As a point of reference, last year (for 2017 entry) there were 1984 applicants for PPE (606 overseas, meaning non-UK and non-EU), of whom 707 (36%) were shortlisted for interview and 274 (39% of interviewees, 13.8% of applicants) received an offer. 53 of these offers went to overseas students, a success rate of only 8.7% (and representing 19.3% of total offers), compared to 16.0% for UK/EU students. The percentage of overseas students shortlisted isn’t clear, but it was somewhere between 25% and 30% and the offer rate to shortlisted students was between 30% and 35%.
This year there were 2217 PPE applicants, an increase of 11.7%. If they shortlist and offer roughly the same number of slots, then the overall shortlisting rate will be about 32% and the overall offer rate around 12%. The offer rate for overseas applicants will probably be between 7% and 8% (it appears that the number of overseas applicants grew much faster than the number of UK/EU applicants). Its reasonable to estimate that this year only 20% to 25% of overseas PPE applicants were shortlisted, because they will probably not want the share of offers going to overseas students to be much higher than 20%.
All of this information is available under the UK Freedom of Information Act via a website called whatdotheyknow.com
‘took the loss’- ie, no interview. Sorry, you were disappointed, Harry- but you are a strong student & I am sure that you will end up with some great choices.
@VickiSoCal I got into St. Andrews last year and reapplied, also applied to UCL, KCL, and Warwick. Thanks so much to you and @collegemom3717 for your advice to myself and other applicants in this forum!
@whoharry Too bad on Oxford Harry, no shame in trying, PPE at Oxford is akin to Stanford or Harvard unhooked. I notice UCL and Kings on your list. Both great schools but cost of living in London is very high, you are catching a break at the moment with the exchange rate but as we all know that can change. Also univ in the heart of London it is not your typical student experience, a complete 180 to both St Andrews and Warwick. Think about what is you want to experience, and don’t worry about rigour at any of those schools you will get all you can handle; you will need to read extensively around your assignments. Good luck in whatever you choose.
@elguapo1 I was looking for a city feel, but visited St. Andrews last year and absolutely fell in love. Cost of living is definitely a concern with the London schools, but I should still save money compared to many US schools if I budget properly.
Thought I would mention that my daughter entered UCL last year as a freshman and found the social setting very challenging (she is neither outgoing nor a wallflower type) and found the school itself fairly institutional. She loved her professors. She ended up transferring to a university in the U.S.A.
Just as a quick follow-up on the stats I quoted above. S18 just got back from his PPE interview. At this college, they shortlisted 27 of 129 applicants (~20%), and planned to offer places to 9 or 10 of those. There were two Americans (including him), 1 from New Zealand and 1 (who opted for Skype) from the Middle East. There were two 20-30 min interviews with one question from each of the three subject tutors in each interview. No personal questions at all, all business with fixed questions for everyone and personal statements not even mentioned. Half had both interviews on Monday, the other half had one Monday and the other Tuesday morning. Then they made the decision about who was in and who was out (but you don’t find that out until early January). The three runners up were offered interviews at other (relatively undersubscribed) colleges on Wednesday morning.
He very much enjoyed the process, even though it was a long way to go for two 20-30 minute interviews. There’s a lot of bonding given the intense pressure and because all the candidates for that subject and college are there together at the same time, with a lot of downtime (at least if you are moderately sociable - maybe half the candidates stayed in their rooms and he didn’t get chance to talk to them). I think it will be hugely beneficial for the people who get in to have a couple of ready made friends on the first day (and in the run up to starting, since they all exchanged contact details). So I would strongly advise anyone thinking about whether or not to go to an in-person interview to actually attend it. There are lots of current student helpers, which is good for selling you on the college and Oxford more generally.
A few broader thoughts. He responds well to pressure and thinking on his feet - if you don’t do that then this is not a process you would enjoy. But it feels like something where you can show your best self and know what they are looking for, unlike top US schools, where it seems like a lottery. However, the side effect is that he noticed the significant lack of diversity compared to what he sees every day here in the US.
Just some small clarifications: a third interview doesn’t necessarily mean ‘runner up’ (even if that’s how the students talked about it), and going to another college is not necessarily to an undersubscribed college. At the end of each day of interviews the tutors meet and evaluate the days interviews, make some decisions, and shuffle the interviews accordingly, but decisions aren’t final until all interviews are done. A third interview does most often indicate a lack of consensus among tutors (especially in a mixed course such as PPE, where tutors from different departments all have to agree on the student), but it can also reflect post-interview shuffling (for example, colleges who were disappointed in their interviews looking to see who else there is), students who were open application or who were pooled before interview (aka pre-interview horse-trading), etc.
Also, for future applicants, personal statements can and do come up, and you should always be prepared to discuss anything in it.
Glad he enjoyed the process- that’s can be a good sign. Ask him if he went to G&D’s! & come back in January & update us.
@collegemom3717 I think the third interview situation is probably very college and course specific. They were actually told by the college tutor in the introductory meeting that the third interview would only be for runners up, who were good enough for Oxford but they simply didn’t have enough room for. If you didn’t get a third interview you were either in there or out. The implication was that the colleges you would be sent to were less popular ones and based on the admission stats (in terms of highest “% admitted to college of choice”, see https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate/additional-info/college-success-rates?wssl=1), that appeared to be the case for PPE. Some of those might be considered less desirable/prestigious (further out from the center, former women’s colleges, etc.), though of course it is still Oxford.
But I’d agree others will likely have had very different experiences on interview format, references to personal statements, etc.
I think one lesson is that its worth at least considering the admission rate by college before you apply. My S18 didn’t, he just picked one that he liked the look of (and was the friendliest when we visited to look around), and it turned out to be even more insanely competitive in terms of admission rates than the average. However, I can’t blame him, because that’s what I did when I applied to Cambridge 30+ years ago and that turned out fine.