Choosing an Oxford College

Yes they are lovely You can't walk on the main lawn, but the rest are up for using as you like!

Other places to contemplate might be Worcester, Magdalen, Christ Church and Merton.

And if you're applying for English worth considering St Anne's and LMH - they have large Eng Lit cohorts and well stocked libraries for the course. Plus LMH is a v. pretty walk across Uni Parks to the English faculty. I hear Brasenose has a good tutor if you're into Shakespeare and performance.

St. Anne's will have a brand new massive library building (to house the biggest library collection of any Oxford college afaik) for 2016-entry students, too.

That's an interesting point actually - I've never considered how many books each college library has. I wonder if there are any stats on it somewhere

That's an interesting point actually - I've never considered how many books each college library has. I wonder if there are any stats on it somewhere

We don't know of a comparative listing but the college webpages usually have information if you are prepared to dig.

Brasenose has over 55,000 titles (plus electronic subscriptions). As well as books, students need study space and many colleges, Brasenose included, have invested recently in increasing capacity. Our Librarian describes the latest project here:

https://brasenosecollegelibrary.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/the-old-cloisters-expanding-and-improving-our-library-for-the-future/

St. Anne's has 110,000... but no space for any of them Books are literally piling up on the floor at the moment - the new library's coming in at a good time!

110,000 is a lot of books!

55,000 seems about average to me, from a quick look I found Queens has 50,000 and Univ has 60,000.

Although those could be the lower end, or St. Anne's is an anomaly!

Edit (Will update if I find more): LMH - 70,000, St. Hilda's - 65,000, Worcester - 65,000, Exeter - 50,000, Somerville - 120,000, Merton - 70,000

110,000 is a lot of books!

55,000 seems about average to me, from a quick look I found Queens has 50,000 and Univ has 60,000.

One measure of this is the number of books that are catalogued on SOLO. (A slightly dubious measure, but nevertheless...)

Hi, I'm thinking of applying for English at St. John's College. I've never actually been up to see it/had a tour so the thing I'd really like to know is if the gardens there are as nice as they look, and you can actually walk on/use them?

x

Okay, so stuck in my college choice for PPE here, anyone have any advice?

I'm thinking either Magdalen, New or Lincoln. I'll explain my reasoning

I'd like a old, central, beautiful college, so obviously all three fit into that. What I'm really unsure about is atmosphere and size. I'd like it to be really friendly, and crucially, as someone who can't drink alcohol for medical reasons, where social life doesn't revolve around alcohol. Which is why I'm stuck between going for Large (New), bit smaller (Magdalen) or much smaller (Lincoln). I quite like traditions, but don't want too much public schoolness, so maybe not Magdalen? Anyone have any comments about the atmopshere of these three colleges, which one they felt was best? Cheers!

Thank you for replying! What you said about size makes sense, guess I was just thinking a smaller, "friendlier" college would . Could I just ask you, as a Magdalen undergrad, is there still that community spirit etc. that smaller colleges pride themselves on? I think it's between Magdalen and Lincoln for me now .EDIT: Earlier on the thread, someone described Lincoln as "cliquey". Is this true? I guess I'm just stuck between a big college and a close college.

Sorry to be back again so soon - I've narrowed my choices down to:

St. John's
Have heard it's very oversubscribed re state school applicants, and the library isn't 24/7;

Balliol
They don't wear gowns (! - I don't know if this is a really stupid reason not to apply...), but apparently their vegetarian food is v good

Christ Church
Really like Christ Church but I wonder if it's terribly oversubscribed and demands a very high standard from applicants, esp. state applicants - obviously all colleges demand high standards but I just wonder if ChCh do especially....

As ever, if anyone has any opinions they'd be well-appreciated!

As far as I'm aware, your educational background shouldn't effect on whether you're offered a place or not. Colleges aren't going to expect a state school applicant to be 'extra special' to compete with private school applicants. Everybody should be treated equally (the only thing I can think of that diverges from this is contextualising GCSE results - but that's fair).

I'm a recent alumnus of ChCh from a state school background - for biochem in my year 3/4 in college were from state schools. Plus for some subjects, it's not even the college that makes the final decision as to which applicants are offered a place - for biochemistry, I know that it is the department who decides this, not colleges.

Oh, and btw ChCh's library isn't 24 hours either (except for the law library). I saw you put that as a downside (or maybe a positive?) to St John's, so thought that maybe you didn't know this about ChCh.

My advice would be to choose whatever college you like best. It is very difficult to know which colleges will be oversubscribed or not, but in any case applying to an oversubscribed college doesn't reduce your chances of being offered a place. I hope this helps?

Thanks, that's good to hear. I think I've basically decided it'll be either John's or ChCh; the main reason I'm sceptical about the latter is it seems like for English (which I'm applying for) either Christ Church accept you or you don't get in at all if you make a direct application to them.... Could I possibly ask if you applied directly to Christ Church, and also if you had any interviews at other colleges?