Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford University as an American

Student Lounge International Students
1

Hello, I am currently a junior in an American public high school and was thinking about what it takes to get into the Oxford PPE programme as an American. I understand it is a bit early for me to be thinking about this, especially since I have yet to take some of the major testing, such as the SAT and ACT (my PSAT score last year was 1270). However, in thinking about colleges, I am really interested in seeing if I have a chance at going to Oxford. Even though I am an American, I was an international student and lived in London and Singapore before moving back to the USA last summer. I remember visiting Oxford when I was in 5th grade and since then it has really been sort of my dream school. I would just love to go there not only because of their good academic standard but also the atmosphere and history behind the school.

I have done the following:
AP World History (self studied) - 4
AP Human Geography - 5
AP US History - 5
SAT Subject Test US History - 790

I am currently taking the following classes AP’s:
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics
AP Language and Composition
AP Art History
AP Physics 1
AP Psychology

Senior year I plan to take the following AP’s:
AP Calculus BC
AP US Government
AP Macro Economics
AP Physics C
AP Environmental Science (might switch for AP Biology)
AP Literature and Composition

(I also am in the process of founding a Rho Kappa Social Studies Honour Society at my school. I also play rugby for my local club, however from what I read Oxford isn’t all too interested in extracurricular activities unless it is related to what you want to study).

I am hoping to do well especially on the AP exams. Generally speaking, I am a pretty good test taker and my current mindset to get into Oxford is to take as many AP’s that I can, because I have heard that they are very focused on standardised test scores for applicants.

Do I have a chance? Any high school classes I should take? Anything I should know about applying to Oxford? Is there anything that I can improve upon? What else can I do to boost my chances?

Any advice would be really appreciated!

2

Okay. As someone who was considering applying to Oxford, I’m pretty familiar with how admissions for American students works. First, you have to meet a few requirements to be even eligible to apply. You must:

  1. Score a 1470 or higher on the SAT (your PSAT score is low, you'll have to study a lot to get it to where it needs to be) OR score a 32 or higher on the ACT.
  2. Score 5's on 3 AP exams in "appropriate" subjects (APUSH is the only one you have taken that would count, Physics and Lang will count if you got 5's on them, but unfortunately, the ones from your senior year won't matter since the admissions process will already be over) OR score above 700 on 3 SAT Subject Tests in "appropriate" subjects (got one already).

Right now, with your PSAT so low, I would focus on bringing up your test scores. You can’t even apply if you don’t meet the requirement.

3

I have several students who read PPE at Oxford from Korea (US-style high school curric), and @RoundGenius is correct that your SAT is the stumbling block right now. Get that number up and you may well qualify for an interview.

After that, all bets are off–the interview then becomes the criterion for admission, and it’s a serious hurdle. Read up!

4

Actually, not true. There are two kinds of offers from Oxford: unconditional and conditional. The vast majority of students get ‘conditional’ offers, which are ‘conditional’ on your scores from the exams that you sit in May (APs) or June (A levels) of your final year. Your advisor or teacher ‘predicts’ your score when you apply in October, and a ‘conditional’ offer will specify exactly what marks on which exams are required.

For PPE you also have to sit the TSA (Thinking Skills Assessment) in November of your senior year (you have to register in October), and it is crucial for getting to interview. You need at least a 1470+ on the SAT, tbh once you get over that mark, it doesn’t much matter what your score is. PPE is the most popular course for Americans to apply to Oxford, so the tutors are well used to US qualifications.

You are right that ECs are not a big focus, but remember that in the Personal Statement you demonstrate your interest in, understanding of, and aptitude for the course. It is typical to reference relevant reading that you have done beyond the classroom, so @marvin100’s advice to ‘read up’ is good on more than one level.

5

Hi, i’m thinking of applying to oxford in the fall and I was wondering exactly how conditional offers would work for US students given that most seniors have to make their college decisions by May. If the conditional offer depends on your senior AP scores wouldn’t that mean you wouldn’t be into Oxford until July??!!! That seems awfully late.

6

@worcester22 browse the UK forum for many answers to that question.

7

@worcester22, best to start your own thread rather than resurrect an old one. July is hard from an American perspective, but the British students don’t get their A level results (which is the usual basis for their offers) until August, so you won’t get any sympathy from anybody over the way!

8

Usually what you would do in that case would be to accept your top US choice, pay the deposit etc, but then withdraw in July if you meet your conditions for Oxford if that’s your top choice overall. You would lose your deposit.

9

ok thanks for clarifying, that makes a lot more sense.

10

@worcester22, my son applied to five UK university programs through UCAS in 2015. He has a sort of complicated story: He received offers from four programs, eventually firming one at UCL, and his May, 2016 AP scores (combined with previous scores) met the conditions for the UCL offer… then he decided to defer UCL a year, and that was approved, but he accidentally enrolled in UCL, instead of deferring,… and by the time that was sorted, it was too late to defer, so he had to reapply through UCAS in fall, 2016… and this time he also got an offer from Oxford (the previous year, he got an interview but no offer), and since it was always his first choice, and he had already met the conditions, he accepted the offer and will be starting there in October. But before THAT all played out, he got this email from UCL (and this advice would apply equally to other UK universities, including Oxford):

4/28/16
<<…For those of you who have applied to schools in the UK and US, I know this week may be an anxious one, as deadlines to pay deposits at colleges and universities in the USA approach, and deadlines to respond to Offers in the UK approach as well. Students sometimes feel that they have to decide between the US and the UK at this stage, without changing their decision later on. The below is a common concern I hear this time of year:

"I want to study at UCL but am worried I won’t meet the Conditions on my Offer. Unless I make a decision now I will also have missed the chance to enroll at my first choice in the USA. "

With that in mind I wanted to write briefly to clarify and repeat information I am certain you already know, to ensure you are aware of your options:

As you are aware, you are required to accept your Conditional Offer for UCL through UCAS to indicate your intention to study here and can do so without paying a deposit. It is also possible to pay the deposit to the school you feel is your best fit in the USA, and secure that option as well.

If you chose to do so, this would leave you in a position to make an informed decision when you receive your final grades later this year.

Remember though, if you have an offer with UCL you will need to respond by the deadline indicated in UCAS. Check your individual status through UCAS Track to see your personal deadline. Remember, UCL will not ask for a deposit, so you can reply even if you are still considering US options.

That way, you are then able to wait and see if you meet the Conditions on your Offer for UCL in June or July, and know exactly what your options are before deciding where to study.

Families I have spoken to in the past see paying a deposit in the USA as similar to purchasing insurance. If you don’t meet the Conditions for UCL, it means that your preferred US option is still available to you. If you do meet the Conditions, you may not be able to retrieve your deposit, but it served as a safety net…>>

11

Ok thanks so much, this was very helpful! Do you know how much the deposit fee is?

12

@worcester22, I guess that would depend on the U.S. university. Another part of my son’s complicated story is his “gap year” was really a freshman year at an American university, UCSB. We/he decided he wasn’t quite ready to move to London for university right out of high school, and since he might want to go to medical school after he gets his degree, attending UCSB allowed him to take some of the needed pre-med courses and to earn other credit that might be required. Combining his AP credits with his freshman year at UCSB means he’s now a junior in the UC system, and meeting some of the medical school prerequisites has also better prepared him to study psychology, a very science-based discipline at both UCL and Oxford.

So…for UCSB, I think we had to pay a $100 deposit by May 1st, with a Statement of Intention to Register, although (after taking a look online) there seems to be a $250 deposit required for incoming freshman for 2017, so I’m either remembering it incorrectly, or the fee has gone up (At the time we paid the deposit to UCSB, my son was still unsure what he would do if he did/didn’t meet the UCL conditions, so even a $250 deposit would have been more than worth it for the “safety net” provided.)

There was no deposit required for UCL (see excerpt from UCL email below). In fact, he was able to get enrolled (accidentally!) without a deposit, or a visa for that matter. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of odd. It must have been a mistake on their part, too. Oxford needs a financial declaration by… August 1, I think, and I got the impression the process would not go forward without it. At the end of last September, my son started receiving welcoming email from UCL, but at first he thought it was just a mistake. (One part of the university not talking to another.) When he finally realized he had missed the deferral deadline, he was also informed he would have to reapply to UCL through UCAS… but when he tried to do that, UCAS had him down as a current UCL student, so he had to officially withdraw, and that had to be updated on UCAS. And since he did not learn he had missed the opportunity to defer until Oct. 6, and then decided he might as well give Oxford another shot, too… he had to hustle to make the Oct. 15th Oxbridge deadline (do another application, update his statement, get his teacher to update her recommendation, find a testing center and sign up for the TSA)… but the biggest hurdle turned out to be getting UCL to officially withdraw him! (With the time difference, email going to the wrong department, etc., it started coming down to the wire.) At any rate, Oxford hasn’t asked for a deposit, either, so I think it’s just the U.S. university that would require that.

From UCL email:

“As you are aware, you are required to accept your Conditional Offer for UCL through UCAS to indicate your intention to study here and can do so without paying a deposit. It is also possible to pay the deposit to the school you feel is your best fit in the USA, and secure that option as well.”

13

Ok $100/$250 doesn’t seem too terrible, hopefully it hasn’t gone up! Thanks again for the info.

14

@worcester22 Nice name/pic! My son is heading to Worcester in October. He had his required APs in hand from junior year when he applied, so thankfully we didn’t have to worry about the wait for senior year AP scores. Good luck with your application. Which course are you going to apply for?

15

Congrats to your son! My grandfather attended Worcester in the early 50s, but I think I am going to apply to one of the newer colleges for PPE. Chances are, if I get accepted, I will get a conditional offer because I only took AP Calc AB this year, and i’m taking BC next year. Other than that I exceed all of the requirements so fingers crossed. How did your son prepare for the exam and interview (I know those are the two most difficult parts)?

16

@worcester22 He’s doing Maths/CompSci, so he did the past MATs that are posted on the Mathematical Institute’s website. He was lucky to have two math teachers at school (one of whom is the head of the math dept.) who are Oxford grads. He reviewed the long response questions with them to make sure that we was answering questions in a way that would score well. He’s done a lot of competitive math over the years and he did well on the past MATs, so he wasn’t that worried about that hurdle. Did a mock interview with his teacher as well to prepare. At Oxford, he was given a problem set in advance for his first comp sci interview. He had no issues with them, so that interview went well.

17

@worcester22, I know your question was directed to HazeGrey, but thought I’d add a little about the TSA, which my son had to take for Experimental Psych.

To prepare, my son took four or five TSA tests from previous years (available online) under timed test conditions. He checked the answers (answer keys for each year are also available online), then used the TSA Past Paper Worked Solutions: 2008 - 2016 (purchased from Amazon) to figure out where he went wrong with his incorrect answers. There are other TSA prep books at Amazon that could be helpful, and it would also be beneficial to prepare over a longer period of time, taking more practice tests than my son did. He did take one timed practice test before he decided to apply to Oxford to see if he was in the ballpark of a good score, since even the first year, he was applying at the last minute, and he didn’t want to forge ahead if he had little aptitude for the test, since there would not have been much time to get up to speed. On Student Room, the UK version of this website (but with way fewer parents), there are quite a few threads about the TSA, and some kids say it was helpful to practice finishing the test in 80 minutes instead of 90… although there is also advice to start out taking it untimed and try to work ALL the problems. You need to get the score conversion sheet for each of the tests you practice, too (also online), and you can get quite a few problems wrong and still get a good score. (My son thought he had totally tanked the first practice test until he used the conversion sheet.)

In case you don’t know this already, if you search for PPE admissions feedback 2016, you can find out how likely it was (for that entry year) to get an interview, given the TSA score achieved. For 2016-17, candidates scoring above 66.5 (if they also had good exam results and references) were likely to have been invited to interview. Candidates scoring between 64.2 and 66.4 “may” have been invited to interview. Those scoring below 63.2 were only invited if there were mitigating circumstances. (This is just for PPE, not other courses relying on the TSA.)

18

Adding on to Junipero’s very helpful post, be aware that (as is often true with practice tests), results tend to be higher on practice tests than the actual test. I have seen a lot of very confident testers tout their high practice test scores who then do not get invited for interview, and find out later (you can get your score after admission season is over) that their score was just too low. One other piece of advice that pops up a fair bit: start with the oldest practice test and work forward in time- the tests do evolve over time.