Oxford MAT 2013/2014

Reply 2220

qwertyuiopg

8

Did anyone ask for feedback and if so what did they say?

Reply 2221

SherlockHolmes

13

Original post by qwertyuiopg

Did anyone ask for feedback and if so what did they say?

I have requested my MAT score and was told that it would be sent to me by the Admissions Testing Service in the spring.

Reply 2222

qwertyuiopg

8

Original post by SherlockHolmes

I have requested my MAT score and was told that it would be sent to me by the Admissions Testing Service in the spring.

Thanks

Reply 2223

NewtonsApple

Original post by fluteflute

What souktik says is the summary:

But I see what you're saying, in particular "competition for places amongst international students is therefore fierce" does seem to suggest international students are competing only with each other (and therefore UK students are competing only with each other).

However they also say "Academic achievement and potential remain the criteria for the selection of all undergraduates and no priority is given to those who pay the overseas rate of fees." and the implication (and what I always assumed) is that there's no priority given the other way around.

But I agree that if that is true, it seems strange that both only 16%* for Oxford and 12% Cambridge's undergraduates are internationals. For a large part it's down to international students not applying, as only about 30% of Oxford applicants and 17% Cambridge applicants are internationals. But UK students are approximately twice as likely to take up a place. The question then is are international applicants really weaker? Is it believable that lots just apply, and are just weak applicants? Or are unaware of what the universities are looking for? (e.g. make applications not focusing on academics, like you might make to a US university). That would explain why the numbers are low. If not it suggests that internationals are discriminated against. It's certainly not clear that that is the case.

* I've found contradictory figures on this, so I'm not very confident in this number

Ok I agree with your first paragraph. There is no general explanation as to why the discrepancy between the proportion of internationals who get offers and reject them, and the number of home students who get offers and do similarly. One reason is they may be applying to Ivy Leagues and have preferred their offer at a US uni.

The competition for internationals at cambridge is ridiculously fierce. People I know with APMO gold medals, IpHO bronze medals, and the like get rejected whereas someone who achieves the same domestically is pretty much guaranteed an offer. I am sorry but its true, its very hard to get into Cambridge as an international. My previous school had lots of very high calibre international students (some of them on Royal Government scholarships!), and it was used to getting rejections from Cambridge. On average out of ten gov scholars, only 3 would get offers! Admittedly their English let them down, and this is why they got rejected, but international competition is ridiculous. Obviously the very best among them get places regardless, but competition is considerably harder. For example, many domestic applicants have only ever achieved a silver in the SMC (they get in due to being proficient at uni maths), although these would probably be rejected as internationals.

Imagine at Trinity for example, say Maths, admissions. From the offer figures roughly 12/17 is the chance of getting an offer (disregarding those who reject offers), assuming we can use the same figures to model one college. You have 10 IMO students of which 5 got a gold medal, 2 separate IpHO medallists, and 5 other applicants all applying for a place on your degree. You choose to unconditionally offer the gold medallists and a couple who had exceptional interviews, pool the rest and reject some on the basis of a bad interview/english. You wouldn't *ever* see them being pooled or rejected if they were British! Those who get pooled sometimes dont even get in at that stage!

To further emphasize the point there are roughly 6*52 IMO students each year, and so this is a very conservative estimate of the number who apply to Cambridge!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 2224

alexmufc1995

8

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/oxford_offer_holders_2014_entry#Offer_Holders
Another useful page for offer holders to share details of their offers, and check out other people at thier college/subject :smile:

Reply 2225

1298977

1

Original post by NewtonsApple

Ok I agree with your first paragraph. There is no general explanation as to why the discrepancy between the proportion of internationals who get offers and reject them, and the number of home students who get offers and do similarly. One reason is they may be applying to Ivy Leagues and have preferred their offer at a US uni.

The competition for internationals at cambridge is ridiculously fierce. People I know with APMO gold medals, IpHO bronze medals, and the like get rejected whereas someone who achieves the same domestically is pretty much guaranteed an offer. I am sorry but its true, its very hard to get into Cambridge as an international. My previous school had lots of very high calibre international students (some of them on Royal Government scholarships!), and it was used to getting rejections from Cambridge. On average out of ten gov scholars, only 3 would get offers! Admittedly their English let them down, and this is why they got rejected, but international competition is ridiculous. Obviously the very best among them get places regardless, but competition is considerably harder. For example, many domestic applicants have only ever achieved a silver in the SMC (they get in due to being proficient at uni maths), although these would probably be rejected as internationals.

Imagine at Trinity for example, say Maths, admissions. From the offer figures roughly 12/17 is the chance of getting an offer (disregarding those who reject offers), assuming we can use the same figures to model one college. You have 10 IMO students of which 5 got a gold medal, 2 separate IpHO medallists, and 5 other applicants all applying for a place on your degree. You choose to unconditionally offer the gold medallists and a couple who had exceptional interviews, pool the rest and reject some on the basis of a bad interview/english. You wouldn't *ever* see them being pooled or rejected if they were British! Those who get pooled sometimes dont even get in at that stage!

To further emphasize the point there are roughly 6*52 IMO students each year, and so this is a very conservative estimate of the number who apply to Cambridge!

I don't think that's a conservative estimate at all! Most would prefer HYPSM over Oxbridge due to additional funding. Your anecdotes suggest that the competition for Cambridge is crazy, while my anecdotes suggest that it's very difficult but not as ridiculous as you think. The point is, we can't really argue based on whether some olympiad medalists you know got rejected or whether non-medalists and people from smaller olympiads (philosophy, earth science, etc) whom I know or heard about have been accepted by Cambridge. Anecdotes can be misleading. Maybe Trinity is tough, but the pooling surely ensures that no brilliant student is turned down.

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