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What are my chances of getting into oxford university for experimental psychology?

What are my chances of getting into oxford university for experimental psychology? I am predicted 3 a stars at a level, my GCSE'S were all 9's but one 8 and a 7 (I did 11 GCSES). But my TSA scores are currently in the late 50s - 60s, and I am really struggling with the essay section. I am also applying to St Andrews Uni, Uni of Warwick, UCL and Kings. What are my chances for those? Please help!!

Reply 1

eeeli

Firstly, nobody other than the admissions department can tell you exactly what your chances for admission are - they are the ones that know exactly how important each component is and can assess you against all the other applicants. So realistically, nobody can really tell you what your chances are until you apply and find out whether you get in. I can only speculate/give advice!

With that out of the way, the rest of your application looks good but the TSA score worries me - a score in the 50s is not very competitive. https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/EP-PPL-admissions-stats-for-applicants-2021-22.pdf has some data from Somerville College about TSA scores for EP and as you can see most offers are made to people with TSA scores above 60 - the mean score for offers was 70.10. If you can score high 60s in the real thing and they like the rest of your application that is more competitive, and above 70 even better. Keep working on the TSA!

Reply 2

Anonymous #2

This is all under the assumption that you're application is non-contextual.

They will reject you if you get a low TSA S1 (i.e., about bottom 40%) unless you have a very good cGCSE score (i.e., your GCSEs were good compared to your school's average performance in that year). Predicted grades will not affect your chances of shortlisting as long as it is above or equal to the typical offer grade (A*AA). How shortlisting works is if any one part of your application are not up to standard, you will be recommended for deselection (with the only exception being exceptionally good cGCSE can make up for poor TSA and vice versa).

What they don't weigh in for selection is your personal statement and AS grades (if you took them). TSAS2 is weird because they use it to judge the strength of candidates but poor S2 score does not mean an automatic deselection. Everything else: teacher's reference, predicted grades, cGCSE, TSAS1 need to be what they consider good.

All the information here is accurate for 2016 entry, but I doubt they'd have changed the selection criteria.

With interview offers coming in in mere days this probs isn't the most helpful answer, but best of luck!

Reply 3

Anonymous #3

EP student here. I had dinner with my college's admission tutor the other day, and they mentioned that they do the interview selection almost entirely on TSA (section 1) scores. You will need to score above average to have a chance at an interview, and if you want to secure it you'll need to score in the upper quartile. If you want to aim for a score, a 'safe' one might be around 40/50, or above 70 after the conversion. Good luck!