Which college for Maths at Oxford

[sillyrubberduck]

DS is looking at applying to study Maths at Oxford. He is in Year 13 and will soon be sitting the MAT rest. He really enjoys his rugby. What are the pros and cons of different colleges and what do people recommend? Thank you so much !!!

That’s a very broad question and there are so many colleges! I would visit Oxford if you can and he’ll get a feel for a few colleges.
Many colleges (maybe not all) will have college rugby teams and there is an annual intercollegiate competition for all sports called Cuppers. If you google rugby 7s 2021 cuppers you can see which colleges participated/ did well.
Some colleges are in the centre of town - you can walk everywhere. Others require a bike.
Some will take more maths students than others - not sure if that’s a particular pro or con, but something to consider.
Some colleges are much richer than others - the wealthier ones offer in-college accommodation for all years. Some colleges give book grants/bursaries etc. My college was poor and students had to live out in 2nd year and half lived out in final year as well. Living out is generally more expensive.
So many sports, clubs etc are university wide, so in many ways it doesn’t really matter which college you end up at.
Hope that’s of some help!

@Moonlaserbearwolf thank you so much ! Very useful information. I realise very broad question but my son has just decided to have a look at Oxford. He did a mock MAt test for Durham/Warwick and did ok so he thinks he might be in with a chance. So this is the reason we have not been more organised and did not do our research. The school have asked him if he has picked a college.

There’s information about all the colleges here www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/colleges/a-z-of-colleges

He should then look at ones he’s interested in their own websites - some have videos from their tutors or a chat function to ask current students questions.
The Maths Institute, where he’ll have lectures is in the Radcliffe Quarter, so the nearest colleges would be St Anne’s and Somerville. He shouldn’t stress about college choice too much though as a quarter of successful applicants receive offers from a different college to the one they applied to.

Is he interested in any particular area of maths? It might be a good idea to have a look at the profiles of the maths tutors at each of the colleges to get a sense of who he might be taught by on a day to day basis, and who would be interviewing him.

Depends. If he wants to roll out of bed 5 minutes before the lectures and only be about 5 minutes late, then in my year Keble was the one.🤣

Best thing to do is to make a list of what he would like (for me all accommodation provided by college was my top want) and then see which colleges fit the bill.

I’d say Worcester or University College, but it mostly matters what kind of environment he would enjoy. Some colleges have stronger pastoral care than others. Some are more diverse.

Hello this is super helpful to me too. DS wants to read maths and computer science at Oxford. He has no preference as to colleges.

DS is starting his second year at Oxford doing maths - not a rugby player though! He wanted a college that offered accommodation for 4 years and also(much to my surprise) had a sink in the bedroom! He looked at a few and picked one - which is quite generous! I'm not sure how much difference your college makes to the 'maths' part. How well you get on with the tutors probably affects things, but you can't really know that in advance! Happy to try to answer any questions, but would say don't stress too much about it!

My DS actually put in an open application (physics). We'd been to an open day and seen lots of colleges and ended up very confused!! They all had pluses and minuses.

He has ended up at a small central college and loves it. His school friends at different colleges also love theirs so I wouldn't stress about it too much.

@whiteroseredrose thank you.
DS has just put in an open application to read maths and computer science.

The maths will be taught centrally, apart from tutes, so there isn't really a better one academically. It's more what social environment he wants. He will be able to play college rugby at every college (there is rugby cuppers every year which is an inter-college championship).

Or just do an open application