Failed IB

That's fair comparison. But apart from the level of difficulty, we cannot deny the fact that acceptance ratio (esp. for top-notch unis) of A-Level students is still much higher than that of IBers

That is because there are more A-level than IB applicants.

Well. Even tough that's a true statment, I still doubt that A-level is preferable to IB for most unis

Of course A-level is not preferable to IB for most unis. A lot of unis now have lower entry requirements for IB applicants, comparaed to A-level. E.g. Exeter, Essex, Nottingham, York.

Well Well Well. I heartfeltedly disagree.
It might be true for some or many unis. But when we talk about top-notch unis that we've been discussing, this is not the case.

The point that I wanted to make is that it's much harder to get in simply because there are more burdens on IBers than A-level students.

To take an example, usual offer at Oxford to read EM is around 777 or 776 along with 40 points or so,
whereas A-level candidates are usually asked to obtain AAA.
In terms of workload, it's much harder to meet with the former requirement. Isn't it?

For this reason, there are more ppl who fail to meet with this requirement (I'm in this situation by the way )
and many ppl are supposedly capable of achieving AAA. And this in turn implies that it's much harder to get in top-notch unis.

Well my school is converted to IB last year, and now have double the number of IB students getting into Oxbridge, compared to when we did A-levels. Either the 180 students in that year are smarter than the year before... or there is a possible trend showing that IB helps? Undoubtedly the IB is harder but what i'm trying to convey is perhaps top universities are expressing more leniency towards IB candidates? Therefore, in my school's case, it seems easier to get into the top universities.

oh 38 at Balliol? including bonus or not?
Yeah that's quite manageable but mine was 777 with 40
Do u know the specific requirements?

38 overall including 766 for HL. He did take SL Further Maths though, so I suppose that helped. In MY brother's case, he got a 24 point offer for Mathematics at Cambridge (Trinity). In his case, I agree that A-levels are easier... scoring two E's for A-level is way easier than passing the diploma for IB.

My school didn't offer either Econ or Furthermaths and I really hate that

Well my brother didn't do Furthermaths, and my cousin didn't do Econ (in fact he did HL Maths, History and Business)

well... my concern is that my subject combination isn't that strong when compared to others.

I really really really wanted to take either Economics and Business Studies but I awfully hated to take ITGS (which refers to the Information Technology in a Global Society and I found it totally unuseful after three hrs of my final examination)

In brief, I had to take Korean A1, English B and Maths for my HL.
I am fully aware of that these are not really ideal and competetetive subject comb for Economics course as I took two langs whereas many other ppl tend to take econ HL or other Sciences(though I would get a 6(or even7) in Physics SL) instead of lang.

Is there any chance to get an offer next year with a decend PS and reference, if I get 777 or 776(6 in Eng) in my HL with the total scores of around 42~44?

I want to study at Merton. But I applied for open application last yr.

I thought you said you had an offer already. Anyway, expect a rejection come interview time. Your english is a little primitive.

Care to tell me how, exactly? A little more politely?
I know it's confusing but it does not necessarily mean that my english is primitive.
I got 119 in the iBT and 2120 in the SAT. Could you still say my English is basic? so I really don't mind even if you think my english is naive.
I also don't care whether you don't believe me or not. Simply i'm not interested in

To make things clear, I made an open application last year and had an interview in Hertford last December and got accepted for 40 points with 777 in HL and I failed to meet with my conditional offer.
so I'm applying again next year for a specific college and that's why I asked a question as I know applying to a specific college is totally different from Open application. got it?

2120 in the SAT isn't that good, you know. Not good enough to be a realistic applicant at the likes of Harvard, Chicago, UC Berkeley, Princeton, etc. etc. (basically all Ivy League schools except for Dartmouth), which leads to my surprisal of you receiving an offer from Oxford. You probably scored a lot higher in your maths paper than in the english ones. One of your sentences in this particular quote: "Simply i'm not interest in" does not make sense.

If you failed your conditional offer, don't bother applying again. I suggest applying to a less reputable university - perhaps Warwick? Durham? *maybe* LSE?

Alright, fair enough. Since you're taking a gap year just to apply to Oxbridge, you'll need a contingency plan to fend off the disappointment if all goes wrong - which you should expect.

What do you mean by 'which you should expect'?
Tell me then, what makes me an incompetent candidate?
My English? I know my English might be naive but you are native and I'm int'l student. As far as I'm concerned, they take such things into consideration and I have a very good iBT score to compensate my defect.
and who knows? I made it thorugh last year though it was open application.

Just out of curiosity, which uni did you apply? oxbridge all the way through?