What is the Oxford campus like? S applied only to Emory and just received the boilerplate email asking if he wants to apply to Oxford also. Is there a different academic focus? S has strong scores (35) and grades and is interested in science and research. Any information is appreciated! Thanks.
@ViolaMom12
Oxford is a small junior college in Covington Ga about 45 min to an hour from Emory’s campus. After 2 years there students transfer to Oxford for there last two years. It’s a small campus, very idealistic and classically southern in design. It’s a more personalized focus with small class sizes. Stats are lower so it’s viewed as easier to get into. Not applying to Oxford doesn’t affect your Emory application, so unless your son wouldn’t mind a small campus in the “country” (i.e typical LAC feel) I wouldn’t apply.
Thanks. That what he thought from the website. Appreciate your info.
To my knowledge, @VANDEMORY1342 never attended Oxford College.
I did attend Oxford College and had a very positive experience both socially and academically. I’m now a junior at the Atlanta campus (Emory College).
I recommend your student does some research into the differences between the two campuses. Oxford College is not just a smaller version of Emory College. It offers much smaller class sizes, more opportunities to get to know your professors and more leadership opportunities.
Here are a couple of threads where students and parents of students who attend or attended Oxford discuss their students’ very positive experiences at Oxford:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20962677#Comment_20962677
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20517275#Comment_20517275
As far as admissions stats are concerned, the most recent admitted class for the two campuses are as follows:
Emory College
Admitted First-Year Class (25th – 75th percentile)
Average GPA: 3.75 - 3.98 (unweighted)
SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 670-740
SAT Math: 680-770
SAT total: 1360-1490
ACT: 31-34
Oxford College
Admitted First-Year Class (25th – 75th percentile)
Average GPA: 3.68 - 3.95 (unweighted)
SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 660-740
SAT Math: 660-760
SAT total: 1340-1480
ACT: 30-34
My son is currently a freshman at Oxford and loves it. The classes are much smaller and students end up being more involved. As @BiffBrown noted, the scores are similar (about 15 points on SAT and 1 point on ACT) at both campuses. After two years at Oxford, all students attend the main campus for the final two years. I think it comes down to more personal preference as I can see benefits to both campuses.
Like @BiffBrown , I also am a recent graduate of Oxford College and am currently on the Atlanta Campus. Just wanted to add my two cents after reading the comment posted by @VANDEMORY1342 about Oxford.
The wording used to describe Oxford in that post is, at best, poorly chosen and inaccurate. My apologies for being rather blunt, but I wouldn’t want Oxford as an institution to be misrepresented online, especially when people are making decisions regarding whether or not to apply.
Just to clear up misconceptions briefly:
- Oxford is not a junior college, it is a two year program with a focus on the liberal arts. The classification of “junior college” is an outdated term.
- The matriculation of Oxford College sophomores to the Atlanta Campus is certainly not “transferring”. Oxford is a undergraduate branch within Emory University and the students do not transfer.
All in all, @ViolaMom12 if your son is considering applying to Oxford, I cannot stress the importance of researching the college enough. As mentioned in another comment, it is simply not a “smaller version of Emory”. There are differences between the two campuses, and it is important to find “fit”, so to speak.
@SuperStar101 and @BiffBrown : You know, I wonder how ECAS people (like myself, I started there two) who like to be subtly shady to Oxford (not me) would say if people starting intensively trashing or throwing subliminals at the fact that they have to pass through ECAS to get to the business school (which on average for several years had marginally higher scores than the overall entering class at ECAS). The true difference is that there isn’t a choice. I am just wondering if such a culture would developed if GBS had both a 4 year model and a direct admissions programs and a 2 year model where people only get into ECAS (or choose that) and then apply/continue to GBS. Would such a silly schism develop then?
Also, to be honest, it is just as important to see if one fits ECAS too. It darn sure isn’t for everyone. People make out as if Oxford’s location and “system” means that it is “definitely not for everyone”. Well guess what, most elite privates and publics have division 1 sports, and even those who don’t have a D-3 football team. Anyone considering either campus needs to seriously consider fit. People act as though: “Well Emory main is basically a top 20 research university, so it should just fit any high achieving person, but a small LAC like environment, need to think about that”…uhmm no.
@bernie12 @BiffBrown @SuperStar101
Where did I lie? In fact where did I distort facts?
Oxford is a two year program, in a rural area that focuses on personalized education. Y’all are being dramatic, long diatribes in defense of Oxford are not needed; especially when I didn’t say anything particularly negative or false.
@VANDEMORY1342 : It is all about tone: You said a junior college, shady, then you mentioned “Stats are lower so it’s viewed as easier to get into. Not applying to Oxford doesn’t affect your Emory application, so unless your son wouldn’t mind a small campus in the “country” (i.e typical LAC feel) I wouldn’t apply”. Unnecessary (especially the propensity to mention their stats without just posting them. Could you just not post the stats instead of doing all that?). How often do you cite conditions under which you should not apply to ECAS? Seriously. The tone of the post was slightly shady and negative. You know you could have left some of that out. You spun to convey a certain tone, it is pretty clear.
@bernie12 It’s off topic, but you have to wonder if GBS is getting hurt by just about all of the other top undergraduate business programs moving to a four year model with direct admits. Also, if Dean James ever went in that direction, you have to wonder how that would impact Oxford. As it is now, ECAS student who have the intention to enter GBS, can take the lower level courses as freshman and sophomores at ECAS. Obviously, this is already the case at the nursing school. Emory could argue the other way and say that what sets their BBAs apart is the liberal arts education that its students get in their first two years. GBS is a top 15 B school and will have some tough decisions to make.
Emory makes it easy on its applicants to check the “both” box on its application instead of an either/or between Emory and Oxford. If you only visited Emory, I don’t know how you could reasonably check “both” because you have no idea what you are getting yourself into. I am referring to ED1/ED2. For RD, you can check both and visit later. Oxford is outside the Perimeter and its smaller than the high schools where most applicants are graduating from. There are positives and negatives. Just do your homework .
@ljberkow : I think it would be interesting and have no opinion for or against it. If they go to 4 years, they would probably need the funds to restructure the curriculum, and right now, much of their effort and resources seems to going towards enhancing MBA programs. Also, Oxford would be screwed, or it could contract enrollment. Actually thinking of that, it could be innovative to have a 2 year and a 4 year program. The 2 year program could be considered “accelerated” and come with the same perks. An actual innovation could be to take a larger cohort of GBS scholars, and maybe top students (so very selective admissions for it) interested in business (maybe select a cohort of up to 100) and put them through a 4 year program (maybe do like Penn/Wharton and strongly encourage/require math beyond calc. 1 and 2 since it is a super select crowd), and everyone else do the 2 year. Something like that could be interesting, though financially costly. This would help innovation as well as minimize the impact to Oxford.
And yes, in a 4 year system, anyone considering direct admissions to the b-school must be excluded for consideration of admissions into Oxford. I would honestly consider such a policy valid for current Oxford students considering GBS as that system is already quite tricky and puts pressure on Oxford to frequently offer courses it wouldn’t otherwise (that cuts into resources that would go towards upper divisions and electives elsewhere like in math or econ.).
@bernie12 The 4-year programs still have GenEd requirements, so it’s really not two additional years of business school. The advantage the 4-year programs have is giving students in their programs faculty advisors from day one to work on plans. They can also see early on if they want finance, accounting, or something else. As far as I know, Emory hasn’t seriously considered it yet. I agree that doing so would impact Oxford. At the end of the day, Emory University should do what’s in the best interest of GBS and its students. The undergraduate side of GBS is still one of the top majors at Emory. We’re getting ahead of ourselves here.
@ljberkow , I personally think GBS is ranked high enough, I think 14. if it were to start falling then maybe the four year can be under consideration. But it might hurt the outlook of Emory college.
I think it would work at Oxford as well… as @ljberkow highlighted, these students would still need GenEd requirements… the only difference is that a few more courses would need to be offered at Oxford.
@VANDEMORY1342 Note that Oxford’s ED1 application numbers increased by 47% this year (class of 2022) over last year (class of 2021).
@ViolaMom12
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2017/12/er_early_decision_questbridge/campus.html
And Oxford had the most applications ever in its history last year (class of 2021).
For the class of 2021 (last year):
“Both Emory College and Oxford College experienced double-digit increases in applications for this fall: Emory College applications were up 19 percent to 23,694 and Oxford College applications jumped 63 percent to 14,080. About 56 percent of applicants sought to be considered for admission to both colleges.”
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2017/03/er_undergraduate_admission_applications_record_high/campus.html
For the class of 2022 (this year):
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2017/12/er_early_decision_questbridge/campus.html
"There has also been a significant increase in interest in Oxford College, home of Emory’s original 1836 campus in Oxford, Ga. While Early Decision I applications to Emory College increased by 7 percent, they jumped 47 percent for Oxford.
Kelley Lips, Oxford’s dean of enrollment services, says the college often hears from students interested in the distinctive, small, liberal-arts environment, where faculty are dedicated to teaching and there are significant opportunities for leadership during the first two years of their undergraduate studies."
“At the same time, admission rates for the first round of Early Decision to Emory University’s undergraduate colleges fell to 31 percent for Emory College and 25 percent for Oxford College. In December, 503 students were offered admission to Emory College and 223 to Oxford.”
@ljberkow : No, I have no problem with its rank or caliber at all, I still am just imagining what a 4 year program would look like and what purpose it would/could serve. Also, thinking about how would minimize impact. It looks as if it is always easier to “create” new majors and programs than to completely restructure them from something that clearly works. Despite being highly ranked, I am wondering what improvements (even number 1 programs could improve) GBS students would like to see other than maybe “make us a bigger target for WS finance” lol (though that is hard as there are huge regional barriers that cause obvious favoritism towards some schools as well as saturation with alumni of such targets).
Do most 4 year peer schools only require the gen. eds in the first year or two? I thought they had that plus a significant dive into full-fledged business courses or experiences? If that were to ever be entertained, I figure if they would go through the trouble it would have to look like that at peer institutions anyway. This hypothetical (I don’t know if that is how Wharton, Virginia, or ND actually works) structure would close that option for those at Oxford. The one you propose would be fine, but they would just go two years without advising from the b-school (I suppose “summits” could be held specifically targeting them and they could come up to Atlanta for advising days or symposia, whatever).
It is nice to have an imagination about Emory whether it would influence the standing of the school or not. I feel too few undergrads and recent alum have that, and the very top league schools have students willing to imagine a little bit and sometimes it results in great ideas (even if not exactly what is proposed) being implemented and improving things for those at the school. It is one thing to accept that something just “is” and another to imagine a little. As a very active alumni yourself (post-grad school, if I get settled nicely, I think I would look to be as active as you), you should be able to appreciate how powerful it could be if the current students and alumni just imagined a little more and threw out their ideas no matter how “reachy”.
@bernie12 Yes, the 4-year programs have GenEd requirements.
I don’t get too worried about rank about I do think it would be unfortunate for Emory to lose GBS candidates because Ross, Kelley, etc. are now moving to direct admits. The subtle difference is that GBS has no significant barriers to admission of Emory’s rising juniors. Above 85% are accepted. At the 4-year direct admit schools, the odds are much longer to be admitted in subsequent years.
Emory is doing a great job of getting alumni involved in Emory’s major cities. Give Emory Alumni Association all of the credit.
@BiffBrown Thanks for the links. Emory is a “hot” school right now. I do wonder if Oxford’s increase in applications more closely relates to applicants checking “both” as opposed to separate Oxford only applicants.
@ljberkow @BiffBrown
I don’t understand why Biff even brought that up and tagged me in it. 1700 students applied ED1. 1623 applied ED1 to Emory college. So only 77 applicants applied to Oxford only, its obvious all increase in applicants is due to Emory University as a whole.
It actually bothers me that Emory apps only increased by 7%, we’ll see what ED2 and RD numbers look like hopefully its 10+%.
So the articles tell us that for the class of 2021:
“The increase in interest applies to both; Oxford College had a whopping 53 percent increase from last year, to 712 applications, while Emory College saw a nine percent increase to 1,493.”
A 7% increase from Emory College’s 2021 class figures (1493) get us to 1597 applicants for the class of 2022.
A 47% increase from Oxford College’s 2021 class figures (712) get us to 1047 applicants for the class of 2022.
In all Emory University (Emory College + Oxford College) received 1700 applicants for the class of 2022. That means (1597 + 1047) - 1700 applicants = 944 applicants applied to both Emory College and Oxford College for the class of 2022 (up from 610, according to the linked articles for the class of 2021).
For the class of 2021, 102 applicants applied to Oxford only (712-610).
For the class of 2022, 103 applicants applied to Oxford only (1047-944).
The increase in number of applicants comes primarily from those who expressed an interest in both Emory College and Oxford College. Considering that the number of Emory only applicants increased only 7%, it’s fair to say that the increased numbers reflect an increase in interest in Oxford.
Of course, one could have arrived at that conclusion just from the number I posted earlier - 47% increase in Oxford applications on top of the previous year’s 53% increase. That’s a 125% increase (1.47 * 1.53) over two years.
Keep in mind that these numbers are from ED1.
An applicant who checks both boxes is someone who has to be happy with the possibility of an Emory College rejection and an Oxford College acceptance, which would obligate them to attend Oxford. Their interest in Oxford has to be strong enough to allow themselves to be locked into Oxford in ED1.