Which Oxford college for Maths?

[Muchtoomuchtodo]

Inspired by the equivalent Cambridge thread!

We’re going round in circles and I don’t know if we’ve missed any stats that might help with decision making.

DS will be applying to Oxford for Maths. He has always attended state school.

He has 12 A⭐️ at GCSE and 4 A at AS level.

He does like the look of older colleges and would like to be fairly close to the Maths dept - not that any are very far away on a bike. He would prefer a college with a good majority of state educated students and a relatively low number of international students, though neither are dealbreakers. He’s not bothered about there being lots of formals.

Any advice would be very much appreciated

I was hugely impressed with Keble on the open day last year. Shown round by chatty, informed students from state school backgrounds. DD chose Cambridge but Keble would definitely have been her Oxford pick. good luck to your DS I'm sure he'll be successful wherever he goes.

St John's is a wealthy college and uses that money to benefit students in various ways. It has a larger than average proportion of state school students and students from relatively deprived backgrounds. It has traditional architecture. It is central and near the Maths building. It's Maths students do extremely well. It's very competitive to get a place, so there would be a high chance of being transferred to another college (but it won't do you any harm in terms of getting a place at the University as a whole).

Are you sure you're not overthinking it? Like every other university in the country, Oxford has every combination and permutation of students. They all manage to rub along together in their colleges whether they went to Eton, Hills Road or a comp in Pontypridd, whether they're studying maths or theology.

When does he want to inspect the characteristics by college and by subject? They genuinely don't clone the intake from year to year. Also state school applicants are the majority in every college.

Hope your son comes up with a strategy he is happy with.
I think the intake at each college in each subject is so small that stats would almost certainly be meaningless.
DD has just started at a college that wasn't her first choice and has a reputation for being fairly sporty and posh. The intake for her subject in her year (5 of them) is entirely female and majority from state schools. The year above is 5 boys (4 of whom privately educated and from privileged backgrounds) and 1 girl (educational background unknown). Last year's cohort would have given DD a very false impression of the cohort she is in on those measures. So far, the sporty, posh college seems lovely!
(I'm not suggesting there's no point in thinking about it which college you'd like to apply to, just that the numbers are so small and the selection process so individualised that there are only so many patterns/bits of info to be found.)