Oxford PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) Students and Applicants

~Ollie~

I had stuff about percentages of coin tosses, which i did so badly in - i got it right in the end but it was just soooo painful... I felt for sure after that I wasn't gonna get an offer, so was a pleasant surprise!

Just out of curiosity, what combinations of A-levels do people doing / going to do PPE do because from my own experience loooooooaads of people I have talked to do History Maths and Economics (same as me) with an extra thing on top usually, like further maths or whatever (critical thinking for me - LOL!) So yeah, just wondering if that was a common combination?

Haha I do pretty much the same as you except I do both F. Maths and Critical Thinking (what was I thinking?!) plus General Studies but that can be ignored :p:

Reply 1361

peaches you did FM right??

in that case what were your questions like, i mean did they touch on topics just from C1-C4 for example, or did they go into FP1, FP2 etc (+ do you need to know any knowledge from the applied modules such as stats, mechanics etc, as our school is making me do D1 and D2!! lol)

Reply 1362

d2 has game theory, both decision modules will really help you for the interviews, because they make you think about maths in a way the other modules dont, its that kind of approach to maths is what they look for in some economics/philosophy interviews so thatl be really good. And a simple awnser to your question is, if youve done single maths (as i have) they will only ask you c1-3, if you have done further then naturally they may want to test you on it. They are not going to ask you somthing youd have no clue on, its in neither your interest nor theirs so i wouldnt worry at all. Btw peaches when u went to catz did u have 2 interviews or one?

Reply 1363

btw a tip for future PPE applicants. If you can go to the PPE Masterclasses organised by the debate chamber at balliol they are so dam useful! i did one in year 12 last year and dont think i wouldve gotten it without it. Any other 2008/9 applicants gone to this on here???

Reply 1364

Jibzy

15

i know a guy who didnt do maths at AS or A-level. did only Politics, Literature, History for A-level. and got in for PPE at teddy hall....wonder how he got through the maths

Reply 1365

nickcoal

Critical Thinking (what was I thinking?!)

i think as-level critical thinking would be really useful for the test, half of it is the same as the critical thinking multiple choice.
hope that helps

btw, i do maths, economics, history of art and russian at a-level, so they are fairly flexible, but maths will be really useful, not just for the economics, but also for the logic part of philosophy

Reply 1366

Noémie

17

KEconomist

btw a tip for future PPE applicants. If you can go to the PPE Masterclasses organised by the debate chamber at balliol they are so dam useful! i did one in year 12 last year and dont think i wouldve gotten it without it. Any other 2008/9 applicants gone to this on here???

do tell more!
when how much how to apply etc? it would be fun even if it didnt help :smile:

(sure it would :P)

Reply 1367

Well their website is http://www.debatechamber.com/ but its under re-construction right now , but when it comes back up itl have the dates of the PPE masterclasses, they have quite a few going on throughout the year , and also have them in other subjects such as law and history etc... But yeah it was really good, its about 150 squid but my school paid it for me. I guess it paid off for them :biggrin:

Reply 1368

Chruchill

I think Debate Chamber has been shut down. I was looking to go to the classes this year, but the website has been down since around the time this article was published. I hope they haven't though, if anyone knows otherwise...maybe someone should try emailing, I was going to sometime in the summer.

Edit: I emailed them and discovered this isn't true as I received a reply about the next PPE school.

Reply 1369

made_of_fail

1

to the best of my knowledge no one at magdalen was asked questions involving a level maths. doesn't seem to be much standardisation across the university.

i wasn't overly impressed with the whole interview process actually, but then i would say that.

Reply 1370

akademic

peaches you did FM right??

in that case what were your questions like, i mean did they touch on topics just from C1-C4 for example, or did they go into FP1, FP2 etc (+ do you need to know any knowledge from the applied modules such as stats, mechanics etc, as our school is making me do D1 and D2!! lol)

See my post at the top of the page :smile:

KEconomist

Btw peaches when u went to catz did u have 2 interviews or one?

I had two interviews - one economics and one phil/pol.

KEconomist

btw a tip for future PPE applicants. If you can go to the PPE Masterclasses organised by the debate chamber at balliol they are so dam useful! i did one in year 12 last year and dont think i wouldve gotten it without it. Any other 2008/9 applicants gone to this on here???

I went on one last October and in all honesty didn't find it that useful. I have however been on several Debate Chamber courses (only about 10-12 people on them) and they were fantastic. Also, a word of advice to future applicants: do NOT fall for companies like Oxbridge Applications who 'guarantee' interview success. I foolishly went on one of their interview preparation days (well, it was free :wink:

) and essentially they just try and turn you into a little perfect Oxbridge applicant robot. I ignored pretty much most the advice they gave and got in anyway, as did most of my friends who attended the course.
This is all subjective though, I'd just be careful with organisations that claim to help you get in and then take hundreds of pounds off you.

Reply 1371

i know this is like my millionth question lol but there is a very good reason lol :P

basically i am 2 minds as to whether to go for E&M or PPE, anyone else been in this sitution? how did you decide on your final outcome?

I've looked at both courses on there website and they both look appealing (i.e. course content wise). I have my E&M days where i think i would love to study this, but then on the other hand i have my PPE days lol as i have studied economics and philosophy at a-level and thus PPE looks appealing

therefore in terms of me making a decision lol could someone give me the typical work load for both courses (is one harder than the other?) and second, what often puts me off about E&M is the absolutely low acceptance rate (more than 10% less than PPE)

i know i should what ever course i enjoy and not choose based on acceptance rates but i like both so these rates play an important part of my decision, my question thus is on average the quality of E&M candidates greater than PPE candidates, and more importantly is it because more people apply to E&M than PPE that it has a lower acceptance rate?

Thanks again for all the help, my mind is a mess atm lol :tsr2:

Reply 1372

I can't really help you make your decision because it ultimately comes down to what you would like to study for 3 years of your life. I think that if you apply to University then you can apply for both E&M and PPE. IIRC someone on this thread applied for both at Univ and then switched to E&M.

I would just like to conclude by saying that PPE is The Best, The Only, The Greatest (in a shameless attempt to sway your decision).

Reply 1373

^^^^ lol

yeah i know ultimately the decision is left to me but i was just looking for anyone else who has been through this dilemma and factors they considered which i may have missed out

how much harder is it to get into e&m than ppe?? (i know there isn't a concrete answer, but any opinions would help) :smile:

Reply 1374

lcc

apply to univ! what you do is you submit a regular ppe application and then email the admissions tutor saying youd also want to be considered for e&m. youre selected for interview based on your ucas file (and probably the pre-interview test next year, right?), but after that univ only looks at test results, interview performance and past grades, so the fact that your personal statement is geared towards ppe shouldnt work to your disadvantage.

i only had the set of ppe interviews, after which i was told that i could take the e&m test if i was still interested - apparently not everyone who applied for both was given this chance. then a few days later i got a call from the admissions tutor asking whether id prefer to read ppe or e&m. i talked to another guy who claims to have screwed up the e&m test though and he said he wasnt given the choice, but got offered a place for ppe. umm SOOO that was my very long-winded way of saying that yes it may be tougher to get in for e&m, however applying to both courses doesnt seem to hinder your ppe application in any way, so dont worry about the admissions rate! heh and if youre scared of the management interview as i was then applying through ppe lets you avoid that. :redface:

ive talked to some ppeists and e&mists at oxford right now and i get the impression that the workload for ppe is way more hardcore, at least for the first year, which works for me cuz im pretty lazy but then again i bet ill end up reading politics and philosophy in my free time anyway. one thing i really like about e&m is that there are only some 70-80 people in every year, and usually only a few in each college, so classes are held with other colleges and it seems that the 'community spirit' or whatever between people doing the course (its late dammit its taking a lot of effort to make sense!) is really great. another thing that people keep bringing up is how great the saïd business school is, though i never really understood that, i mean do they mean the building?? of course networking oppotunities are fantastic etc etc and its highly sought after by employers (partly because its so competitive) but i think were not supposed to care about that lol. but yea of course i can come up with a million good points about ppe too, ahh i have my moments when i wish id gone for ppe instead - im so damn indecisive i almost wish theyd chosen for me. :rolleyes:

that said it sounds like youd be happy doing either course, and if you apply to univ and get to choose after your interviews then it just puts off the actual decision-making right? plus then you wouldnt have to worry about admissions rates...

ahh what am i doing online i need to sleep... ok ill just answer your last question since ive already got this far lol. i highly doubt the average quality of e&m applicants is any higher than that of ppe applicants, but you cant really compare the two right? the reason the admissions rate is so much lower is obviously that there are fewer places (ppe has 250+ per year), and despite the demand oxford cant increase the number of places without risking the quality of teaching, facilities etc (its short on funds as it is). also i hear that management tutors are pretty hard to come by, as people who are really good in management science usually have better things to do lol, and would earn much more in business than in academia.

ok rant over ---> sleep. hope i helped! and that the text is anyhow coherent lol.

Reply 1375

>> peaches

See my post at the top of the page :smile:

I went on one last October and in all honesty didn't find it that useful. I have however been on several Debate Chamber courses (only about 10-12 people on them) and they were fantastic. Also, a word of advice to future applicants: do NOT fall for companies like Oxbridge Applications who 'guarantee' interview success. I foolishly went on one of their interview preparation days (well, it was free :wink:

) and essentially they just try and turn you into a little perfect Oxbridge applicant robot. I ignored pretty much most the advice they gave and got in anyway, as did most of my friends who attended the course.
This is all subjective though, I'd just be careful with organisations that claim to help you get in and then take hundreds of pounds off you.

o wow i think i was on the same one. it coudlnt have been in year 12 because it was already after the UCAS deadline. omg were you the baliol applicant who i was like to, omg baliol is like the hardest college to get into for PPE, then the person was like yeah *sigh* i only found out after i applied. Or am i just talking rubbish :biggrin:

?

Reply 1376

and for akademic, i actually came across an article somewhere god knows from where, but it basically said that some tests were done and apparently the ability of the average PPE applicant is higher than the average E&M and Law applicant and was basically trying to argue how just because of the stats it doesnt mean that it is more or less competitive. But its probably rubbish anyway! And as for my advice just as lcc said, id say apply for PPE at univ where u can also be considered for EandM, and univ itself is an awesome college the politics tutor there is 2 cool, although catz will always havemy heart :biggrin:

.

Reply 1377

you lot are legends seriously for helping me out like you lot have, so thanks guys for the efforts, really helped :smile:

to icc i know you've already written alot (and i appreciate if you need to sleep now so don't worry) but how exactly did you oxford interview experience go?

so you sent in the 2 PPE essays, did the test on the 30th october and got invited for interview, where you had (how many?) PPE interviews

then as it was univ you were also considered for e&m (at which point did you tell them that you wanted to be considered for e&m also?), i presume you then did the e&m test (how much more difficult is this to the ppe test btw?), and then did you have e&m interviews on top of that as well?? (if so how many?)

sorry for all the questions but this option looks perfect for someone like me, however can i also ask what your GCSE and a-level grades were? (i'm applying post a-level 5 A's at a-level and 10A*'s at GCSE)

Reply 1378

CarneLevare

4

Engelbert

Nah I wasn't too impressed either, particularly with regards to my philosophy interview.

How so?

Reply 1379