University of Oxford offer-holders' thread 2015

Experimental Psychology as well!

The college(s)/PPH who interviewed you don't want you but they think you're good enough for Oxford.

Most likely to be allocated to St Catherine's College.

Is that an official statistic, that most open offer holders go to St Catz?

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The college(s)/PPH who interviewed you don't want you but they think you're good enough for Oxford.


'Don't want you' is not an accurate description of the situation. As explained in responses to earlier posts, Open Offers are made because across a subject not all students will (for a variety of reasons) accept their offer, while some may miss the terms of a conditional offer. The college actually DOES want you - since it is underwriting your place and will take you unless another colleges loses a student and asks if they will release you.

In my offer letter (I got an open offer), it says my college 'guarantees to admit you in the event that no other College has a vacancy', so when there is a vacancy, am I automatically filling that space up, or does my underwriting college have a say in whether I get released or not?


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The college which interviewed you has already released you; that line only means if none of the other colleges want you (highly unlikely), they will have you back.

Just assume it's St Catz for now.

Is that an official statistic, that most open offer holders go to St Catz?

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Where are you getting this St Catz stat from?

Of the 30 odd people I know who had open offers - 0 went to Catz.

'Don't want you' is not an accurate description of the situation. As explained in responses to earlier posts, Open Offers are made because across a subject not all students will (for a variety of reasons) accept their offer, while some may miss the terms of a conditional offer. The college actually DOES want you - since it is underwriting your place and will take you unless another colleges loses a student and asks if they will release you.

The college which interviewed you has already released you; that line only means if none of the other colleges want you (highly unlikely), they will have you back.

Just assume it's St Catz for now.

No, but St Catz has got the highest number of students so theoretically the chance of getting allocated there is higher.

To compare, The Queen's College has got 349 undergraduates whilst St Catz has got 506. Rumour has it that they've also got fewer applicants.

Catz has got the highest number of students so logically there's a higher chance to be allocated there than anywhere else, especially if the rumour about them having fewer applicants is true.

If anyone is interested in the exact statistics, http://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate-admissions-statistics/college-success-rates

If we take the statistics for 2013, purely comparing number of applications to the number of offers made, Catz is more popular than colleges like Somerville, St Hilda's, St Peter's, Queen's, Teddy Hall, and Oriel. I'm not sure where exactly they'd rank amongst all the colleges, but they most certainly aren't scrapping the barrel.

It actually lists Catz as one of the colleges with the most imports...So maybe they shouldn't expect to be at Catz, but be at one of Catz, Somerville, St Hugh's, St Hilda's, or St Peter's.

But in any case, expect the least to be going back to the college(s) interviewed.

Your point was that they had fewer applicants (relative to their intake I imagine, otherwise comparison with other colleges would be unfair). The statistics suggest that they don't.

Imports are a slightly different story because in theory, a college can get a lot of applicants but decide that they'd rather take applicants from elsewhere if their own pool isn't up to scratch. In other words, it's influenced by another factor: the quality of applicants.

In any case, imports refer to students who got an offer from a college which they did not choose initially, and isn't directly relevant to the question of where do open offerees go, because the latter depends on who missed their offers and where (unless you're suggesting that imports are more likely to miss their offers). At the end of the day, it's just impossible to predict who will miss/ not take up an offer and thus leave a vacancy. My college underwrote 2 open offers for Law last year, and we ended up taking one of them in the end. The year before, we had 2 people miss their offers, and took no open offerees.

Yes, so the rumour was wrong. But I was saying it's not far-fetched to say St Catz is a likely scenario. But most importantly, the college(s) interviewed is/are the least likely scenario.

I know imports are not necessarily open offers, but they are included in the numbers.

Yeah, they want you so much even though you've chosen them, they've decided to not give you a place unless they absolutely need to (ie no other colleges have a place for you).

Not even the official beautified version of explaining what open offer is said the college wants you - they said your place at Oxford is guaranteed, but you won't know which college you're going to unless your results are released.

They obviously don't hate you or anything, but if you've got an open offer, it's quite obvious that you are not one of their first choices.

The bolded part is silly - you're phrasing it as if they already have you, but will generously give you up if another college asks. The reality is they want you at Oxford but not sure about giving you a place at college over the *** people they're getting this year, so they'll see if another college wants you. If not, they'll have you, but it's unlikely that nobody will want you.