I believe we're talking about undergrad, not law school. Where did you complete your bachelor's degree and what programme at Oxford did you apply to? |
They get a conditional offer and once they pass the APs their senior year the offer is available for them accept. |
Our dc has been accepted at both an HYPMS and an Oxbridge at this moment (trying not to doxx). We've visited both campuses and the main differences pointed out to us in the UK were:
1) Focused curriculum. You have to really want to study the course you applied for, and changing majors is difficult (but not impossible) so long as they are generally related subjects. 2) Tutorial system, with regular interaction with a professor to keep you on track. 3) Shorter terms, with kids in college for 8-weeks, the last 4 of which are basically preparing for the final/papers, etc. |
I have degrees from Harvard and Oxford (undergrad and masters, respectively).
The systems are different enough that the admissions comparisons make little sense. Oxbridge care very little about anything other than academics, and even for academics, they are looking at a narrower set of qualifications than HYP would. This is because you are admitted directly to a degree; if you are doing physics, they don't really care what your foreign language results were. You are competing with British students who are usually only doing 3-4 A levels, specialized to the degree they plan on applying to. So, someone who is quite talented in the humanities or math/science can get into Oxbridge even if they aren't doing particularly well in the other subjects, and even if they don't have much going on in terms of extracurriculars. By contrast, HYP are looking for excellence across the board, even though individual US high school courses (even APs & similar) are usually not equivalent in depth to a British A-level. They also care about extracurriculars and evidence of leadership, etc. Different profiles of students will therefore find one or the other an "easier" process. |
This is the party line in Europe, but there really isn't any comparison between the basics you master in order to spit out 6 bullet points on your GCSEs in Year 11, and a course taught at Harvard by someone doing active research in the field. |
Someone doing active research in the field is not a big asset, and likely a demerit, to a basic broad intro course. Especially when that person has up to 900(!) students in one lecture The real difference is just that British colleges just don't care about the liberal arts as a whole for each student. They care about it for the school overall. |
But DC went through the undergrad application process, which I was involved in, although towards the end I hired a coach to review the essays. As for self, I was in a slac that doesn't send many students to Rhodes or Marshall so was grossly unprepared for regionals. Unlike Harvard, my slac did no coaching for the Rhodes. I said I wanted to get into the PPE programme which is embarrassing since it exists only for undergrad not grad. I had a strong history record though and was no 1 in slac, etc. Interesting process but I clearly didn't know what I was doing. |
My kid is at Oxford. I've found the facebook "Oxford University - parents group" to be helpful. |
This (and this is one of the reasons why the Oxbridge application is so difficult for Americans). Our DC's acceptance to a graduate program was also conditional. One of the conditions was achieving a certain GPA at their college during Covid. I don't remember the other condition. And Oxford means it. You don't meet the conditions you are out. |
But not for all four years in one subject. |
This. Plus the interviews. They are nothing like what American students think they are going to be like. There are entire books written on how to ace those interviews (in your proposed area of study). You can't fly by the seat of your pants. You actually have to know the field, the authors, the big books, the current research. |
HYP is also looing for URM and first-generation. Not an issue overseas |
+1. There are many posts out there about conditional versus unconditional offers. IMHE the only unconditional offers were to Rhodes. My DC did not meet one of the conditions for grad work but his university went to bat for him and got Oxford to change its mind but it was a harrowing 8 weeks while we waited. https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4485696. |
+1. Please read 21:42 to better understand the system |
What has been insightful to me about the posts on this Facebook page is the number of UK kids (not usually American!) who have difficulty adjusting to Oxford. Once the excitement of moving in is over you start seeing a lot of parents asking about problems with depression (it's very very sad there during Jan and Feb - same weather every day - always overcast), adjustment issues, problems with old dorms (currently there is a discussion about lack or or too much steam heat) and rusticating, which means the kid knows they aren't cutting it and want to take time off. The term "rusticating" came from "being sent to the countryside", i.e., being sent home. The child might decide to rusticate. Or the school can suggest rusticating: "Rustication is a term used at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham Universities to mean being suspended or expelled temporarily, or, in more recent times, to leave temporarily for welfare or health reasons." My DC says rusticating usually takes place just before exams. |