oxford vs stanford

College Search & Selection
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<p>I don’t know, sefago. I think you are exaggerating… The ones I know who got higher than 3.6 from Rice, Stern, Chicago, Cornell, Columbia, UVa, etc, got rejected. There’s a minimum GPA to be even considered as an applicant. Try your 3.4 GPA from Penn, for instance, and let’s see how far it can help you win a place at Oxbridge, provided you’re fresh from college. </p>

<p>Ivy grads aren’t special at Oxbridge. You’re only fooling yourself if you seriously think that they are. </p>

<p>Oxbridge are known for in-breeding. They take the chunk of students for their grad programs from Oxbridge undergrad too. The easiest program to get into at Oxford is MBA, or at least, one of the easiest that I know of. But it isn’t any more lenient than the Ivies (specially the lower-ranked ones) for most programs. Case in point, the average GMAT of Master in Financial Economics is 731. That’s comparable if not better than HYPSM’s requirements. It’s harder to get onto Oxford MFE and Stanford MS Finance.</p>

<p>[Said</a> Business School - Oxford MSc MFE 2011/12](<a href=“http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/mfebrochure/default.htm]Said”>http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/mfebrochure/default.htm)</p>

<p>There probably are courses/programs that are relatively easier than MFE, but so are the Ivies. But most Americans that apply to Oxbridge apply to programs that are Oxbridge’s fortes, such as, economics, PPE, MFE, math, English or History.</p>

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<p>I cannot vouch yours. But I am 100% sure of mine. People get in with a 3.6 and less than a 3.7. I find it hard to believe than someone from Columbia/Cornell/Chicago would get rejected with greater than a 3.6 except maybe they applied late or something when there were no more spaces available. They might even be going for MPhil programs and could have written a poor research statement.</p>

<p>I am not making this up- and I am 100% sure, 3.65-3.68 and top US school and you walk into Oxbridge for course-based masters program. And not an excluded case but at least 8-12 people.</p>

<p>Speaking of MFE, my housemate in junior year in college got into that program after being unable to find a job because of the 2009 economic crisis. Oh and he had less than a 3.7. Dont know his score on the GMAT though.</p>

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<p>Not special but they get leeway. And not just Ivy grads but people from recognizable universities. I never said a 3.4 or 3.5 but a 3.6+</p>

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<p>Minimum GPAs dont mean much. The people making the selection would take your school into account, and the international fees you would be bringing lol. Moreover, dont forget that top students would have done research, or working on a thesis making them even overqualified for programs at oxford and really should be applying fro a PhD at a top US program.</p>

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<p>There is a major difference between “required” and “expected”.</p>

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<p>“Oxford is quite selective be it for undergrad, grad or postgrad. A 3.4GPA from Dartmouth, for instance, would hardly cut it.”</p>

<p>The 3.4 I know was from Stanford. I know 3.6s at Brown getting in though. Don’t kid yourself RML, Oxford isn’t something special. Oxford PhD’s aren’t something that top students at Ivies + Stanford aspire to. Oxford PhD’s are pretty low down the list, way after Harvard MD, Yale JD, Harvard JD, Stanford MBA, etc.</p>

<p>“there is a considerable gap that separates Oxbridge and LSE – the same wide gap that separates HYP and Dartmouth/Brown.”</p>

<p>There is a big gap between Harvard + Stanford and rest of the Ivies + Oxbridge. Don’t kid, the Ivy League minus Harvard is equivalent to Oxbridge. Harvard is a league above them.</p>

<p>“I have seen summa cum laude grads being turned down.”</p>

<p>Doesn’t mean 3.5s don’t get in. Although getting into post-grad programs at Oxford isn’t hard for Ivy undergrads. Doing exchanges at Oxford is even easier. Even 3.7s from little known LACs frequently exchange at Oxford.</p>

<p>“Whilst at Oxford, you will live in a palace, and will have classmates and life-long friends from all over the world; many of them are sons and daughters of wealthy tycoons, European and Asian royalties, middle-eastern oil magnates, American millionaires/billionaires, as well as, sons and daughters of ordinary citizens with superb academic credentials.”</p>

<p>You are sounding like someone who’s severely overestimating Oxford due to the fact that you have never seen an elite American school. I’m not saying you are one, just that you sound like one. At an Ivy (let’s not even bring up Harvard, but Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Williams, etc., which you tend to degrade), you will meet princes and princesses from Asia & the Middle East & Europe (including the UK) & Africa, American millionaires (not sons/daughters of millionaires), future IT execs, sons/daughters of McKinsey & BCG & Bain, son of Goldman & Morgan Stanley CEOs, most promising actors/actresses, Olympic gold medalists, and smart people without privileged backgrounds who gets paid (yes, some of them make money due to excessive grants) to attend.</p>

<p>“The people making the selection would take your school into account, and the international fees you would be bringing lol.”</p>

<p>Bring out the big gun. Completely agree.</p>

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<p>The problem is that professors at Oxford think highly of the ivy league because they have so many colleagues from there. The people writing the textbook used at Oxford are from these Ivies. Its the same in the US. I was in a graduate forum and a kid from Harvard got accepted into the UIUC Phd program in a hard science with a 3.3. UIUC has an explicit minimum of 3.5 with most of their students having a 3.7 but they readjusted their standards for a highly accomplished harvard student. Because they respect Harvard. Minimums are for those who attend run of the mill colleges. Those are top schools could be below the minimum and still scale through especially for Phd programs.</p>

<p>Wrong but true.</p>

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<p>original post by Ivypbear:
“Don’t kid yourself RML,Oxford isn’t something special,Oxford Phds aren’t something top students at ivies aspire to…”
I strongly disagree with you Ivypbear.If that’s the case,then why did former exchange students from Yale heavily support Oxford,when there was an article about “incompetence” in comparison with the ivies,written by two ladies who apparently,were exchange students at Oxford?Oxford is special,even the Yalies comprehend that!Why don’t you?</p>

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<p>^ perhaps because he’s not from Yale. lol </p>

<p>Yes; IbyPBear does not have any idea what he was talking about. He does not understand that having a upper second-class honors is like equivalent to graduating in the top 10% of your class.</p>

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<p>Right on RML,you’re really speaking alot of sense.I hope Ivypbear stumbles into this piece of truth.Oxford’s the best in the world,</p>

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<p>Huh?? 90+% of the people at Oxford get a 2:i how is that top 10%. No way is a second class upper equal to top 10%. Its more like everyone in your college. In the US, a 3.87 should be the typical GPA though for people in Phi Beta Kappa- top 10% of their class</p>

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<p>Sorry; I meant, it’s LIKE equivalent to graduating in the top 10% of your class at a good US school, except those schools that inflate GPAs. Anyway, the issue is, getting into Oxford isn’t as easy as what you guys think. It’s not as easy as getting into a graduate program at Dartmouth or Brown, in general.</p>

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<p>^ I dont think anyone says its easy. 3.6-3.7 is not easy especially in the sciences. IvyPbear might find it easy- judging by his discussion he probably graduated top 10%. For those of us who barely scrapped pass marks (cough cough), its not easy but still not as hard as getting into other places.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I strongly differ having gone through the graduate admissions process before. Although dartmouth and brown dont have many top programs they still make them selective. Also US schools dont have the high number of taught masters that are common at Oxford so even PhD graduate admissions at schools like illinois, Texas and purdue would be harder than Oxford because you need good grades+Phenomenal research experience+Good GRE scores+Good Recommendations. This is opposed to just a 3.7 which you could get by studying excessively for four years.</p>

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<p>Even Grade-inflated schools do have class rank of some sort. Typically 3.86+ would guarantee top 10%. I do not believe that 90% of the people at Oxford would graduate in the top 10% in even over 20 US universities. One bad class and a couple of wrong choices would screw you up big time.</p>

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<p>“its not easy but still not as hard as getting into other places.”</p>

<p>Strongly agree. Exactly. I have a feeling that people on this board often take a perfectly, clearly, and precisely worded statement like that to mean that as insinuating that the school in question sucks though, for some reason that I don’t understand. They have trouble accepting that their school isn’t exceptional in every field.</p>

<p>RML - I seriously think you are idealizing Oxford. The truth is, not all programs at Oxford are hard to get into, making getting into Oxford with 3.4 from Stanford possible. I don’t know why you have to defend Oxford so vigorously. I would have willingly admit that the universities that I attended (for undergrad and for law, both rank among the top two, at least in some years, in the US in their respective categories) have graduate programs that a 3.4 from Stanford stands a chance of getting into. People on this board really have some issues with feeling the need to defend their school in every way, for a reason that I really don’t understand.</p>

<p>“I strongly disagree with you Ivypbear.If that’s the case,then why did former exchange students from Yale heavily support Oxford,when there was an article about “incompetence” in comparison with the ivies,written by two ladies who apparently,were exchange students at Oxford?Oxford is special,even the Yalies comprehend that!Why don’t you?”</p>

<p>Don’t they teach you a logical fallacy called over-generalization at Oxford? Look it up, it would help you made a legit argument next time. I really hope that you are a first year student at Oxford, if most students at Oxford make this kind of argument, then teaching or admissions at Oxford is really falling to pieces. I know people at Williams who have done exchange at Oxford, and they treated it as a term for vacation and felt that the term was a joke academic wise, but anecdotal evidence like this don’t prove anything general.</p>

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<p>It’s worring that I knew even before reading this thread that sefago and IvyPBear would be here, posting the same baseless tripe they did last time. One might even start to think you’re deliberately ■■■■■■■■ Oxford threads.</p>

<p>Oh and as IvyPBear mentioned royalty I just want to point out that Princess Eugenie turned down Williams College for Newcastle University. Hardly a ringing indorcment.</p>

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<p>“Baseless” deserves a break on CC. Try and add some spice to your writing lol. Nevertheless, because you don’t agree with something does not mean it is baseless. RML made the statement that Oxford is very hard for graduate school. I posed an alternative stance- that it is easier for “North American applicants who attended top school” which is very true. I have no evidence for this except from what I have seen. All my arguments are in essence anecdotal and so are those of RML’s. So if you were unbiased you would observe that we are both using “baseless facts.”</p>

<p>Case in point, if you went to a North American college you would understand. Its easier applying to graduate school at Oxbridge than getting into top law or medical schools. A 3.6+ from UPenn and some credentials would get you into Oxbridge/LSE for graduate school. A 3.6+ with nothing unique would have his application thrown into the trash for a top law school or medical school or graduate school in the US.</p>

<p>How is this even baseless? Have you ever applied to law/medical/business/graduate school?</p>

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<p>^ her loss. Following from your anecdotal logic, the fact that Hermione (cannot remember her name) turned down Cambridge for Brown is quite disturbing. </p>

<p>By the way what is indorcment? Is that latin lol. </p>

<p>Moreover, she wanted to study art which is Williams college’s specialty (Nearly every Art museum is run by a Williams grad -exg). She is not going for obvious reasons. Its not even clear if she applied to Williams at all. However having experienced how celebrity admissions work in the US, she does not really need to apply lol.</p>

<p>[Princess</a> Eugenie : EphBlog](<a href=“http://www.ephblog.com/category/princess-eugenie/]Princess”>http://www.ephblog.com/category/princess-eugenie/) </p>

<p>Wow, she goes to school on taxpayers money. 250,000 pounds a year to go to Williams and you expect her to go? :(</p>

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<p>No this isn’t true. Why do you feel able to make such a statement with absolutely no evidence to support it? If you want to have a biased and ignorant opinion go right ahead, but don’t present them as statements of fact when they’re anything but.</p>

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<p>Again with the false comparisons. Why are you comparing American style professional degrees to British postgraduate academic degrees? I’m sure getting into Oxbridge to study medicine is just as hard, if not harder as securing a place at an Ivy med school.</p>

<p>It is clear she applied to Williams, and got in. Princess Eugenie doesn’t go to school on taxpayers money. There was an issue over the cost of security which would have been funded by the taxpayer, but if she really had wanted to go her family could have easily paid it themselves. Emma Watson has said that her reasoning behind choosing Brown was simply that she wanted a liberal arts education after missing so much school during Harry Potter filming.</p>

<p>You must know by now that I have poor spelling. Stop trying to derail threads with petty and irrelevant remarks on a couple of missing letters.</p>

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<p>Did Emma Watson really made it into Cambridge? The word I got was, no. She didn’t even show up on her interview.</p>

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<p>No this isn’t true. Why do you feel able to make such a statement with absolutely no evidence to support it? If you want to have a biased and ignorant opinion go right ahead, but don’t present them as statements of fact when they’re anything but.</p>

<p>How do you know this isn’t true? How do you know its ignorant? Because you don2t agree with me doesn2t mean its ignorant. Have you- “I repeat”, gone through a graduate admissions process? You have never provided contrary evidence but pompously proclaim everyone’s ignorance.</p>

<p>Moreover, there is no evidence because no one conducts a survey on such matters except what All facts are anecdotal except scientific (physical or biological) facts. There is no such thing as a “fact” in reality except maybe in the sciences. All facts depend on another fact which depends on another fact . . . as Oscar Wilde would say “the truth is rarely pure and simple”</p>

<p>Its common sense and fact that Oxbridge in the UK are the hardest schools to get into, but where is the core evidence? See the problem with asking for concrete evidence when inference is sufficent enough from a large sample size. The main issue is that you dont agree with me not the question of fact. Simple.</p>

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<p>No, No, No its not clear. Please do some more reading. No one knows (even people at williams college) if she applied except you. Its inferred that she applied. Unlike Emma Watson who made everyone aware when she took the SAT, there is no evidence that Princess Eugenie took the SAT. She was not keen on studying in the US and you think she is going to study for the SAT if she is not interested? She would also need SAT II scores. All that stress and then go to newcastle? Really? Does that sound logical to you? </p>

<p>Nevertheless, the question is- “why did she turn down williams if she got accepted since Williams reputation in the art world is unrivalled by Newcastle or bristol.” I gave you the reason. </p>

<p>I know about Watson’s reasoning. However, you claimed that princess Eugenie or whatever chose Newcastle over Williams and said:</p>

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<p>But she had a reason for doing so. Nothing to do with how good the school is. Williams is not in the same class as Newcastle. Williams people are the ones who start Investment banks and top companies, people from red brick universities aspire to work in those banks. You get the difference between creativity and mediocrity?</p>

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<p>No I dont, contrary to what you think, I actually dont even look at the username of the people I am responding to, and just attack their statements if I dont agree with them. I was confused by your spelling, I thought it was a real word and then googled it to make sure. When you misspell you confuse people.</p>

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<p>But that was my point. We were comparing graduate school, no one was specific. The only graduate programs in which Oxbridge is equivalent to top US schools is masters programs.</p>

<p>You really need to learn what you need to get into a top medical school which are not predominantly Ivy league FYI. 95% of the people based on just their qualifications at Oxbridge will not make it lol. Combining 3 years of research+Volunteering over the summer at hospitals+ Getting super grades+ Curing cancer would eliminate the competition.</p>

<p>Please go to a Graduate forum where students post their stats and compare grades. Observe how people from Oxbridge with first class degrees aspiring to do PhD in Physics/Chemistry/Molecular biology get rejected in droves because they cannot match international competition (Students from China and India who have superb grades and superior research experience), then comeback and start making claims that I am ignorant.</p>

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<p>The burden isn’t upon me to prove your assertions are correct, by default they are assumed to be false unless you can procure some evidence. No, I have not gone through a graduate admissions process - but why is this relevant? You presumably have, yet still infer that your opinion carries the weight of a proven, independently verified fact. I don’t proclaim anyones ignorance but yours, for you continually comment on things you know little/nothing about and expect to be treated as an authority on the matter.</p>

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<p>Whilst I am prepared to acknowledge that evidence may be fleeting there is surely some somewhere, the question is whether you have access to it or not. Even the crudest of admission statistics would be more credible than your unsolicited opinions.</p>

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<p>That isn’t a fact through, that’s an opinion… </p>

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<p>Yes it is clear. She must have applied because she was given a place. Logical or not it happened. Why do you dismiss anything you cant understand?</p>

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<p>And yet she chose Newcastle over Williams. Are you trying to make a point here?</p>

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<p>Sorry, I mistook you for someone who could make the connection that the “I” should have been an “E” without restoring to Google. My mistake.</p>

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<p>Evidence? I’m not going to stop asking just because you pull some “there are no real facts” BS.</p>

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<p>You wouldn’t mind me finding me all these threads? I don’t think my search tool as a fictitious function.</p>

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<p>lets save me some pain. Everything is “my opinion” not a fact. Nothing you say can change my conviction. Interesting, last year interviewed for a Phd program with two Cambridge Physics graduates with both first class. They got rejected from the program I applied to and the professor told me one of the reasons was because of their lack of significant research experience. While a large number of American graduates would have publications, this is absent in the typical scheme of most international graduates. It would make sense why Americans are more competitive applicants. Graduate school is usually about research experience even in the UK</p>

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<p>Nah, just that she chose Newcastle over williams, the same may Watson “chose” brown over cambridge</p>

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<p>Your loss. It seems you skipped independent research 101 and logic 101. Go and find out the requirements for a top US PhD. Go and find out the requirements for a top UK PhD. Now combine those two together, which one do you think is harder? </p>

<p>In addition, do me a favor. Go on google. Search for admission results for people who applied to schools in both countries. Then comeback.</p>