Official US Universities Applicants Thread 2022

What course at Oxford?

congrats that's amazing! would you be comfortable talking about your extra curriculars and grades?

Sure! I take A levels in Maths, English lit, History, Latin, Ancient Greek and an EPQ. I'm predicted A*s in all of them. My main extracurriculars are singing. I take singing lessons, and I'm grade 8 voice. I've been singing in my church choir for the last nine years, and I'm also in my school's chamber choir. I submitted a classical vocal supplement with my application, and got an email after I got in saying that my supplement was part of the reason, so it's definitely worth recording one if your at a high standard on your instrument. I've been quite involved with a local youth opera company for the past five years, performing and for the past couple years, lyric writing for opera. I also write poetry, I've been longlisted in a national competition, and I'm a national finalist for Poetry By Heart (though those last two things have only come out in the past few weeks, they didn't help with admission). Oh, and I volunteer with a charity that teaches ancient greek to kids from state schools who wouldn't otherwise be able to learn it (though that's only once a half term). I've done a few other bits and pieces over the past few years, but those are the big ones.

I think it's less about what you do, and more about the story you can tell about it. Like my ancient greek volunteering is really pretty minimal in terms of time commitment, but I wrote about it in the context of access to classics, and the fact that this same charity is what funded my early ancient greek education. I also wrote quite a lot about my academic passions and ideas that I haven't done in school or in extracurriculars, just through reading books, and thinking what I want to learn more about. For me, it was about the interconnection between classical and victorian queer poetry, and they affect eachother. That's my biggest interest at the moment, I something I'd love to research in the future. I think it's absolutely worth giving the application a shot, it's so competitive that no one can ever expect to get in, but you never know, it might come to something. Building a story outwards that links all your academics, extracurriculars and achievements into you is the most important part. That's why essays are so crucial. Also, please don't look at my a level predictions and assume you need a crazily high number like five to get in, I know a UK student who got into Harvard with three. You do need to be able to demonstrate passion and excellence, but I reckon as long as you have at least three A levels at a mix of As and A*s, you're academically successful enough to be considered. Especially if you can balance that out with outstanding extracurriculars, or community service.

Is it too early to start a 2023 thread?

Is it too early to start a 2023 thread?

I plan to start a 2023 thread when CommonApp opens for that cycle (August 1st)

following

Is it too early to start a 2023 thread?