I was wondering what my chances of getting into Oxford as a US student and citizen would be with the following items: I am applying for Human Sciences which is a cross between Biology and Social Sciences
COURSE RIGOR:
9th:
English 1 Accelerated
Algebra 2/Trig Honors
Biology Honors
Spanish 1 Accelerated
PE (Semester Only)
Dance 1 (Semester Only)
Speech and Debate (Class Period During the School Day)
Religion Elective
10th:
American Literature Honors
AP Calculus AB
Chemistry Honors
Spanish 2 Honors
AP US History
Speech and Debate (Class Period During the School Day)
Religion Elective
11th:
AP English Literature
AP Calculus BC
AP Biology
Physics Honors
Spanish 3 Honors
AP World History
French 1
Religion Elective
12th:
AP English Language
AP Statistics
AP Chemistry
AP Spanish Language
Dance 2 (Semester Only)
AP Economics (Micro and Macro)
American Government (Semester Only)
French 2
Religion Elective
SAT/ACT SCORES
SAT - 1520 (one sitting), 790 math, 730 reading, 21/24 on essay (another attempt I got a 24 on the essay)
ACT - 34 with a 11/12 on the essay
NOT SURE WHICH TO SUBMIT?? OR BOTH???
SAT 2 SCORES (lowest pt of application)
BIOLOGY M - 760
MATH 2 - score TBD
NOT SURE IF I SHOULD SUBMIT??
AP SCORES:
AP English Literature - 5
AP World History - 5
AP US History - 5
AP Biology - 5
AP Calculus AB - 3 (not submitting because I got a 5 on the AB subscore on the BC exam)
AP Calculus BC - 5
EXTRACURRICULARS: (not too important but)
Competitive Jump Rope (10 years)
regional tournament over 50 medals, nationals top 10 for the past 5 years, world top 10 last year, team captain this year, have coached younger kids on my team
Bollywood Dance (12 years)
on my school Bollywood team, have done it outside of school as well but kind of on and off, have performed for 5,000 people
NonProfit Founder CEO (2 years)
started an organization to teach Foreign Languages to young children as I am fluent in Spanish, French, Hindi, Punjabi, taught over 500 kids with one other person
Lab Intern
Interned at a Stanford lab for one summer, completed a poster presentation and will be mentioned in a couple papers/posters in the future
Bio Club President
this is padding, but have kinda been part of Bio club at my school and am now a president
Volunteer work
Have volunteered at several places, but primarily 2 hospitals with roughly 300 hrs combined
Peer Tutoring
padding once again, tutor kids at my school in spanish, math, and English
CSF/NHS
again, not anything that special
Girls Who Code
was part of a girls who club club where we learned all the basics of coding and I completed my own robot as a final project
You need to submit all scores for Oxford, including all SAT/ACT tests and APs, you can’t pick and choose what to send. Have you thought about the personal statement (only ECs 4 and 5 are likely to be worth mentioning), who will write your reference (this is a very different style from the US and will therefore be a lot of work for your teacher) and where you will do the TSA (remember your school needs to register as a test center for you to take it there)? The deadline is not that far off.
Getting an interview will require a good TSA score (and it will help slightly as a tiebreaker too), so practice for that. Do go in person, it gives a much better sense of what you are getting into. Then they typically offer a place to about a third of the interviewees, it’s very hard to predict: you are a decent candidate on paper, but no one can say how you’ll perform in an interview. As a benchmark, of order 10% of US applicants will get offered a place.
Agreeing with all that @Twoin18 has posted and building on the PS statement part: Aside from having taken the subject Biology and worked in a lab one summer, I don’t see anything in your post that says "I have a deep and long standing interest in some (any) aspects of
That is the case you need to make. Your peers will have pieces of this sprinkled through their course choices, what they read outside of school, their activities, etc. Note that when they say say ‘ethnic and cultural diversity’ they are speaking in an academic, anthropological sense, not a ‘our community is improved by having people from diverse ethnicities’ sense. Your PS is the essay in which you demonstrate that you have some understanding of what the subject area involves (and, in this case, why the multidisciplinary part is important to you).
Have you done any serious reading- just for fun- in any of the constituent parts of the course (eg, anthropology, sociology, psychology, public health issues, demographics, genetics, conservation, etc.)? Take a look at this preliminary reading list (think summer reading before you start the course):
Oxford considers these as being for the general reader.
Have you read any of these books / authors- or similar ones- just out of interest in the area(s)? One of my collegekids (who did History & Politics at Oxford) I know had read at least Dawkins, Diamond, Fuentes, Gould and Milonovíc from that list in HS (because we talked about them at the time). She had read them out of general interest (although she had already read Diamond’s book Guns, Germs & Steel for an AP history class so she knew that she enjoyed his writing). For her, it was variety from the history & politics books she inhaled the rest of the time
When Oxford says it wants three AP/sat subject tests for engineering, what if you have two math (5 and 800) and two chem (will have at the end of junior year). Would that count or does that just count as two? Also, C has strong ACT, especially in STEM, and great grades (all honors or APs) with lots of STEM courses, including several engineering and research. C not taking Physic C until senior year (already took Honors physics, but that doesn’t align with an AP or subject test). Taking APs in other subjects (Econ, Lang.) this year. Do they completely disregard grades and courses?
The same subject only counts once, so yes, you’ll need at least one more. It’s fine for that to be in senior year, it just means that the teacher rec needs to include a score prediction of 5 and any offer would be conditional on scoring a 5. One additional factor is that if your APs are split across three years that might not be optimal.
Grades per se are not very useful as schools differ in grading norms. The teacher rec, however, does play a part, and obviously the student’s record in school will feed into that.
@Aimtrue Not sure about about the Oxford Engineering Department, but according to the Mathematical Institute website “Note that because the SAT Subject Test in Mathematics contains no calculus we consider this and AP Calculus to be separate subjects”. Agree with @collegemom3717 that AP BC will be essential.
@aimtrue Should have cut & paste the entire section for context:
Candidates should also achieve one of the following;
Grade 5 in three or more Advanced Placement Tests in appropriate subjects
SAT Subject Tests in three appropriate subjects at 700 or better.
A combination of APTs and SAT Subject Tests (or other equivalent qualifications) is also acceptable, if they are in different subjects. Relevant subjects include AP Calculus, AP Statistics, and the SAT Subject Test in Mathematics. Note that because the SAT Subject Test in Mathematics contains no calculus we consider this and AP Calculus to be separate subjects.
A “5” in Physics C will probably be a condition as the Engineering Science program requires an A level in Physics and the PAT is used as the admissions test.
Thanks! The problem is she took AP Chem this year and is taking AP Physics C next year so won’t have score until next June or July. My guess is she will get 5s in both. She did take Honors Physics but that doesn’t prepare you for the AP Physics C exam. Will they consider here without the Physics AP score?
They will absolutely consider her. Her GC will have to provide a ‘predicted’ grade (which will have to be a 5), and any offer will be ‘conditional’ on achieving that 5 on the exam. This is completely normal- 99% of UK students get ‘conditional’ offers. It was hard for my collegekid, knowing the weight of the AP compared to her classmates spring of senior year! but she got through it just fine. She had a back up school in place, but happily didn’t need it.
Fwiw, she really will need to have that level of learning under her belt - it’s not just jumping through a hoop. There is no easy start, no sorting out who knows what, etc. at Oxford: starting day 1 you are in the deep end, and you don’t come up for air for 9 weeks. The stronger the background the better.
@Aimtrue Just adding on to @collegemom3717 's advice- your daughter will need to sit for the PAT in early November with only a couple of months of Physics C Mechanics under her belt. If she will have had a year off from Physics, she might want to spend some time over the summer looking at past PAT papers to see how familiar she is with the material and the math necessary to do well. Given that she won’t have a standardized Physics score in hand for the UCAS, her performance on the PAT will likely take on more importance in getting shortlisted for interview. My son spent a fair amount of time preparing for the MAT in addition to all of his other math activities.
