The Oxbridge Disadvantage?

What are you going to study Hornblower?

FACT - Uni's are not told which other uni's that you have applied to.

They may be able to make an educated guess that you are an Oxbridge applicant if they recieve your application before the deadline and you have strings of A's, but even then they would not simply reject you on the basis that you will go elsewhere.

Universities with applicants who have not applied to Oxbridge face the same kind of dilemma. For example someone predicted AAA and not applying to Oxbridge (like me) would apply to places like Notts, Manchester, York, Warwick and probably one uni such as Newcastle as an insurance. Does this mean that Newcastle will reject you because you are likely to chose another uni?!?...I don't think so. They will want the best possible crop of student coming there next year.

I think it is time that people just accepted that some courses are incredibly competative at top uni's and that there are only a limited number of places. They should stop looking for alterior motives on the part of uni's. Admissions tutors have a job to do and they select the most appropriate group students, if you don't fall into this group then don't take it personally and just accept it because you may be exactly the student that another great uni is looking for!!!

mutantgerbil, i applied to similar unis to u 4 law, and got rejected by most, only have one offer so fa from birmingham + i applied to oxford.

what wer ur GCSE grades?

What are you going to study Hornblower?

Some universities might just pull names out of a hat, or select candidates whose names are easy to spell.