<p>Hi guys, new to college confidential!</p>
<p>I am starting an undergraduate degree (BA) in Physics at Oxford university (I am British) in October.</p>
<p>However i am very interested in the possibility of transferring to Harvard after the first year.</p>
<p>I do a number of extracurriculars, and intend to really perfect these over the first year and work really hard.</p>
<p>I will need significant financial aid however....</p>
<p>Your thoughts on my chances......</p>
<p>bluefuture, harvard's policy is that it is needblind. if you prove to be a worthy applicant, then they will naturally woo you. however, why do you want a transfer? oxbridge is SO revered in the academic world (as is harvard).</p>
<p>Probably the reputation. I would say Oxbridge are more academically rigorous than Harvard, but Harvard has so much more to offer, and having the no.1 reputation clinches it.</p>
<p>I am not sure entirely why i am interested in transfering.</p>
<p>Oxford is better in these respects:</p>
<p>Tutorial system: 3x2-hour one to one tutorial from proffessors in college per week (ocassionally 2 proffessors to one student!)</p>
<p>Much more beautiful than Harvard. With Radcliff Camera, Christ Church College etc. Has tudor, gothic, georgian, victorian gothic, and some of the worlds most beautiful buildings.</p>
<p>Older, more history. founded 1296, Harvard 1765?</p>
<p>The Collegiate system unique only to Oxbridge, providing amazing social life and atmosphere throughout the town.</p>
<p>Punting down the ISIS</p>
<p>basically free for 4 years (government pay your tuition fees until you start earning)</p>
<p>Harvard advantages:</p>
<p>financially dwarfes Oxbridge
In America
more facilities?
No 1.</p>
<p>what advantages can you think of...</p>
<p>wow bluefuture, after looking at your list i think i would rather go to ofxord than harvard.</p>
<p>Yeah, Oxbridge is pretty attractive. If there's one thing to be said about American schools that I think is really a strength, it's the breadth of courses you can take. By going to an American school you can take fascinating courses outside of Physics that you may never again be able to take in your life. If you're in Physics, chances are you'll be going to grad school so it could be a good idea to use the 4 years of undergrad (it's 4 years here :)) to learn a lot of interesting things, and then specialize in grad school. I mean, American-trained physicists did it that way and I can assure you they're no less prepared or productive in the end than their British counterparts ;)</p>
<p>Oxford's reputation is about as close to equal to Harvard's as you need. Between the two, matters of prestige shouldn't factor in. You won't necessarily be happier at the slightly more prestigious school.</p>
<p>Missing a big one there Bluefuture... Oxbridge basically only allows the student a chance to study in one field (Physics 4 U). I would choose H because you get more academic variety.</p>
<p>(LoL guitarman, we must have been typing the same thing at the same time)</p>
<p>haha yeah. I mean, that's the big knock on them. Otherwise, they're lovely places. My plan right now is to do four years and get a BA or BS at a US school, apply to Cambridge (or Oxford) grad school and get an MPhil, then come back to Caltech for my Ph.D. The trick is to just avoid Oxbridge the first few years if you want a bit of diversity, because I think most everyone is interested by more than one thing. Then afterwards they're all about the same, no?</p>
<p>to be honest i think your chance is very low. being an oxbridge student doesnt mean much as you probably know that admission to oxbridge is a joke... i really dont want to hurt your feeling but oxbridge is no longer in the same par as harvard in term of selectivity (not talking about reputation here).. it's much closer to umich or ucla....</p>
<p>What the oxford course lacks in breadth it makes up for in depth (depends on what you prefer). For instance, some of the work we cover during the first year, will not be covered in a Harvard physics course until the beginning of the third year. My degree will last for 4 years and i will be awarded a masters.</p>
<p>This is partly due to our school A-levels covering far more ground than than American high school education. We did some pretty advanced stuff in A-level further mathematics (proof by induction, taylor series, linear matrices) and Oxford assumes these to be known (covered in the first week!!). I am sure as a transfer student this would get me a lot of credits?</p>
<p>However what i must decide is what else interests me?
I like art and economics.</p>
<p>but guys, do you think i should sit the SAT1, and what would you say my chances were?</p>
<p>yes, sat is a must if you're applying to schools in the us... and it's not only about doing well on the sat, it's about the number of applicants...and it's extremely low acceptance rate ... some year i heard they don't even consider transfers...</p>
<p>Do you know what RUBBISH you are talking!!!!!</p>
<p>Oxbridge has the most demanding application system in the world!</p>
<p>I had to live in the college for 4 days during the interview period!</p>
<p>I had 2x40 minute interviews with proffessors from the college with one being with the head of Astrophysics at Oxford! being asked nothing but Academic questions on stuff like deriving potential energy at the edge of a black hole, on drawing from scratch sinx/x, the implications of general relativity. forget silly questions like why Oxford which any idiot can memorise an answer for!</p>
<p>Then there was the 1 hour maths test! check it out on Oxford site and have a go (<a href="http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/admissions/degrees/questions/mathstest.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/admissions/degrees/questions/mathstest.htm</a>) Its not as hard as the ones for maths applicants though.</p>
<p>There were forty applicants for 6 places at my college for Physics and these are just the ones who are invited for interview. Many of these were incredibly bright foreign students.</p>
<p>in what way is it a joke!</p>
<p>well, it's like saying iit(indian it) is the most difficult school in the world because of its low acceptance rate (much lower than those of harvard, mit or yale).. i'd say it's all about quality of applicants... those applying to iit are just numbers...if you know what i mean.. i'm sure everyone in india applies to iit. harvard, on the other hand, has application fee of almost $100 so that gets rid of most dumps who shouldn't even be applying there... and i'm sure everyone in uk applies to oxbridge...so...</p>
<p>your comment just proves you are uninformed! get your facts straight.</p>
<p>In Britain ONLY THE BEST can apply for Oxford or Cambridge. It requires a special application form seperate to the normal university applications system.</p>
<p>Basically schools select only the finest students top 5%, since more time and effort is required in filling in the applications. you must have predicted grades of AAA minimum in your A-levels and superb GCSEs (pre-alevel). Typically the average applicant in the uk has 6-7A* in these GCSEs, which equates to about 5% of the national population. </p>
<p>Then there are the world class foreign students from Asia, Europe and the US also competing.</p>
<p>sure bluefuture, you're smart.. but every year harvard rejects more than a few hundred applicants with perfect sat score... what i'm saying is that there's so much more they're looking for..</p>
<p>What i most dislike about American Ivy League universities is the corruption that being private institutions instills. The donations rich parents give to get their kid a place is disgusting (George Bush), it is no wonder harvard is so rich...</p>
<p>2 years ago there was a girl called laura spence in England with 5 A-grade a-levels who was rejected from Oxford, guess who accepted her... Harvard? Every year Oxford rejects thousands of candidates with exceptional grades and extracturriculars, infact its like a national obsession with the media involved. i know a girl rejected with a prediction of 7 A-grade a-levels!</p>
<p>Perfect sat scores are not difficult, we in england find SATs amusing because the standard is so pathetically low. I reckon on a good day i could get an 800 in math or verbal and i am not even that good.</p>
<p>I wil admit though, Oxbridge is about academics first and foremost.
whereas American univerities want a balance with extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>I never knew the British were infinitely smarter than Americans. ;)</p>
<p>if you think american schools have such low standard why bother transfering here at the first place? doesn't make much sense to transfer from oxford if you think it's such a great school? how ironic...</p>
<p>It is not that the standard of Ivy league universities is low, its that the standard of high school education leading up to it is.</p>
<p>A-level topics are very much more in depth and stretch you far beyond SATII's and APs.</p>
<p>I want to transfer after the first year when the level of study will have reached a comparable level of that of British universities.</p>
<p>It's also ironic how he/she talked about "American corruption", while completely displaying the British stereotype of an elitist snob.</p>
<p>EDIT-bluefuture, you are implying that American students are less intelligent as a whole.</p>