How to make my application strong

Hey,!
I'm looking to apply to Oxbridge (just finished my GCSEs). In terms of grades, my expected are 9s, and an L2d* in design technology. I'm not exactly sure what course I want to do yet, but mathematics at oxford or something like biochemistry, natural science, basically something stem related, mainly chem/math.

I was just wandering what activities I should get involved in to boost my app, as I'd like to get as much done during Y12 as I can. I've began to prepare for the UKMT senior math, which I havent done before. By prepare, it's more me going over past papers, got silver twice so far. I participated in the intermediate back in Y10 too, but that was sprung up on us on the day, and I got a silver there too. My school runs a programme called the access project which provides us with tutoring, and I chose math as my subject. I participated in the St John's critical thinking programme, and partook in the summer school they offered too. I'm currently in the online tutoring programme offered by the Lucy Cavendish college from Cambridge. In terms of math, i'm definitely good, just nowhere near the best. Current A level choices are chem, phy, f math, math.

Any advice on things to take up over the year would be great!

Hey,!
I'm looking to apply to Oxbridge (just finished my GCSEs). In terms of grades, my expected are 9s, and an L2d* in design technology. I'm not exactly sure what course I want to do yet, but mathematics at oxford or something like biochemistry, natural science, basically something stem related, mainly chem/math.

I was just wandering what activities I should get involved in to boost my app, as I'd like to get as much done during Y12 as I can. I've began to prepare for the UKMT senior math, which I havent done before. By prepare, it's more me going over past papers, got silver twice so far. I participated in the intermediate back in Y10 too, but that was sprung up on us on the day, and I got a silver there too. My school runs a programme called the access project which provides us with tutoring, and I chose math as my subject. I participated in the St John's critical thinking programme, and partook in the summer school they offered too. I'm currently in the online tutoring programme offered by the Lucy Cavendish college from Cambridge. In terms of math, i'm definitely good, just nowhere near the best. Current A level choices are chem, phy, f math, math.

Any advice on things to take up over the year would be great!

Hi!

It sounds like you're doing all the right things already! While I don't have Oxbridge-specific experience I am a Maths student and I thought I would share a few things I did to help my uni application. UKMT challenges (and similar challenges) are great and show your skills but it is also important to show you have a genuine interest in the subject. Reading books, listening to podcasts or attending talks around your subject which you can then refer to in your personal statement helps show the passion you have for the subject (as well as increase your knowledge!). One thing I did to help with this was to note down what I did throughout year 12 (whether this be talks, taster days, or books) and made a few notes to help remember what I thought/took away from it. This helped when writing my personal statement as I didn't have to go back through everything again.

Hope this helps,
- Florence (Lancaster University student ambassador)

Hi,
Sounds like you're well on your way to being an oxbridge student with those supercurriculars! However one thing I would say (Ive just finished my A-levels) is not to underestimate the difficulty of your A levels - I did chemistry and maths too. It is really easy to neglect your A-levels whilst thinking of extra things to do for your application. If you want to get ahead (you sound really keen!) I'd recommend using resources such as Revisesmart_ on instagram and watching TL maths videos. They really helped me alot and I could not recommend them more.

Advice about extra reading and activities - and how to incorporate this into a PS - from one Oxford college :
https://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/page/supercurricular_guide_0.pdf and some subject-specific suggestions https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/suggested-subject-resources

Hey,!
I'm looking to apply to Oxbridge (just finished my GCSEs). In terms of grades, my expected are 9s, and an L2d* in design technology. I'm not exactly sure what course I want to do yet, but mathematics at oxford or something like biochemistry, natural science, basically something stem related, mainly chem/math.

I was just wandering what activities I should get involved in to boost my app, as I'd like to get as much done during Y12 as I can. I've began to prepare for the UKMT senior math, which I havent done before. By prepare, it's more me going over past papers, got silver twice so far (on practice papers, I've never actually done a proper UKMT Senior math simple because I didnt know about it). I participated in the intermediate back in Y10 too, but that was sprung up on us on the day, and I got a silver there too. My school runs a programme called the access project which provides us with tutoring, and I chose math as my subject. I participated in the St John's critical thinking programme, and partook in the summer school they offered too. I'm currently in the online tutoring programme offered by the Lucy Cavendish college from Cambridge. In terms of math, i'm definitely good, just nowhere near the best. Current A level choices are chem, phy, f math, math.

Any advice on things to take up over the year would be great! I know UCAS is changing their personal statement system, so is it still worth starting to write mine seeing as I could potentially take chunks out and use it for the new questions approach?

I’m an offer holder for chemistry at Oxford, so I do hope I can give some useful insight.

First and foremost, see how you did in your GCSEs. Of course, if you get a perfect set of grades, as expected, you will have absolutely nothing to worry about. Really and truly, you want to have a set of grades that are primarily made up of 7’s and upwards.

I’d next consider preparing for your A levels themselves. Ideally aim to have predicted grades of A*A*AA or higher by the end of year 12. Note that with maths at Oxford, you will need A*’s in both further maths and normal maths, whereas in chemistry you can get away with having the A*’s predicted/achieved in any two STEM subjects.

Find the admissions criteria for each subject to get an idea of what sorts of skills you need to be successful. Chemistry’s admissions criteria is quite easy to find (https://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/admissions), as are Maths’s (https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-here/prospective-undergraduates/how-apply/admissions-criteria).

With Maths at Oxford, they like it if you take an additional mathematical exam such as the AEA. Regardless of which subject you apply to, I’d recommend taking the AEA (I did and I used it as leverage to say my mathematical skills are solid, which is one of the points listed on the entry criteria for chemistry). In order to do this, speak with the head of the maths department about it and see what they think and whether they can get you entered.

Depending on which subject you apply for, you may have an entrance exam. Chemistry currently does not have an entrance exam (though that does seem to be something they want to change), whereas Mathematics does (they have the MAT). If you apply for Mathematics, make sure you prepare for the MAT and make use of the livestreams.

If you do end up getting an interview, then your interview will basically determine whether you do or don’t get an offer. To do well in your interviews, you will need to be able to articulate your thought processes very clearly to your interviewers and so getting practice with thinking out loud is a must. I got mock interviews and offered mentoring in chemistry and maths to get practice with thinking out loud and it seems to have worked.

Your choices of supercurriculars are absolutely brilliant and hopefully they will serve to help land you an offer.

Best of luck and if you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Wow, thanks so much for the lengthy response! Appreciate you taking the time to write that out. I will definitely be speaking about the AEA with my teacher when school starts. Honestly right now, I'm not exactly sure what degree I want to go into, so much of them look so cool, however the one that has piqued my interest the most is Natural Sciences at Cambridge because of its flexibility when specialising later on.

Yeah, IF I somehow manage to get an interview, I will spend tons of time practicing. As Chemistry is still one of the topics I'm interested in, do you have any interesting books or podcasts that you have read or listened to? I just finished composing a list of podcasts for all the various degrees I might be interested in, and hopefully by the end of this year, I'll have fully decided exactly what degree and university I want.

Thank you again!

What areas of chemistry are you most interested in?

Books:

Generally, I’d recommend “Chemistry^3: Introducing inorganic, organic and physical chemistry” by Burrows et al. for those who are undecided or want a more general book.

The Oxford Chemistry primers very good imo and there is a nice selection of areas they cover, but there don’t seem to be many reasonably priced copies of them around.

”Organic Chemistry” by Clayden and “A Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry” by Sykes are the best for organic.

“The Elements of Physical Chemistry” by Atkins is generally considered a more accessible form of “Atkins’ Physical Chemistry” and is recommended if physical chemistry is where your interests lie.

Inorganic chemistry has very few accessible books at this level. “Inorganic Chemistry” by Weller et al. is perhaps the best bet, though I jumped straight into the deep end with “Advanced Inorganic Chemistry” by Cotton and Wilkinson, which is certainly not very accessible at an A level stage.

Podcasts:

Whilst I didn’t watch any podcasts as such, I am aware of a series on the YouTube channel “Extractions&Ire” called Current Chem. It’s probably the closest thing to a podcast I actually used.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnafk93vhO35zycgVOISrQODNP4qEmFbM

What areas of chemistry are you most interested in?

Books:

Generally, I’d recommend “Chemistry^3: Introducing inorganic, organic and physical chemistry” by Burrows et al. for those who are undecided or want a more general book.

The Oxford Chemistry primers very good imo and there is a nice selection of areas they cover, but there don’t seem to be many reasonably priced copies of them around.

”Organic Chemistry” by Clayden and “A Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry” by Sykes are the best for organic.

“The Elements of Physical Chemistry” by Atkins is generally considered a more accessible form of “Atkins’ Physical Chemistry” and is recommended if physical chemistry is where your interests lie.

Inorganic chemistry has very few accessible books at this level. “Inorganic Chemistry” by Weller et al. is perhaps the best bet, though I jumped straight into the deep end with “Advanced Inorganic Chemistry” by Cotton and Wilkinson, which is certainly not very accessible at an A level stage.

Podcasts:

Whilst I didn’t watch any podcasts as such, I am aware of a series on the YouTube channel “Extractions&Ire” called Current Chem. It’s probably the closest thing to a podcast I actually used.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnafk93vhO35zycgVOISrQODNP4qEmFbM

I’m an offer holder for chemistry at Oxford, so I do hope I can give some useful insight.

First and foremost, see how you did in your GCSEs. Of course, if you get a perfect set of grades, as expected, you will have absolutely nothing to worry about. Really and truly, you want to have a set of grades that are primarily made up of 7’s and upwards.

I’d next consider preparing for your A levels themselves. Ideally aim to have predicted grades of A*A*AA or higher by the end of year 12. Note that with maths at Oxford, you will need A*’s in both further maths and normal maths, whereas in chemistry you can get away with having the A*’s predicted/achieved in any two STEM subjects.

Find the admissions criteria for each subject to get an idea of what sorts of skills you need to be successful. Chemistry’s admissions criteria is quite easy to find (https://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/admissions), as are Maths’s (https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-here/prospective-undergraduates/how-apply/admissions-criteria).

With Maths at Oxford, they like it if you take an additional mathematical exam such as the AEA. Regardless of which subject you apply to, I’d recommend taking the AEA (I did and I used it as leverage to say my mathematical skills are solid, which is one of the points listed on the entry criteria for chemistry). In order to do this, speak with the head of the maths department about it and see what they think and whether they can get you entered.

Depending on which subject you apply for, you may have an entrance exam. Chemistry currently does not have an entrance exam (though that does seem to be something they want to change), whereas Mathematics does (they have the MAT). If you apply for Mathematics, make sure you prepare for the MAT and make use of the livestreams.

If you do end up getting an interview, then your interview will basically determine whether you do or don’t get an offer. To do well in your interviews, you will need to be able to articulate your thought processes very clearly to your interviewers and so getting practice with thinking out loud is a must. I got mock interviews and offered mentoring in chemistry and maths to get practice with thinking out loud and it seems to have worked.

Your choices of supercurriculars are absolutely brilliant and hopefully they will serve to help land you an offer.

Best of luck and if you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Where did you find mock interviews for chemistry?

Through a friend of my Auntie’s who teaches physics at a private school and routinely helped Oxbridge applicants there.

I do believe there are alternative things you can find on the internet that you can sign up for. If not, try asking your school if they can arrange anything.

Unfortunately as both advertisements and giving contact details is against TSR rules, I’ll leave it to you to have a look for yourself.