Oxford Applicants for 2012 Entry

Ohh nice, in English they're "Romance" languages, not romanistic, which is quite interesting. I wish I were fluent in another language! How did you become fluent in those? What's your definition of fluent?

I also learnt Latin and did very well in it too

Out of interest, what are AHs like? What makes them so hard?

Intense! A huge work load. They are much like the first year of uni for many subjects, such as AH Maths

What kind of schools do you all go to, i.e. grammar school/private school/comp etc? I'm just really interested in what kind of educational environment you're all used to.

Oxford admits candidates from the private and maintained sectors at broadly the rate at which they apply.

If there's a seeming bias toward students from the south, the same bias exists at Sussex and Bristol and the reverse at Sheffield and Lancaster. At Oxford, as in those cases, it is chiefly a function of geography and the anticipating of long car journeys, and so is again about rates of application.

This is an interesting point where did you source this information from?

http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/how_to_apply/admissions_statistics/index.html

click on the PDF link. The stats are broken down every which way you might want.

There is a bias towards private school applicants, though. For example, 16.8% of state school maths applicants get in, as opposed to 27.5% of private school applicants. Presumably this is because private school applicants get more support with their application?

It might very well be because they are better at maths.

Mathematics is a peculiar one since it admits (with music and art) of talent being revealed at a very early age, and this in a way that is ungainsayable: because your sums add up or they don't. For this reason, people having a very considerable capacity for maths or music are much more usually, and far more reliably, identified and funneled into the private school system at 11 or 13 than are people who will later reveal an aptitude for history.

If you look at the British team in the mathematical olympiad, they are almost always kids from the famous private schools. Now, at that level there is no amount of tutoring that is going to get you where you need to be, not without innate talent - the teachers at those schools weren't and aren't as mathematically able as those kids. It isn't, then, the case that their schools have made them good at maths so much as that their capacity for maths has gotten them into those schools. In so far as they can, the private schools will cherry-pick from the state school system at entry-age, with full and partial fees bursaries, and maths is a subject area in which there are more reliable indicators, and so a lower rate of predictive failure, than might obtain elsewhere.

There is a bias towards private school applicants, though. For example, 16.8% of state school maths applicants get in, as opposed to 27.5% of private school applicants. Presumably this is because private school applicants get more support with their application?

But there are other reasons for private school kids to achieve more in the Olympiads. It costs money for schools to enter the maths challenges, which state schools (especially low-achieving ones) will be more reluctant to spend. There's also more awareness of the competitions in private schools. For example, at my (state) school we were given an hour to do the senior maths challenge instead of 1h30m. Private schools are more likely to have the resources to stretch the brightest kids, whereas in the average state school they will sit at the back of the class being bored, and possibly become disillusioned with the subject.

You can't just make an assumption like that,

1) more people from maintained schools actually applied (more than double of private schools)
2) they really don't care what X or Y school you go to, as long as you meet their checklist.

Also, I can confirm on the more support bit, although private schools are more supportive of students in general really, not just oxbridge applicants. Having experienced both, at my state school, you'd be lucky if the teacher gave you the time of day, let alone extra help on problems etc.

I could have sworn we got 2 hours for the senior maths challenge

I got inspired by the offer-holders' thread (which I wasn't stalking ) to make a google doc spreadsheet of applicants. This way people can easily see who else wants to do their subject, and Reminisce doesn't have to keep updating the first post: people can just add themselves to the list.

I simplified some peoples results (e.g. someone who had done a mixture of IGCSEs and GCSEs - I combined them), so that I didn't take up a paragraph each time. If what I did was wrong, and it may well be, just change it. Sorry if I missed you out - please add yourself!

Here it is!

You wonderful human being. +rep

I stalk their thread too

I got inspired by the offer-holders' thread (which I wasn't stalking ) to make a google doc spreadsheet of applicants. This way people can easily see who else wants to do their subject, and Reminisce doesn't have to keep updating the first post: people can just add themselves to the list.

I simplified some peoples results (e.g. someone who had done a mixture of IGCSEs and GCSEs - I combined them), so that I didn't take up a paragraph each time. If what I did was wrong, and it may well be, just change it. Sorry if I missed you out - please add yourself!

Here it is!

1) But I gave the percentage. So how many applied makes no difference.
2/Also) Wasn't that exactly what I was saying? That private school applicants have more support?

Very nice work! Didn't know though that we are already more than 100 applicants just in this forum and PPE clearly dominates the list