Geography at Oxford

I have a question on applying for colleges as a geographer, specifically the interview.

Basically, I like the look of Worcester college for geography, but its geography fellows are all physical geographers, and it is also very competitive. I prefer human geography, and most of my PS etc. is on human geography. Does this mean that, in the interview, will I be at a disadvantage because I am not a physical geographer and will be interviewed by the physical geography fellows? Will I even be interviewed by the fellows, or by other geographers? Will they prefer to give offers to physical geographers, or any geographers, esp since it only gives about 4 offers every time?

Of course, this is all if I get an interview (*touch wood*) *;D

It shouldn't make a difference, as you'll have tutorials outside of your college for some subjects anyway, and a good chunk of the teaching will be departmentally based.

Many "human geography" lecturers may well be from the related departments/institutes, such as Human Sciences, Anthropology, Sociology, any related demography groups/institutes, so it's not necessarily unusual for the geography lecturers to be more in physical geography.

Basically, don't overanalyse it

You will be interviewed by multiple colleges. It's likely that you will be interviewed by the tutors at Worcester (as well as the other college/s you're interviewed at) but I definitely shouldn't think that they'd only ask you physical geography questions. I don't know how exactly Geography organises it but I'd have thought that you'd get a fair balance. There should not be any preference for any particular type of geographer but also bear in mind that a significant proportion of applicants end up getting moved to a different college. You're interviewed by multiple colleges to make sure that standards are equal between the colleges so say Worcester interviews more Geographers they want to give offers to than they have spaces for, some of them may be shifted to another college that has spaces left.

Basically, don't worry

I should probably do some more research on interviewing and pooling (again, this is if I don't **** up the tsa ), but how do they give college places to people? Do they pool people who don't do quite so well in the interview, but well enough to stay at Oxford?

The exact weighting of the different criteria and how they decide who to allocate to which colleges will vary by department and most of them don't make it public (you can have a look for Geography but I think it's unlikely). The underlying principle is that if they think you're good enough to get in, they will do their best to accommodate you. If you were moved to another college then it is possible that you may have had a slightly lower overall performance across the various entry criteria than those who were accepted by that college but the point is that if you're given an offer, they think you will do well on the course and that's all that matters.

The exact weighting of the different criteria and how they decide who to allocate to which colleges will vary by department and most of them don't make it public (you can have a look for Geography but I think it's unlikely). The underlying principle is that if they think you're good enough to get in, they will do their best to accommodate you. If you were moved to another college then it is possible that you may have had a slightly lower overall performance across the various entry criteria than those who were accepted by that college but the point is that if you're given an offer, they think you will do well on the course and that's all that matters.

One more thing: when you say 'interviewed by multiple colleges', then what difference does it make applying to one ?

If you want to go to College X and you apply to College X, if you get accepted by Oxford, it will most likely be College X. If you do an open offer, it will probably not be College X. Applying to a college is not a guarantee that you'll get into that college, but it is quite likely (the proportion of people who end up in a college they didn't apply to is something like 1/4 or 1/3, so most do get their first choice).

Has anyone been given an interview invite for Geography yet?

Has anyone been given an interview invite for Geography yet?

I have

no way!!! Congrats! Which college? and what time did they send it to you?