(Official) Oxford Economics & Management (E&M) Applicants - 2022 Entry

plan to focus on TSA next week. howz your TSA going.

From FOI

E&M Offers - Avg TSA Section 1 Score

2014 65.9
2015 68.6
2016 68.4
2017 71.4
2018 69.3
2019 75.7
2020 74.6
2021 80

Hi what is this data of, its a bit unclear? Are these you test scores or average accepted scores over the years... if so whats the 2021? Thanks

From FOI

E&M Offers - Avg TSA Section 1 Score

2014 65.9
2015 68.6
2016 68.4
2017 71.4
2018 69.3
2019 75.7
2020 74.6
2021 80

how do you have the 2021 data?

From FOI data - very high TSA scores with low contextual GCSE scores did not help in shortlisting.
e.g. these candidates did not even get interviews:
cGCSE TSA S1
-0.88 96.7
-1.22 92.1
-0.44 86.1
-0.98 83.8
-0.87 83.8
-0.49 81.8
-0.69 81.8
-0.33 80
-0.78 80
-1.8 80
-0.81 80
-0.17 80

It just shows that GCSE and especially cGCSE is so important in this process for E&M.

I wonder if Oxford will place as much important on GCSE for UCAS 2022 cohort since there was no official GCSE exam and these are merely centre assessed grades under completely unique circumstances.

The difficulty remains in the fact a lot of gap year applicants sat real GCSE exams so if they placed less importance on GCSEs they are disadvantaging y14 applicants perhaps?

There is no disadvantage for the gap year students since it would be same rule for all. But giving same importance to GCSEs as the previous years is certainly disadvantageous to the Y13 cohort.

But the Y13 cohort on average were given grades much higher than they would have done if they sat exams. Therefore, in sitting GCSEs in their normal format, I got grades that are most probably lower than I would have done given teacher assessed conditions. Therefore using the same importance as previous years, Oxford will be comparing grades that have been achieved through actual exams, against centre assessments where on average grades will be higher. Therefore there is no way at all that it can be disadvantageous to the Y13 cohort, because on average students got what they were expected or more, and if they were unhappy with them, they had the opportunity to sit exams where their true ability is shown.

the point is that some students study nearer the exam and do far better in the actual exams. Since they had no opportunity to sit actual exam, they have been disadvantaged. Also, the results are not comparable even within the school let alone across schools. Many schools as you say have given inflated grades but some have been stringent.

Official Oxford description for this criteria is 'Exceptional results in official examinations, especially GCSE or equivalent' . By no stretch of definition these were official examinations for GCSEs during 2020. Hence, there is no justification that these should be given the same weight as the previous years.

They did have an opportunity to sit an actual exam, in the Autumn

From FOI data - very high TSA scores with low contextual GCSE scores did not help in shortlisting.
e.g. these candidates did not even get interviews:
cGCSE TSA S1
-0.88 96.7
-1.22 92.1
-0.44 86.1
-0.98 83.8
-0.87 83.8
-0.49 81.8
-0.69 81.8
-0.33 80
-0.78 80
-1.8 80
-0.81 80
-0.17 80

It just shows that GCSE and especially cGCSE is so important in this process for E&M.

I wonder if Oxford will place as much important on GCSE for UCAS 2022 cohort since there was no official GCSE exam and these are merely centre assessed grades under completely unique circumstances.

do you know how cGCSE scores are calculated? This should hopefully play well for me since my school performed nationally below average for GCSEs but I got all 9s; that should mean I have a good cGCSE right?

Yes I would think so. Also there is nothing to worry with all 9s anyway.

This is what FOI says -

The contextualised GCSE score is calculated as follows:

The number of A* at GCSE is normalised with respect to the rest of the cohort The proportion of A* at GCSE is normalised with respect to the rest of the cohort.
The two scores above are then averaged to produce the GCSE score.
For each candidate the GCSE score is spotted against the school performance data at which the candidate took their GCSEs (% of pupils obtaining 5 or more GCSEs at grades A*-C). The contextualised GCSE score is the standardised residual taken from the regression line.