[I Murder Carrots 4 Fun]

I read this in a book, but I have never heard about it anywhere else. Is this still in use?

"For English and PPE, the Oxford colleges operate in groups for admissions purposes. Your second and third preference colleges will always come from te same group and your first preference college if you are applying for one of the subjects to which the groups system applies:

The groups are:

GROUP 1
Brasenose, Christ Church, Jesus, Lincoln, Magdalen, Mansfield, Merton, Oriel, St Hilda's, Somerville

GROUP 2
Balliol, Exeter, Keble, Pembroke, St Anne's, St Edmund Hall, St John's, St Peter's, Wadham

GROUP 3
Corpus Christi, Harris Manchester, Hertford, Lady Margaret Hall, New College, Queen's, St Catherine's, St Hugh's, Trinity, University, Worcester"

[rocks_and_mountains]

Is this in terms of which college you might get pooled to?

I applied for English at Brasenose and there were people sent for second interviews at Hilda's and Jesus, and my friend applied for English at Worcester and saw people sent on to St Cat's and Trinity, so maybe the groups are right? Sorry that's probably not very helpful because I only have anecdotal evidence, I've no idea how the pooling system actually works.

[Bekaboo]

Yes, it's true.

[Viewless Wings]

Yes - must be true. Two English applicants to Brasenose on here ended up at Hilda's and Jesus, and at Univ the English and PPE students were being reinterviewed at Trinity, Corpus and St Catz.

[I Murder Carrots 4 Fun]

Gosh! Now I need to add this whole pooling potential to my giant college dilemma...

[RaisinPilot]

Definitely true, an English tutor at Jesus I spoke to in April was explaining it to me. For all other subjects it is randomly generated however.

[Huw Davies]

Anyone know if there's a particular rationale for doing it this way?

[Bezzler]

I don't think it makes much difference, because from looking at them the groups seem to be evenly spread to have more desirable and less desirable colleges in each. That doesn't mean that any colleges are better than others, but I expect more people would choose to go to Balliol than St Anne's, or Merton than St Hilda's, than vice versa. Certainly don't pick the college you apply to based on those groups - if you want to go to New College but think "I couldn't stand being at St Hugh's", don't apply to Brasenose instead - if you get in there then you might think "if I'd applied to New I could have got in there."

Though I don't know what it's talking about with "second and third preference colleges", when you apply, you only choose the college you apply to, no second and third choices.

[Metamorphosis_S]

It can't be completely true (as far as the exact groupings go) because I know two of the people who got pooled to LMH(group 3) had first applied to Exeter(group 2), and I was pooled to LMH from Brasenose(group 1). This was all for PPE.

[pf1]

PPE and English still use groups to some extent ... but not exclusively. As has been said it's not impossible to be reallocated between colleges in different groups.

IMO they'll be outmoded in a year or two; reallocation procedures are much more sophisticated these days. They don't really affect your application at all.

[Andy the Anarchist]

Just as an anecdote, I know someone who was relocated from Lincoln to Mansfield for HPol, though this may be conincidence.

[DavyS]

I think these may be a remnant of an older system. I was talking to our president the other day and he said that when he applied you (for MFL) you applied to one of three groups of colleges, which were grouped based on when the admissions exams were - December or January.

Not sure, but maybe?