to live in Oxford and Cambridge.

N.B. I went for Cambridge in the end (although it was a hard choice because I liked the Oxford joint degrees), so the above may be biased.

Thank you very much - so would I be right in saying that Oxford is more theoretical but Cambridge is still very theoretical? Thanks

Kind of (although I don't know too much about the details of either course). I think both of them have a fixed first year, and a choice of courses from then on. So you should be able to choose to study whatever you're interested in from the second year onward at either place. From a brief look at the first year courses for both (Oxford prelims and Cambridge IA) Cambridge has a lot more on hardware and operating systems. At first glance it seems like Oxford has a lot more maths, but that's because most Cambridge students do the natural sciences maths course as well. Oxford possibly has slightly more on logic and proof, it's difficult to tell.

I would suggest taking a close look at the course structures and the courses available each year at both Oxford and Cambridge, and seeing what you think suits you best.

I studied Maths and CS at Oxford so I admit I'm slightly biased, but I should point out that Oxford has excellent teaching for the topics you're interested in - such as automata theory and functional programming - right from the first year. The course covers theoretical computer science and programming paradigms very well. Cambridge does appear to have a little bit more of networks and hardware, but note that you can definitely take these and other practically-oriented courses at Oxford too, especially if you do just CS.

Someone else pointed out that Cambridge has no joint honours degrees with CS, and this is what put me off applying. With the interests you mentioned, you may also want to consider Maths and CS or CS and Philosophy at Oxford - check out the course pages!

Your grades are excellent, so with a good application and smart test/interview prep I think you will stand a good chance of an offer at either place! Avoid basing your choice on which uni seems to have fewer CS applicants or supposedly focuses more on GCSEs, because these are not hugely reliable indicators of your chances and your fit for the course.

Ok thanks very much Is the Maths and CS joint honours Maths separately with Computer Science or the Mathematical aspects of Computer Science? Thanks