Oxbridge Admissions Statistics

if only they had subjects by college - thats the ones everyone REALLY wants!

There are good reasons why colleges do not make detailed statistics available. If people saw that a college was very undersubscribed one year for a subject, quite a lot of people would probably apply the next year, hoping for an easy place. It's really not much help.

Some colleges provide extremely detailed stats. I suspect a proper search through college websites may reveal quite a lot of relatively obscure information. At any rate, I'm not sure that argument is right - colleges would like nothing better than lots of applicants. Then they can take all the best ones and pack the rest off to other colleges.

colleges would like nothing better than lots of applicants.

I'm not sure that colleges want loads of applicants. It means a lot of work for them to interview everyone

But by that logic, when they publish the stats for the next year they will have a huge applicants per place ratio that will deter people. It just leads to silly cycles...

In general, the university does want to promote the image that the colleges are equal because it's the fairest thing to do (not perhaps the right thing, but whatever). Stats tables, like it or not, do artificially create application trends, which the university doesn't want to be responsible for. It's up to colleges if they want to publish their own details, but in general, they only make passing references to numbers...rarely have I seen them publish full tables making it easy for people to select a college based on application figures.

I don't know much about the logistics of interviewing, but I was told that the Oxbridge interview system was cracking under the strain of so many applicants last year, and in the future, they might not even interview all good applicants...just the very best ones. I just get the feeling colleges don't really want to increase their applicant numbers right now.

Please please please ignore the applicants per place statistics. The thing that nobody ever remembers is that they only tell you how many applied to each college. What they miss out is that after the applications, people who made open applications are then allocated to the colleges with fewer applicants, so it comes quite close to balancing out. Plus, there are enough differences between the colleges that you should be making your decision based on those, not based on the competition you think you'll be facing.

I completely agree with the logic of your first point, I think the same myself. I'm having difficulty squaring that with the fact that the university does publish admissions statistics. Maybe they've concluded it's better to provide some official data rather than rely on hearsay.

I'm similarly ignorant to you about interviewing; just where I was intereviewed they didn't seem to have much difficulty, got it all done in well under 24 hours despite having over 30 applicants. Furthermore, I was repeatedly told that the written work I was asked to send in should not be much longer than 2,000 words or the tutors will get bored of reading it/annoyed I was wasting their time. I sent in a 4,500 word essay, and so far as I can tell they were very impressed. Hence I'm sceptical. I'm probably being very parochial; it's just hard to avoid when there's so little hard evidence to go on.

Yeah, I think they probably feel compelled to provide some figures. Numbers and stats are a Western obsession.

Were you interviewed at Ox? I was under the impression all Ox applicants had to stay in the city for two or three days. My Cam interviewers sent me some stuff to read, saying we might have to refer to the material in the interview...when it came down to it, they only asked me one question on the material, and everything else was completely random. Sometimes it's very hard to understand what they're trying to do.

But by that logic, when they publish the stats for the next year they will have a huge applicants per place ratio that will deter people. It just leads to silly cycles...

So interviewing took from about 1 o'clock Thursday to 9am Friday.

Oxford avoid this by publishing statisitcs that are averaged over the last 5 years I think. It gives you a better impression.

Oxford avoid this by publishing statisitcs that are averaged over the last 5 years I think. It gives you a better impression.

It's 3 years. But anyway, choosing college based on precise information is really difficult; for one thing, it's often very inaccurate. Much more important in my view is to try and get a feel for the place, talk to the students and/or tutors, in person if possible.