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Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

And US students have to waste 1/4 of their courses in Gen Ed / distribution requirements.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

And US students have to waste 1/4 of their courses in Gen Ed / distribution requirements.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

There are no restrictions in the US on who can apply to Harvard. There are plenty of restrictions in the UK on who can apply to Ox or Cambs. The school has to give permission and its normally a very small handful of candidates each year. So its a self selecting group already of highly qualified students. Your numbers are meaningless when you don't have this information.

+1. This!

There's more restrictions about applying to Oxbridge, limiting the size of the applicant pool. For example, you can't apply to Cambridge and Oxford in the same year. Have to pick ONE. Contrast that to Americans who want to apply to all the ivies + several others just because. Oxbridge admissions are much more of a meritocracy than the holistic American system. You have to meet minimum standards for the A-levels to even be considered, and the fact that you're all-star field hockey player isn't going to give you an edge. There are hard cutoffs that don't exist in the American admissions system, and admissions are conditional on maintaining a high GPA and A-level performance. You simply can't compare the admission rates between the schools and conclude that one is harder or easier to get into than the other.

THIS!. This Quora expert nails it, but you have to READ it to understand. This Oxford grad's analysis is spot on EXCEPT he fails to factor in that Americans get in at a rate than the British, etc. - the figure is given at 7.2% to 8% for Americans. So HALF of the 16 percent he citesl.. But please read, especially point 2 to understand. Yes, this is dated by about 2 1/2 years but his points are valid:


Is it harder to get into Oxford or Cambridge than Ivy League schools?

It’s… different. I’ve spent a lot of time crunching the numbers in other Quora answers, so I’ll just do the summary version here:

Statistically, an applicant’s odds of getting into Oxford or Cambridge are somewhere around 16%. That is higher than even the least selective Ivies (Cornell - around 10.6% ), and a long way off the most selective one (Harvard - around 4.5%).

However those numbers alone are deceiving. You can only apply to either Oxford or Cambridge, so your competition drops by half. By contrast, you could theoretically apply to all eight Ivies. So your odds of not getting into Oxbridge are static at around 84%. The odds of not getting into any Ivy if you applied to all eight are around (0.927 ^ 8) = 54.5%* (mathematically speaking - I know it doesn’t work like that in real life). Comparing those figures, Oxbridge looks a lot harder.

The other reason to take the Oxbridge number with a pinch of salt is that there is a lot of self-selection. In the UK you can apply to a maximum of five universities. So only serious Oxbridge candidates apply to Oxbridge. In the US it is unlimited, so a lot of people will “have a go” and apply to Ivy Schools even though they have no realistic chance. That is a big factor behind the really low yields at Ivy League schools.

But the really key point is that the nature of the applications are very different. Oxbridge applications are absolutely all-in on academic achievement with brutal entrance exams. Ivy League schools tend to go for ‘holistic’ assessment. Every year there are a few head-scratchers who get into Harvard because they are seen as leaders of the future despite having very mediocre academic stats.
In Britain every so often the press goes nuts when a Brit gets into Harvard after being rejected by Oxford / Cambridge. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone. They are very different applications, and you shouldn’t expect that a person who excels at one would necessarily excel at the other.

* The average admission rate across the entire Ivy League (weighted by numbers of admissions) is 7.328%. Penn and Cornell obviously drag the average up because they are bigger schools. Yes, I am sorry to say that I did take the time to work that out on a spreadsheet. Source: 2023 Ivy League admissions results are in!

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Anonymous wrote:Given the very high quality of students overall, how does this reflect in the curriculum? Some cynics say it's mostly about the connections because the undergraduate curriculum is the same at most institutions of reasonable quality. But I would suspect since there's no remedial education going, there's a difference in kind between a bachelor's from HYP/Oxbridge and your more typical bachelor's degree.

Students are very high quality at both, but let’s not pretend they are equal: Oxbridge is an order of magnitude easier to get in. This is true in every subject, but since admission is by course, some subjects — say, languages, humanities, social sciences other than Econ — are easier admits than, say, Emory.

You think an Oxford grad who read history is less knowledgeable than a typical Emory grad?

False. Oxford doesn't like Americans. Only 1.7% of the students are from here. Yet the university is over 50% international students (most from China). From Google "The percentage of students from North America is far smaller at Oxford – only 200 out of 12,000 undergrads (1.7%).Feb 20, 2018"

And dons are hard on Americans. I know of two M.Phil students who didn't score high enough to graduate. No warning. Nothing said from the tutors. Just "sorry - you failed - thanks for your two years of American bucks but your visa is now obsolete, go home". It can be a very tough place for Americans.

This is absurd.

Some Americans expect their hands held and that does not happen. They don’t “dislike” Americans, they treat them like everyone else.

If you don’t have a self-motivated student, it will be a bad fit. But a motivated student will do great.

Sure, some kids used to hand-holding will not be successful, but their helicopter parents should have realized that before they sent them. If you want to be that kind of parent, be responsible enough to realize that isn’t how Oxbridge works.

It's not absurd. Americans don't do well on the entrance exams. Their rate of acceptance is lower. Google it. What is the acceptance rate for Oxford for US citizens?
It is low for everyone, but it seems to be slightly lower for Americans. On average Oxford has about a 16% admission rate, but for Americans it is just under 9%. Roughly half the average.Sep 9, 2013:

Are we talking students or dons? Not sure about dons, but students were not keen on Americans politically (Bush Sr presidency) and didn't like posers. So, affected Americans maybe had a tougher time? My friends would rail on America around me which was mostly fine until it was too much, and I burst into tears once with "I'm American, you guys!" And they were all, "oh, right, sorry, we forgot." I was totally American, but because I didn't try to be pseudo British, they forgot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And US students have to waste 1/4 of their courses in Gen Ed / distribution requirements.

Those distribution requirements (because we had lots of leeway in the kinds of courses that checked the box) significantly enhanced and enriched my HYP undergraduate experience. It's only a "waste" for those who lack the curiosity or love of learni yesng outside their area(s) of focus.

Anonymous wrote:Before someone asks, the application requires THREE AP tests of 5 in the proposed area of study. And intense interviews on the subject you plan to study by professors in those fields. A lot of Americans can't meet those two criteria.

You need 1470 on the SAT (or 34 on the ACT), plus three SAT subject test (700 or better) or three APs (5 or better). for history, etc.), following by three interviews with a pair of academics.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

There are no restrictions in the US on who can apply to Harvard. There are plenty of restrictions in the UK on who can apply to Ox or Cambs. The school has to give permission and its normally a very small handful of candidates each year. So it’s a self selecting group already of highly qualified students. Your numbers are meaningless when you don't have this information.

There are no school restrictions, anywhere, on Oxbridge apps, other than an applicant meeting the minimum requirements. And the percentage of UK kids with the requisite A-levels is very high. Anyhow, love to see a cite about these mysterious “gatekeeper” restrictions you are referring to instead of this gobbledygook.

Anyhow, 1/3 of Oxbridge apps aren’t even from the UK. To say the least, it is far easier for a UK kid to get into Oxbridge (or even a Chinese, Indian, or American kid) than it is for any of those groups to get into Harvard. By such an order of magnitude in terms of raw numbers (4-20x easier, in fact), than even a 2-3x adjustment in your favor gets you nowhere where. It is not even close.

But go ahead, believe Oxbridge is as selective as HYPS. Or even Emory. The admissions stats are there to see, at Oxford and Cambridge, for every course of study. Numbers are stubborn things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

There are no restrictions in the US on who can apply to Harvard. There are plenty of restrictions in the UK on who can apply to Ox or Cambs. The school has to give permission and its normally a very small handful of candidates each year. So its a self selecting group already of highly qualified students. Your numbers are meaningless when you don't have this information.

+1. Oxbridge is too self (and system) selecting to be compared by numbers to the US system. Anyone who says otherwise doesnt know what the are talking about. And, yes, I'm in a position to personally compare the Harvard and Oxford application system and success rate

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

There are no restrictions in the US on who can apply to Harvard. There are plenty of restrictions in the UK on who can apply to Ox or Cambs. The school has to give permission and its normally a very small handful of candidates each year. So its a self selecting group already of highly qualified students. Your numbers are meaningless when you don't have this information.

+1. This!

There's more restrictions about applying to Oxbridge, limiting the size of the applicant pool. For example, you can't apply to Cambridge and Oxford in the same year. Have to pick ONE. Contrast that to Americans who want to apply to all the ivies + several others just because. Oxbridge admissions are much more of a meritocracy than the holistic American system. You have to meet minimum standards for the A-levels to even be considered, and the fact that you're all-star field hockey player isn't going to give you an edge. There are hard cutoffs that don't exist in the American admissions system, and admissions are conditional on maintaining a high GPA and A-level performance. You simply can't compare the admission rates between the schools and conclude that one is harder or easier to get into than the other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

There are no restrictions in the US on who can apply to Harvard. There are plenty of restrictions in the UK on who can apply to Ox or Cambs. The school has to give permission and its normally a very small handful of candidates each year. So its a self selecting group already of highly qualified students. Your numbers are meaningless when you don't have this information.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cambridge is the only school that MIT allows the transfers of letter grades from. My friends that did the exchange absolutely loved Cambridge and some went back for post-graduate studies. My roommate still lives there and is married and a British citizen now.

Cambridge is an easier admit for Americans.

Not for STEM.

Also, Cambridge still requires 5 5s on APs.

But these all AP and test score requirements are pretty low for the UK. A low floor, indeed. My kid's high school didn't offer APs, which is pretty typical for privates now, and about a third of the class sits for APs anyway to maybe get credit or placement - in a "can't hurt" kind of way - and most end up with 5-9 5s. (The whole AP thing is a bit of a racket, right? It's only in back half of senior year that you know if any of these scores are useful or not.)

Yes, definitely for STEM; if you take into account how HYPS does account for major (without admitting it), STEM at Cambridge (though a very difficult admit, to be sure) is a far easier admit than a STEM kid at Stanford…

Look at it this way: 1/13 Computer Science applicants at Cambridge are admitted (8%). What do you think the admissions rate is for CS at HYPSM? Is it even 2%? Natural sciences? Please. 1/4 applicants at Cambridge are admitted.

What’s worse is that the curriculum at Cambridge is set in stone. An American CS whiz will learn nothing the entire first year, taking the equivalent of remedial courses (for them). The philosophy is everyone in the same boat from the start and all will be good eventually. It is a very European — and non- American — attitude.

There are no restrictions in the US on who can apply to Harvard. There are plenty of restrictions in the UK on who can apply to Ox or Cambs. The school has to give permission and its normally a very small handful of candidates each year. So its a self selecting group already of highly qualified students. Your numbers are meaningless when you don't have this information.

+1. Oxbridge is too self (and system) selecting to be compared by numbers to the US system. Anyone who says otherwise doesnt know what the are talking about. And, yes, I'm in a position to personally compare the Harvard and Oxford application system and success rate

Nobody is saying it is a straight comparison. But if you don’t think Harvard is a far easier admit, the extent of your strangely-professed Harvard “affiliation,” on an anonymous message board no less, is that you have been to Harvard Square.

As for the “self-selecting” argument, top UK students are far more likely to apply to Oxbridge than a top student in America is to apply to HYPS as an SCEA not even close. Why? SCEA schools are so hard to get in, a top student is better off applying ED to, say, Dartmouth. Almost every top UK student applies to either Oxford or Cambridge as one of their 5 UCAS choices.

In other words, Harvard is, by definition, more self-selecting than is Oxford.

Anonymous wrote:There's a trade-off between breadth and depth, obviously. Here's an interesting article comparing Yale and Oxford:

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2010/04/23/whats-better-oxfords-depth-or-yales-breadth/