<p>They count, and the rigor of your curriculum counts, so it’ll help. However, you just have to keep in mind that many others will have great essays, ECs, high rigor, some SAT II scores, and better SAT 1 scores. As I’ve told others, if you have taken any APs or HL IB exams in the past (not this year) and have done well, send those scores as it’ll show some more academic aptitude. </p>
<p>Also, Oxford appears to be a really nice way to start at Emory. The educational experience is probably richer there than on main campus for the first 2 years and, trust me, it makes a difference. Yes, your extracurricular life may be more “stereotypical” on main, but unless you get to start advanced courses are going into a major/exploring an area that allows you to proceed straight to special topics courses (or maybe you’ll enter the voluntary core), you probably won’t be blown away (as you would not at most elite research 1 universities). Also, you don’t have a choice but to get a quality instructor over there whereas the culture on main is mainly to choose some “chill” instructors for freshman and sophomore year. Due to these differences, many Oxford students experience more intellectual development and often have a better work ethic than those on main. Not to mention, they tend to just care more about the academic part of the experience which pays off in terms of performance in a challenging curriculum, writing an honors thesis, getting rec. letters. Profs. notice when students care as opposed to simply just caring about the grade. Main campus can jade many otherwise great students to the point where they have low expectations and expect mediocrity and more like a cruise-like experience. This is common at selective institutions where it’s more so a competition reduced to a race for grades (don’t get me wrong, Emory is not as intense as Harvard or anything like that, but naturally, with lots of high achieving pre-profs., there is an unconscious competition, where many will just settle for high grades instead of an education to ensure that they keep up in the race). There are also weird patterns in extra curricular scenes at these sorts of schools. The academic experience at selective R-1 places is prone to becoming very over-rated or a mere stepping stone sort of situation. Don’t be ashamed or concerned about going to Oxford. It really has the potential of being better for you. It focuses heavily on teaching and learning and provides excellent experiential opps. early on. Just saying not to over-rate the experience at selective R-1 schools and certainly don’t under-rate LAC type of environments even if it’s less selective. There are many weaknesses and strengths to both. And to be blunt, main campus seems to actually look to Oxford to inspire certain educational improvements: [The</a> Nature of Evidence | EmoryWire Magazine](<a href=“http://www.alumni.emory.edu/emorywire/issues/2013/december/of_note/story_1/]The”>http://www.alumni.emory.edu/emorywire/issues/2013/december/of_note/story_1/)</p>
<p>Read the “Why the focus on main campus only?”</p>
<p>It basically says, “well, Oxford beat us to it”. Those INQ courses (okay, many Oxford courses) are probably much better than many freshman and sophomore courses you’ll take in ECAS unless you truly believe you benefit from sitting in large lecture halls passively taking notes and being asked a question every now and then. There are certainly many courses that are comparable and give it a run for the money. But since main is bigger, they are more competitive to get into especially if you are not an upperclassman. If I went to main and was not science oriented, I would (starting freshman year) go for any non-intro. courses that I could that do not require pre-reqs and choose the best freshman seminar I could to maximize the experience, even though the tendency is to flock to 100 level courses. Many such courses are honestly glorified state school courses (kind of large) with smart people in them, so maybe you will get interesting conversation/discourse. However, since they are often pure lecture based, engagement tends to not be as great as it would be in the smaller set-ups at Oxford (where you would not have to try this hard to find the small/richer ones because that’s just the way the place is) or in the courses I allude to. If you run to these courses, you’ll sometimes wonder why you were so gung-ho and freaking out about coming to main, trust me.</p>