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Apply to Oxbridge for undergrad or post grad?

I want to study physics at undergrad.
I am not sure if I should apply for Oxbridge for undergrad or for post grad. I definitely want to study a master or PhD after finishing undergrad.
Opinions?

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 1

bl4ckhole

Are you a home or international student?

I am assuming you have never studied Physics at university before, so I suggest doing undergrad first.
To do postgrad, you would need all the basic knowledge of Physics first and you could apply for the MSci courses (bachelors and masters together) and have it cheaper than doing it separately.

Usually, to do a PhD, you need a masters anyway.

However, in Oxford they only have BA for undergraduate and MPhys for both bachelors and masters because they wanna be different but it's basically the same thing.
In Cambridge, they do Natural Sciences where all 3 sciences are basically combined but you specialise in which science you want to work on more in 3rd and 4th year.

Reply 2

Nat4695

Hey thanks for your reply 🙂
I’m a home student I’m in y12 rn
I wanna figure out if it is worth applying to Oxbridge now for university or whether I should just pause that and instead apply at different unis for undergrad, and consider Oxbridge for post graduate stuff instead.
Basically many people have said that post grad applications are even more competitive so should I shoot my shot now providing my predictions meet entry criteria or wait until after I have done my undergrad?

Reply 3

bl4ckhole

Original post by Nat4695

Since you meet the entry criteria, yeah why not shoot your shot and apply?
There's no harm in doing it, right?

But you can only choose between Oxford or Cambridge, and if you want to do pure Physics, Oxford is usually the popular one of them both.
You would have to prepare hard for the PAT as well, and from that you would get lots of practice for A-Levels too so there would ne no loss!

It's not like Oxbridge is the only uni you would apply to. You would still have 4 other choices for the other unis.

Reply 4

Nat4695

Original post by bl4ckhole

Since you meet the entry criteria, yeah why not shoot your shot and apply?
There's no harm in doing it, right?
But you can only choose between Oxford or Cambridge, and if you want to do pure Physics, Oxford is usually the popular one of them both.
You would have to prepare hard for the PAT as well, and from that you would get lots of practice for A-Levels too so there would ne no loss!
It's not like Oxbridge is the only uni you would apply to. You would still have 4 other choices for the other unis.