Reapplying

Hello,

I have unfortunately been rejected an interview at Oxford, and I was wondering whether or not it is worth taking a gap year to apply again next year. If I find out that I was rejected due to a low TSA score, is it enough to study hard and do comparatively well next year? What is expected of me if I do decide to reapply? Or is it better for me to take the offer I received from Edinburgh, instead?

Thank you

The requirements for re-applicants should be the same as for new applicants. Having said that, I suspect the admissions bods will take a careful look at what the applicant had achieved during their gap year - in particular, how they have maintained their academic momentum. A gap year spent doing a bit of travelling, some bar work, some reading... that's not going to enthuse them. In other words, I would guess there needs to be a positive, subject/academic- related reason to take a gap year, rather than just ways of filling time before reapplying - a year-long internship with an organisation well-known in the field, academic supervision and clear subject-related learning outcomes. Something like that. Do-able but a bit of a gamble.

So yeah. Edinburgh is a fabulous city. I'd go there.

But that's just a personal opinion. No doubt someone will reply saying, "I took a gap year and lay on a beach in Bali for a year, then got an invitation from All Souls to take up the Kate Bush Chair of Philosophy and Expressive Dance. £100k a year".

What do I know?

Oxford is not like getting a job interview - tutors have to be very careful not to discriminate in the same way that e.g. an employer might query why someone has not achieved anything on their gap year...what you do on your gap year is irrelevant...

A lot of this is just speculation and as you said, personal opinion. I've had lots of people I know who did nothing for the first half of their gap year and re-applied to Oxford and got in. I've spoken to a lot of tutors about the admissions process and this has never emerged as a problem. People have lots of different reasons for taking gap years, often personal (e.g. medical, financial, caring responsibilities), and it would be completely inappropriate for a tutor to be biased against what a person has the ability to do on their gap year. Oxford is not like getting a job interview - tutors have to be very careful not to discriminate in the same way that e.g. an employer might query why someone has not achieved anything on their gap year.

TLDR - ignore the above, what you do on your gap year is irrelevant. Whether or not you take one depends on how much you really want to go to Oxford. It's always going to be a risk - yes you could prepare well for the TSA but you still might fail at the interview stage. It's up to you - are you prepared to potentially waste a year for it? Will your parents be happy to support you through your gap year? etc...

I doubt what you do on your gap year is irrelevant much of the time - not because they actually care what you did on your gap year, but because if you didn't get shortlisted one year, and then spend a whole year doing things that don't improve you academically, chances are you're not going to get an offer next time.

They can't be biased against people who have worked or spent a year on the beach, but they can be biased against people who aren't good enough to get in. And obviously in cases like this the two things are linked.