how did ppl get into studying during their gap year to keep their critical thinking skills and subject knowledge fresh, and how did people find writing their personal statement?

people who got an offer from oxford law, what were your stats? and do you mind sharing your other uni options?

So basically im at an A star level of maths rn with abt 6-7 tmua given im in the summer holiday of yr 12, im really clueless abt the oxford maths interview genuinely!

Like whats is the content apparently u need to know fmaths content??? We only start in yr 13 and i have too many things this summer to prelearn.

Should i even apply?? Or do i still have a good chance?

Ps: i got 11 9s, 4 a star predicteds, decent extracurriculars

I was fortunate enough to be accepted by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Oxford University. CMU is for Civil Engineering, and Oxford is for Mathematics and Statistics. To be honest, I have no idea about the future prospects of these two majors; I chose them based on my career advisor's advice. I hope you can give me some advice. Thanks

Just doing this to see opinion really. I have quite an unconventional educational background, having dropped out in y7-y10. (dont know what info they get on this either??)

I got three 9s at GCSE in eng lit, history and eng lang, 8-7 in combined science (only one offered, only one in my yeargroup doing higher). full gcses were 999877665. predicteds are A*A*A*, my mock grades (english was a low A*/very high A, I overthought all of it and have only gotten about two As in english before though.) I go to an 'aspiring' state college (shit), top of my pol class (dk about the others, and not sure what info unis recieve on that front ???) I know no one from my college considering russell groups, no one i know in my college for oxbridge. i would say my PS is quite good, i've done a lot of supercurricular stuff (own research proj, epq, few outreach courses at cam and ox, i think i mention 2 books??). still doubting myself though because no one around me would imagine even applying.

i know technically college shouldn't make a difference but i',m considering either st johns, sidney sussex or corpus, and leaning towards sidney as i just get the best vibes haha. any suggestions on that front would be welcome too.

Hi whilst I’m well-aware these are good grades, I’m simply worried they are not competitive enough for Cambridge

Here are my stats:
GCSEs 9999999887
A level prediction A* A* A* A*

I attend a competitive, high-performing private school so my performance in context is good but not outstanding (my 7 at GCSE).
(For context, most of the recent years’ successful Oxbridge applicants from my school got all 9s at GCSE)

Again, I’m aware there are other components that matter (such as interview performance and my PS) but I can’t help but worry about my GCSE grades :)

Im aiming to do physics at oxford, with A* predicted in maths, fm and physics

I've signed up for a Computational physics challenge but I've been skipping the online things that teach you how to code, but even the ones I attended didn't help that much, and I've realised the projects are due in pretty soon.

I might be able go do it in time but it would be a lot of effort and would take away from my ESAT revision a lot, but I was doing it because I was worried I don't have enough on my personal statement.

So I was wondering if I should do the challenge with less esat prep, or just do some of my own coding projects with more esat prep?

I applied to maths and have an offer (very contextual), my offer is A*A*A with A* in maths fm. I'm fully confident (bcs of checking answers after with people) that I got A* in maths and fm but it's not possible to count marks with cs. What's the odds that I get rejected from maths over a B in computer science?

Hi, I hope to apply for Philosophy and German this upcoming admissions cycle at Oxford. Does anyone know what the breakdown of my personal statement should be (ex. like 50% Philosophy supercurriculars and 50% German?) I'm scared I'm going to run out of room to mention my interest in both subjects. I have a few supercurriculars that overlap but I'm just concerned about the formatting. Thanks for any advice!

Hey Oxbridge sub! so this has been happening for around a year now and I think this person and her support network could really do with some advice from anyone who can give it, share experience or even directly relate.
just to clarify, I myself am not an Oxbridge applicant (hopeful Newcastle english) so the “protagonist“ in this is not me, but a friend. I know it may sound like a cover up but I really need her to be ok.
my best friend who is an insane academic whiz has just had to drop 1 of her 4 a levels because the school has been causing her too much stress. She got all 9s in 11 gcses this time last year, and decided to take A level English Literature, German, Latin and Music. She is amazing at all 4 and was predicted 4A*s. She is also an Oxford applicant for Classics. She is the biggest classics nerd I’ve ever met and has every chance of getting in. But according to the school: She doesn’t read enough (comparing her to the reading lists of their past successful applicants) She works too much and too soon (she was told to stop doing Oxbridge prep early at the start of this year) She was told she isn’t doing enough, she won’t be able to handle the stress of an Oxford class (despite goingo a taster and smashing it). She overall isn’t their ideal successful applicant. Not because of her academics, but because she isn’t a pretty, popular, idealised person. She is a massive nerd and very nice, end of. Despite doing tennis 24/7 and being a volunteer coach. There’s also the fact that she is not a STEM student, which apparently is the only success route. They have basically in short told her “you won’t get in because you’re not good enough in our eyes” while they stand on an Oxbridge success rate of 6%. According to her mum who works a lot with Oxbridge applicants, the rest of the applicants are miles behind where they need to be, especially on their personal statements. Side situation: she ran for school captain. She was told by a teacher “ you are the model student for those we want as school captain”. Well it’s no surprise saying that that… she didn’t get it?????? No. It went to 4 stem students who were the main crazy teacher’s favourites and in his tight-knit bubble of stem favourites. Personal story: I went to this school and I blame them for everything. I lost friends, my grades were not my best (Bs and Cs with very few top grades, not bad but I always thought I could do better) and I genuinely though for years I was stupid. But I’m now in a different college, predicted A*AB and moved my 5 in history to an A at A level.

the main point of this is: is she doing anything wrong or does she just need to not focus on the school? It’s been very difficult and shes very stressed right now. I don’t want her to be hurt by this. She just needs more reassurance that she’s going to be ok.

Hi!
im a hs sophomore trying to build my application to get into my dream uni in my dream major. If anyone has gotten accepted into Oxford, please give me tips on how I can do it to. Please share what you did, and if you can, please review my application (or my activities done so far) and give your honest thoughts abt what really matters. Tell me about how life is like there, how difficult is it really, and lmk if there’s any scholarships or any financial aid…

im so sick of asking ai if my activites are relevant or not and I would LOVE to get some real human feedbackl

give me a dm if ur interested or for more details!!

Okay I’m having a bit of a panic about my predicted grades and need some words of advice or comfort

For context I’m planning to study English as Cambridge, and am currently predicted an A\* in sociology, an A\* in EPQ and an A in Biology.

I’ve gotten A\*s consistently in English, but in my end of year mock I had a panic attack and didn’t finish what I was writing and got a B - also to be clear I still managed to achieve a B under crazy OCR grade boundaries when I had only written 2 paragraphs for one of my essays. I’m now being predicted an A in English instead of an A\*, and to be honest I’m just completely panicking. I know that I can try and amend this grade next year but its just completely knocked my confidence and I don’t know if I should even bother with Cambridge even if I do get pushed up to an A\*

https://youtu.be/DcSwusrL61k?si=Yn7htluJyHBX3XLn

The course is meant for you if you

1. Get confused with the very basic principles of counting

2. Can't think of a combinatorial argument/proof of an identity

3. Understand difficult counting problems but don't know how to begin solving them

I’m in y12 aiming to go to land economy at Cambridge and lse geo with Econ what are some super curriculars I can do in 2 months , I am almost done with a research project completed 2 relevant internships, going to read a few books , but now what should I do ? I’m planning to start working on a GIS projects analysing real estate prices etc , most essay comps are over and the ones left publish results after my deadline , is it still worth participating? If any other super curriculars please lmk also I am head editor for my schools economics magazine

Hi, I’ve been thinking of applying to Cambridge for Economics but don’t know which college would be best for the application. My predicted grades are A*A*A for Geography, Business and Maths. I’m self teaching FM this year so don’t have a predicted for that yet but will get from my tutor (private teacher) before my UCAS application. I’m also aiming to up my maths grade to a predicted A* or retaking in summer next year (I have extenuating circumstances so retaking is ok from what I understand)
Overall, which colleges are best for Economics and which would be best to apply to in terms of acceptance for different situations? Thanks!

As seen above , i have no idea which to apply , ive got 4A* pred and decent supercurriculars but ive got no olympiads or anything like that . Which would you recommend?

how much harder is it for gap applicants to receive an offer compared to standard applicants?
where do they face higher bars and by how much? i presume TMUA and interview performance are more heavily scrutinised but how (obviously for tmua this is just a higher score, but for interviews they still pull questions from the same pool regardless of the candidates gap year or not)

also specifically applying to queens college