Will a few bad irrelevant scores ruin my PPE Application to Oxford?

To clarify, I am a Canadian student.

I am highly interested in applying to Oxford next year: am currently in my grade 12 year, and would be applying for the 2021 September entrance this fall.

Oxford is a dream school for me (with PPE as my course) and since the Canadian model of education does not traditionally follow the Oxford application process model, I really wanted to take a gap year to maximize my chances and immerse myself in the study. All the guys think I'm crazy for taking one but haha you live by your own guidelines.

I currently have a 1550 SAT, with a 95 UW senior year average in all honours & AP courses and since my midterm, my marks have risen so I will have a 97 by the end of the year. I also have an 800 SAT II in Literature and by the time I apply, will have four 5s in APs. (I realize that the only “required” element for Canadian apps to Oxford is the average %, but I went to an accelerated school so APs were part of the curriculum regardless.)

I am very concerned because I realized that even though SAT II/AP scores are not mandatory for Canadians to take to apply to Oxford, if we have taken them we must submit them. Because I earlier applied to the US and took these tests way before I came to the conclusion I wanted to apply to Oxford (I took them rather young and quite before I realized I wanted to study social sciences, and when I really did not know much about reporting scores), so I did poorly on irrelevant SAT II subject tests and received three scores in the 600s. Since the US practices score choice, I was unconcerned with these results affecting my results but I am super worried now that since I must include them, Oxford will automatically discard my application / red flag it and not invite me for an interview regardless of other factors like TSA, my senior GPA, etc. I absolutely want to avoid this. I'll do anything to avoid that!

Please let me know if you have any insight if it is realistic for me to proceed applying with these three scores- they are in Physics and a language, however, so completely unrelated to PPE. I am also willing to put in literally weeks and hours of extra work for months and months to get a good TSA score + get the interview pat down, and am a super natural avid reader of PPE, the news, books, etc. and very intellectually curious and in love with PPE. My recommendation would be by a politics teacher who I am very close with academically and they know me quite well.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

It's kind of hard to say, but I'm not even sure if Oxford require SAT IIs from US students, and your AP exam results will probably be more informative for them than SAT II results. I would be very surprised if, given the rest of your application, those results will automatically hold you back - they may be considered though, but it will be in context. If you get a reasonably good score in the TSA I imagine you will be interviewed, but then again the way they shortlist international students may be a bit different than UK students. I would note though, A-level Maths or equivalent (i.e. AP Calc) is functionally a requirement of PPE at Oxford, so if you don't have that it may be more of an issue than anything else..

That aside, I'm not really sure you can prepare for the interview specifically; they're usually designed to be a sort of "mock tutorial" to see how you respond to the tutorial format of teaching, which is the main method of teaching at Oxford (lectures are mainly to support the tutorial format or provide introductions to various topics, except for specifically mathematical sort of things like formal logic or the maths required for the economics section). They really will just want to see how you think about a topic, which they will usually try and choose something unfamiliar that you have the background to approach but need to apply your knowledge in a way they think you haven't before, and then will provide new pieces of information to see how you adapt and develop your response to that.

Reply 2

harryhenderson18

OP

8

Hi there,
Thanks so much for the response! I am actually currently taking the AP Calc course. I have a 95. Should I take the online AP exam? I figured since I'm Canadian it wasn't as important, but I will if necessary.

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

Original post by harryhenderson18

Hi there,
Thanks so much for the response! I am actually currently taking the AP Calc course. I have a 95. Should I take the online AP exam? I figured since I'm Canadian it wasn't as important, but I will if necessary.

I'd probably suggest taking the exam if you have the option. For reference, for UK A-level applicants in each of the last three years, about 95% of successful applicants for PPE had taken A-level Maths in each application cycle (the equivalent, roughly, of AP Calc). Although not formally required, it does seem somewhat expected that if you have the option to take some kind of mathematical education to that level, that you should. As you say it's a bit harder to say since you aren't a UK student but as you're taking the course and can potentially take the exam, it may be simplest to do so just to make sure there it is not a potential sticking point.

Reply 4

astro67

10

Original post by harryhenderson18

To clarify, I am a Canadian student.

I am highly interested in applying to Oxford next year: am currently in my grade 12 year, and would be applying for the 2021 September entrance this fall.

Oxford is a dream school for me (with PPE as my course) and since the Canadian model of education does not traditionally follow the Oxford application process model, I really wanted to take a gap year to maximize my chances and immerse myself in the study. All the guys think I'm crazy for taking one but haha you live by your own guidelines.

I currently have a 1550 SAT, with a 95 UW senior year average in all honours & AP courses and since my midterm, my marks have risen so I will have a 97 by the end of the year. I also have an 800 SAT II in Literature and by the time I apply, will have four 5s in APs. (I realize that the only “required” element for Canadian apps to Oxford is the average %, but I went to an accelerated school so APs were part of the curriculum regardless.)

I am very concerned because I realized that even though SAT II/AP scores are not mandatory for Canadians to take to apply to Oxford, if we have taken them we must submit them. Because I earlier applied to the US and took these tests way before I came to the conclusion I wanted to apply to Oxford (I took them rather young and quite before I realized I wanted to study social sciences, and when I really did not know much about reporting scores), so I did poorly on irrelevant SAT II subject tests and received three scores in the 600s. Since the US practices score choice, I was unconcerned with these results affecting my results but I am super worried now that since I must include them, Oxford will automatically discard my application / red flag it and not invite me for an interview regardless of other factors like TSA, my senior GPA, etc. I absolutely want to avoid this. I'll do anything to avoid that!

Please let me know if you have any insight if it is realistic for me to proceed applying with these three scores- they are in Physics and a language, however, so completely unrelated to PPE. I am also willing to put in literally weeks and hours of extra work for months and months to get a good TSA score + get the interview pat down, and am a super natural avid reader of PPE, the news, books, etc. and very intellectually curious and in love with PPE. My recommendation would be by a politics teacher who I am very close with academically and they know me quite well.

If you have qualifications that meet the entry requirements, it isn't really a problem if you have additional subjects which aren't as good - having 1550 SAT reasoning test plus the required number of 5s at AP ticks the relevant box. Having additional APs or subject SATs with lower than the threshold requirement doesn't strike me as a problem. It's akin to someone from the UK system (where the standard offer requires AAA at A-level) having AAAC at A-level. That wouldn't be a problem either. I agree with the comments elsewhere on the thread about the benefit of taking and getting a good grade in AP Calc.

Will a few bad irrelevant scores ruin my PPE Application to Oxford?

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