Oxford or Cambridge?

Unless you’re an organ scholar, the question running through the minds of most ambitious to be undergrads is which of the big-two universities they should apply to. Having applied to both and at some stage fallen in love with both, some of you may find it useful to read my down to earth analysis on each university.

Difference in Emphasis

As you will all know, whilst Oxford offer a straight Physics course, Cambridge offer Physical Natural sciences. There is no better or worse when it comes to questions like these, its simply a matter of preference and what you feel or think is most suited to you. I remember raving on about how amazing the thought of keeping my science base nice and broad on my SAQ (extra Cambridge) form and that I was really keen on the thought of looking into geology and materials science. A year later, I cannot tell you how glad I am that I will never have to look at another page of organic chemistry, how relieved after having an Oxford Materials interview, that none of it is going to be on my list of lectures, ever. All I want to dig my teeth into, is pure unadulterated Physics and that's exactly what Oxford is going to give me. The only other thing that interests me is Maths and that's part of the package. For those of you who are REALLY good and I mean really really good at maths, you may want to look at the Cambridge Maths with Physics course, but take a look at my STEP page before throwing yourself into that.

I've structured the rest of this page in the format, the good, the bad and the ugly. The good representing the things that attracted me to each university, things I would consider “better”. The bad are things that threw me off, the ugly are things that I didn't and wish I did know before applying.

Cambridge

The good:

It must be said that on a global scale, their reputation for Science supersedes that of Oxford. They do better in league tables, seem to be more advanced in research and better connected with spin-off companies. The colleges are larger and surrounded by more picturesque greenery than you would find in Oxford.

The bad:

Whilst Oxford is a university within a town, Cambridge is most definitely a town within a university. I had to hunt my way street after street to find a decent steakhouse, something unimaginable in the high-street of Oxford.

The worst clubbing night of my life, including an experience in the mountains of Switzerland where the girls were so fowl that when approached by one, I sprinted full pelt to the toilets in search of safety, was in Cambridge. Their students have coined the term “Ironic clubbing”, clubbing so bad its actually good. Either that or the old school of policy of turning up so wasted you can barely tell left from right and enjoy the night anyhow...

The ugly:

UMS

Cambridge ask everyone to declare their UMS scores for each and every module. For those of you with UMS scores under 90%, don’t even bother applying. A good friend of mine’s uncle is head of admissions at a Cambridge college. He told me that they are look for a modular average of 94%+. He furthermore mentioned that when it came to interview, whilst they interviewed about 95% of candidates, they had usually already narrowed it down on paper to about 2:1, i.e 35-40% of applicants. During my Cambridge general interview, the interviewer commented that I should have been pleased with my Maths score (97%) but asked why I had gotten such a low Chemistry score (86%) and then proceeded further to ask what mark I expected to get in my upcoming Physics exams.

In a mock interview video posted by Emmanuel College for Natsci the opening words spoken between the professors was “ah yes, he got very good A-level scores didn't he?”, I think you get the message.

POOLING

Pooling is a system by which Cambridge attempts to even out the admissions process between colleges, giving strong candidates a better chance of university entrance, despite the large fluctuations in volume and quality of applicants at each college.

For the prospective applicants who have never heard of this, I'm not surprised, I hadn't heard of it till I got pooled myself. The idea behind this is sound, if your a maths applicant and have applied to Trinity (“the” college for maths), whilst you may have not made their cut, you may certainly be considered good enough to enroll in another college. The execution, is problematic. Offers and pooling letters are given out at the same time, if colleges feel they have an in-sufficient quality of applicants, then they search in the pool.

The problem is, your asking a lot of the admissions team. Do you really believe them to be able to accurately judge the difference in quality between the worst applicants whom they've decided to give an offer to and the top quality of pooled applicants.. whom they haven't seen yet? They've interviewed hundreds of applicants, extensively read through their files and now you expect them to fish through thousands more just to make sure each applicant has exactly the same opportunity regardless of college choice? Forget it. I don't blame them, imagine the stress and strain on resources caused by the entire admissions process, in their position, would you want to extend it by a minute longer than necessary? Would you willingly spend extra days interviewing candidates you probably weren't going to take?

This makes the entire college choice a lot more relevant. When you apply to a college, they interview you, test you, etc... The moment your pooled, you become a document. Your relying on a professor, who has already given out most if not all of his offers, to see your paper application and take enough interest to either interview you or make you a straight offer.

Whilst many will contest every word I say and will endlessly repeat to you that college choice will make any difference in success rate, I would encourage you to be skeptical of pooling. With so many colleges, each giving different interviews and attracting different applicants, there will always be arbitrage.

Some colleges, notably girls colleges, actively claw the pool. Unsurprisingly, a lot of girls (having maybe attended single sex schools for the majority of their lives) choose not to apply to the female only college and are hence undersuscribed and thus use the pool extensively as part of their admissions process. I am inclined to believe that others may use the pool in an attempt to fulfill their monetary/political requirements, giving a stronger chance to minority groups, particularly high-paying international students. For those of you that tick these boxes, or those with incredibly high UMS marks but poor interview skills, pooling may be a god-send. For the rest of us, you'll probably find yourself in limbo waiting day after day for a phone call only to find a rejection letter at your door six weeks later.

Oxford:

The Good:

Walking around the high-street in Oxford you really feel like somethings going on, great busking, a McDonalds and phones4u in sight, what more could you need? Plenty of restaurants, shops and supermarkets, the town definitely has some edge to it and all without killing the scenic beauty. Haven't been clubbing there yet, so cannot give a fair representative view as of now, but will update when I can.

Oxford Pooling

Definitely the superior of the two systems. For my Cambridge interview, I made my way up for the morning, was tested and interviewed 3 times at the college which I applied to. In Oxford, I was interviewed twice at my first college and once at another college. On occasions, some people are asked to stay an extra night so that they can be further interviewed at other colleges to have their potential re-assessed. This means that the pooling process (I.e being re-allocated to other colleges) happens WHILST your in Oxford.

The other colleges get the chance to interview you and see whether they find you suitable for study, as opposed to being placed in a gigantic pool of semi-rejected applicants.

The value added by this system is clearly visible in the statistics, for my year of application in Oxford, out of the 190 physics places awarded, 71 were pooled. Well over a 1/3 of places. Whereas in Cambridge, out of the people pooled (about 20% of applicants), 20% received offers, that's about 4% of places and hence about a 1/6 of all places.

The bad:

lemme get round to it

The Ugly:

The Physics Aptitude test

Without a shred of a doubt, the defining characteristic of your Oxford Physics application. On the Oxford open day, The don at Brasenose called it “the most important day of your life”.

He mentioned that out of the 900 who took the test, the top 400 aptitude scorers were invited to interview (the rest rejected). Out of the top 100 scoring candidates, 86 were given an offer, the next top 100, 66 were given an offer and in the bottom 100, 2 were made an offer. I believe one of the 2 got hit by a truck the day before. He apparently took the aptitude test at the regular 9:15 am start in his hospital bed, whilst being repeatedly injected with morphene.

Don't think that you only need XYZ marks to get an interview and thereafter your all on a level platform.

Offers are made on a completely departmental basis, your aptitude score will be referenced by both the college you apply to and the one that your pooled to in so far as their interest in making you an offer.

Basically, you mess up that test, you can kiss that Oxford offer you've been gunning for good-bye. However murk that test and your basically in. Do you really expect that oxford will even consider rejecting the guy with the highest aptitude score? Do you even expect any of the constituent colleges to reject their highest scoring applicant?