UK PPE admissions questions from US student

Which looks better for an American applying to selective UK uni’s for PPE? → five 5’s on AP exams (and a subject test in a different subject that is >750) OR five 5’s on AP exams and one 4 (as well as the subject test >750). This year I plan to take 6 exams and I’m unsure if I will be able to receive a 5 on one of them.

I’d say five 5’s on AP exams and nothing else. But if you are already doing the course anyway (and will therefore have to list it on your application) it looks even worse to not take the exam at all. One 4 (or even a 3) will not be disqualifying.

@Twoin18 The thing is, the exam is technically a self study (AP Spanish language and I’m in Spanish 5 at school) so I wouldn’t be penalized for not taking it. Do you think I should still take it?

That wouldn’t be where I would invest extra time. I’d be doing a lot of background reading in politics, philosophy and economics (particularly the latter two where my S18 felt he was not well enough prepared for the interview - FWIW he didn’t get an offer but got an interview with five 5s and one 3 on his APs).

@Twoin18 thanks for the advice! I have one more question- theoretically, do you think that my offer would be conditional and based off of Calculus BC if I got one? I assume I’ll have five predicted 5’s on AP’s (Calc BC, US Gov, Eng Lit, Stats, Physics I).

Hard to tell. They want you to do Calc BC but if you already have plenty of 5s including Calc AB and a high enough TSA score (ie not borderline for interview) then an unconditional offer is quite plausible, because you are then less likely to go elsewhere.

The bar is really high though, so I would worry much more about the interview, particularly for overseas applicants where less weight can be placed on school recommendations and AP tests are much easier than A levels.

@Twoin18 that makes sense! And I know this is subjective, but would you consider five 5’s to be “plenty of fives”?

Generally yes, I’d expect five 5s after junior year could be enough for Oxford where they have TSA plus the interview to test you. Any LSE offer is much more likely to be conditional because they don’t have that extra info.

agreeing that with all of the above, esp that pushing yourself with an unrelated AP is not the best use of your time- reading around your subject will matter more (reading The Economist regularly is more or less assumed; you also need to be reading actual books in your area of interest).

More APs isn’t necessarily better, esp ones that aren’t related at all to your course. For Oxford APs are mostly a qualifier- the TSA is crucial to getting the interview invite, & the interview is crucial for the offer.

Protip: if one of you APS is CompGov that turns out to be actually useful for the Y1 politics module.

To give you an indication of the potential pool at Oxford, in the 2018 cycle, there were 734 non-UK/EU applicants for PPE and 61 offers made.

@HazeGrey Honestly, that doesn’t surprise me! I wouldn’t be shocked if Ox is apprehensive to make offers to US students since many end up turning it down for equally reputable US schools. I spoke with several accepted students in the last admissions round (2018-2019) and it seems like very few of them actually ended up choosing Ox. Does anyone here think that solidifying my interest in the focused UK system (having my teacher write that solely studying PPE would be beneficial to me; writing about my solid interest in the PS; bringing up the fact that I will go to ox if I get an offer if a tutor asked) would benefit my chances? I assume the offer would be entirely based on academic merit + interview, but I’m just wondering!

Cambridge is much more apprehensive about making offers to Americans for those reasons than Oxford (as reflected in the relative numbers attending).

You have to write a convincing PS about the course anyway and your reference should be saying that you are their best student in the last 5-10 years. No need to be over the top in your own statement though, Brits don’t particularly like boastful/overly enthusiastic Americans.

Should the predicted grades be written directly in the reference (ex: “student A’s predicted scores are _____”) or is it ok if I simply put them in on UCAS under predicted scores? I assume the reference will be strong but would it be too much to ask the teacher to write two? (Ex: one for US schools and one for UK ones that includes the scores)

The reference needs to predict your grades and talk about your suitability for the course(s) you are applying for. You (at least nominally) shouldn’t get to see what they write and you don’t make predictions.

The reference absolutely must be written specifically for the UK, it needs to have a completely different focus from the US and should really come from a teacher in a relevant subject. There are guidelines on the UCAS site for how to write a reference. Do not under any circumstances use an unchanged US reference for UCAS.

Just out of curiosity, do US teachers who write references for successful applicants generally follow this system (by system, I mean writing directly about the subject, etc)? I understand why writing directly about a student’s aptitude for the course is important, since it’s the way that all UK teachers’ references would be, but I feel like many Americans who apply to Oxford (and end up getting in) do not know this info. Did your son’s teacher write the rec like this? — I apologize for sounding naive, this just surprises me!

My S picked a teacher who had actually done a masters at Oxford. He followed the UCAS instructions and wrote a good (and much more detailed and time consuming for him) reference separate from his reference for US schools. I believe @HazeGrey’s S also had high school teacher(s) who had attended Oxford and knew the system.

The reference probably helps some people slightly in getting an interview, but an exceptional TSA score will always get an interview and very little matters other than the interview in terms of getting an offer.

Of course Oxford isn’t foolproof in terms of finding the best candidates at interview (ask Fiona Hill) although most candidates do feel it’s a fairer process by being solely focused on academic ability. The challenge for Americans is that their schools don’t have a track record so the reference and benchmarking within the class aren’t so useful to the admissions tutors if you don’t do a great job in the interview. For comparison, I attended a fairly well known selective U.K. private school and had no doubt at all I would get into Cambridge (I was in the top few in my year and at that time 50-60 kids each year would go to Oxbridge from my school, so the quality of the recommendation was very meaningful). Similar to top prep schools and Ivies in the US in some ways.

My Oxford collegekid (HisPol undergrad, now finishing Master’s) did not have the benefit of a recommender with an Oxford background, but we got some info from both the UCAS & Oxford sites & provided it. The key- as the admissions tutors say over & over- is that they want students who love their subject as much as they do.

One of the reasons that courses like PPE are particularly hard to get into (aside from competition due to popularity) is that all 3 courses (ie, tutors from P, P, & E) have to agree to each student being offered a place, and they all think that their course is the most important. The student has to make a compelling enough case that none of the tutors put them on the ‘no way’ list and ideally at least one of the 3 puts them on the ’must have’ list.

We know several outstanding US students who were turned down by Oxford who have gone on to great things. Of course, there must be some number of miscalls, but it is also true that the tutorial system doesn’t suit everyone.

My son was very lucky - his HS math teacher was an Oxford grad, but more importantly I think, she had been a teacher at one of the UK’s largest Oxbridge feeder schools (Westminster) for a number of years before coming to the US, so she was very familiar with the LOR drill and could also give helpful context on how my son’s ability compared to what Oxford was used to seeing. I think it also helped that he already had his AP scores in the bag from junior year, so there was no “predicting” of his necessary grades.

@HazeGrey what were your son’s stats, if you don’t mind me asking?

35 on the ACT, 800 on the Math 2/Physics SAT2s and 5s on CompSci A, Calc BC, Physics C (both), English Comp and US History by the time that he submitted his UCAS. Never asked for feedback, so no real certainty on what his actual MAT score was. Consistently scored in high 70s-low 80s on the past papers he did. He’s reading Maths & CS at Worcester.