History at Oxbridge - college choice?

[Hiji]

Should you be looking at a college where the DoS have the same periods of history that you are interested in - or does that not matter eg if they are specialist in medieval history but you are more interested in modern history should you try to find a college with a DoS who has interests in that area?

Also as numbers of history undergraduates vary significantly per college should you be looking at a college with the most history students?

Also the stats on state vs independent schools per college - are they relevent? for example would those with high level of independent school students be better to apply to if you are a state school candidate?

Sorry these Qs above and below were/are for Cambridge rather than Oxford.

Also is there any point reading anything into the % of offers - again as thesee vary considerably - so should you look at colleges that are less competitive? Or does it all come out in the wash through the pooling system and the % only reflect initial application point?

There will be a lot more knowledgeable than me, but I do have a history degree from Cambridge.

For what it's worth, yes I think it's a good idea though not essential to look for a DoS that 'matches'.

And yes, I think a large number of students in that subject in a year is a good thing. Though I recommended that to DS and in fact he has one other person in his year reading his subject and it's fine, much better than he one I had my eye on which is huge for his subject.

I think college choice is extremely personal amd I wouldn't worry too much about state vs independent stats - the vibe does matter. But I think it's easy to tell which colleges are really reaching out to state school applicants from the prospectus.

Pooling does even things out a lot. If there isn't a preference from the child, I would encourage looking at a bigger college as the small colleges expect to pick up more from the pool imo.

I would encourage looking at a bigger college as the small colleges expect to pick up more from the pool imo.

Thank you @PermanentTemporary thats very helpful. Can I just ask you if you mean bigger as in total number of students at that college for all subjects or just for History students?

I guess by bigger I mean more students overall, plus generously endowed. Though I'm not always right about which colleges are actually biggest.

Click the right buttons on this and it'll show you how many each college has taken from the pool for each subject over the last five years: https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics

It's not really "smaller" colleges (Corpus, Magdalene, Peterhouse) who pool most, it's the hill and newer colleges, certainly in the humanities.

Watching with interest as we noticed the same. DS wants to do History at Cambridge but college stats on that link above are wild. Variations huge year on year for some colleges
Probably I am overthinking (I do this a lot)

So are you suggesting that the newer and Hill colleges get more applicants from the pool - so potentially you have a fraction of a better chance of applying directly to those colleges?

They say that the pool is supposed to iron that out - that if you're good enough for Cambridge you'll get in even if you apply for an oversubscribed college.

But if you desperately want to go to a college who rarely pools (let's say St John's) then the only way you're going to get in there is applying for John's. Then you might have a second chance from the pool. By contrast, if you apply to (for example) Fitz, then you'll either get in to Fitz or not, but you won't be picked up from the pool.

tl/dr pros and cons of playing the system probably even out in the end. Apply for the college you want.

(Conventional wisdom is that the exception there is oversubscribed colleges for Maths and some sciences, where there's the danger that you'll be cut before interview and therefore have no chance in the pool. Don't think that applies to History though)

You can see some colleges seem to offer quite a bit from the pool for History. Murray Edwards for example gets relatively low direct so seem to get a bunch from the pool. And yes they seem to be the newer colleges that are on this list eg Churchill, Robinson up there. But not exclusively eg Girton which can be less popular due to location. It also massively varies year on year too. Sidney Sussex took 3 from winter pool last year but 0 in 2022.
My reading would be that if you want a good chance then apply to Girton or Murray Edwards directly. They have good numbers of places but relative low direct applicants. Compared to eg Trinity which has similar places but has twice as many applicants. Ofc no good for DS as Murray Edwards is female only !