Am I at a disadvantage for Oxford Admissions?

I recently applied to Engineering Science at Oxford and am waiting for a potential interview offer, like everyone else.

On my predicted grade papers, I got A*A*A*. I had these graded privately due to my status as being home-educated. However, my tutor downgraded it to A*A*A because they felt Oxford would think it is "too optimistic".
As well as this, I have only 5 GCSEs due to the financial limitations I had being home-educated. I mentioned as much in my Personal Statement, which I hope they consider contextually.
But I see other applicants from previous years generally have A*A*A* to A*A*A*A* predicted, does this put me at an automatic disadvantage? Or are achieved/predicted grades only minorly important?

Reply 1

Harik0

Predicted grades aren't too important. From looking at stuff online, PAT seems to be the main factor for interviews. If you score above the automatic threshold in PAT, you'll probably be fine; if not you'll be at a disadvantage because in that case they look more closely at the rest of your application. You are certainly at a disadvantage, but you still have a decent chance of interview and at that point, a lot of your offer depends on interview.

So ya, even though you would have a lower probability of offer than someone with the same PAT and interview with a different academic portfolio, but since PAT and interview are still important it doesn't hurt your odds too much.

Reply 2

Stiffy Byng

This is the second example I've seen this week of a student being subjected to potential disadvantage because of "home schooling", a phenomenon which has increased in prevalence since the advent of the internet, that well known source of reliable information (yeah right). Local authorities don't have the resources to check on home schoolers with sufficient regularity. Deprivation of education on financial grounds is precisely the mischief which state schools exist to eliminate.

Psychology Today (an American journal) said this in 2021 -

"Homeschooled students tend to score higher on tests of academic skills when compared to children in public schools across most studies. However, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from these studies since most do not control for important family demographic factors and compare self-selected homeschooling families’ test scores (from tests proctored by parents) to national averages. Interestingly, children in a “structured” homeschool program — that is, a homeschool program with organized lesson plans — tend to score higher on academic tests than children from conventional schools, while children in “unstructured” homeschool environments without organized lesson plans tend to score lower than children in conventional schools"

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-translator/202109/the-research-homeschooling

("public schools" is used in the American sense and refers to state schools, not in the UK sense referring to private schools)

(edited 2 months ago)

Reply 3

kenglish06

Original post by Harik0

Predicted grades aren't too important. From looking at stuff online, PAT seems to be the main factor for interviews. If you score above the automatic threshold in PAT, you'll probably be fine; if not you'll be at a disadvantage because in that case they look more closely at the rest of your application. You are certainly at a disadvantage, but you still have a decent chance of interview and at that point, a lot of your offer depends on interview.
So ya, even though you would have a lower probability of offer than someone with the same PAT and interview with a different academic portfolio, but since PAT and interview are still important it doesn't hurt your odds too much.

I think I did well on the PAT, though I'm not certain I broke the 75% threshold. If I get an interview I think I'll do quite well, the Tutors and staff I spoke to at Oxford said I was very good at speaking about my interests.
Oxford does promise to contextualise your outside performance with you academic background, so I hope that this works in my favour.
In any case, thank you for the reply - I have gotten an offer from Warwick so it won't be the end of the world if I don't get it - a shot at an interview would be very encouraging though!
Good luck to you, if you're currently applying as well!

Reply 4

Harik0

Original post by kenglish06

You should be able to get interview with less than 75%, the minimum at which you are guaranteed an interview is lower than that and many people do get interviews with a lower pat score. No point worrying now, just hope for the interview and then an offer - if not, warwick is a great uni.
Hopefully we both get offers and meet again sept 2025!