Oxford Applicants 2016 Entry & Interview chat

I know it's random but what are people going to wear? I'm getting mixed reactions... Is it smart, smart casual, jeans - what? I'm a girl btw if anyone has any tips 😂

Honestly wear something comfortable, obviously don't go in your gym clothing but as everyone says the tutors aren't dressing up for you, you don't need to dress up for them! If you would feel most comfortable and confident in a suit wear one but I think smart casual/casual is the tone to be honest

It appears that some colleges have not yet sent all their invitations. I, for one, have not seen one mention of anyone who applied to study the subject for which I applied to study at the college to which I applied to study that subject receiving his or her invitation, so I assume that that college has not yet sent all its invitations.

Out of curiosity: From where are you applying? I, too, am a non-U.K. applicant. I am from a town in the United States of America a short distance from New York City.

Does Keble college send out any emails or do all interview invites/rejections come by post? And does the same apply for students living abroad? I can't find anything about it on the site!

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is on my personal statement! It's a great book. I've read a few Russian texts in translation, and I just love the literature. Portuguese sounds cool! I studied Spanish and it seems quite similar on paper (although maybe not when spoken)

Stop with this "they look at your GCSE's"; they do but as a means of showing your overall performance/improvement. I spoke to one girl that studies at Oxford and she happened to get few D's and C's at GCSE level. If you happen to get A's at post secondary level - it is clearly a sign of improvement so your GCSE's become irrelevant. Your GCSE's are only likely to be used in cases whereby you have not done your AS, in such circumstances those will be correlated with your admission test performance and your predicted grades. Now, after giving youse this lecture, please refrain yourself from eliciting any "GCSE's are important" bs 😆😇

Surely they do look at GCSE's in detail in order to judge who gets an interview? I did really well at GCSE and messed up a bit in my AS's and I (somehow) got an interview, so they must have looked at my GCSE's and predictions! Therefore GCSE results must be important, right?

I think everything on the application is important, however performing weaker in one thing (such as GCSEs or AS levels) can be made up for with a stronger performance in everything else. So although they look at everything, one aspect alone will not always be the deciding factor

Any Magdalen physics applicants heard yet? Reading through the acknowledgement mail from October, it states that "you should receive more detailed information from the college by the end of October" but Magdalen never sent anything

I definitely thought the TSA went so badly so I was ridiculously surprised!! So scared aha. I think I'm going to read over whatever books I mentioned in my personal statement and just brush up on economic theory I guess..tbh I actually have no idea. What are you planning? oh and what are you wearing!

Feel free to call them, although I would suggest you do tomorrow morning as the admissions office is closed over the weekend. Magdalen is one of the best colleges and therefore probably has a high demand, but go ahead and phone them just to ask, there's no harm in doing so.

I'm a magdalen physics applicant who hasn't heard anything either

meeeeeee! really bad lol (4.7, 3.8, 2.5A)

Am I the only one arriving on the morning of my first day of interviews? I couldn't find a decent flight the night before and now I'm scared there will be an issue...