Oxford Maths/ Maths stats/ Maths CS - 2025 - Anyone got an offer this year?

[vaux777]

Hi,

DC is at a superselective Grammar school in London and teachers are kind of discouraging them from applying to Oxbridge as a lot of the top students at the school in the last few years have not been successful at Oxford in spite of stellar grades. DC interested in MATHS OR THE JOINT MATHS COURSE at OXFORD.

So ,I'm curious to know how many kids have been successful in getting an offer at Oxford for Maths or any of the joint Maths courses this year. Particularly interested if any one has an offer for the joint courses - Maths & Stats or Maths & Computer Science as they are so few places on the joint courses.

If anyone has got an offer only for Maths and the maths joint courses - rough idea what their GCSE grades were like, whether they were applying from a selective or non selective school or private school etc would be helpful.

Thanks.

DS has an offer for maths & CS fron Oxford. He is also at a super selective in the South East. A number of his year applied for maths and another person in his year also has a place at Oxofrd for straight maths. There are also others with offers for different subjects. We have about a 12% success rate for Oxbridge. School don't offer additional prep on exams or interviews.

His GCSEs were mainly 9 and 8 with one 7, similar to the others that applied to Oxbridge. He spent a lot of time on his PS,: volunteering as a mentor, giving maths lectures and doing some work office on data inputting and analysis. We think this with GCSE's and high MAT score led to an interview.

There is exceptionally low number of students on the joint degree. In his college, there are total of 8 people: 5 maths, 2 maths/cs and 1 maths/philosophy. All male with the exception of the other maths/cd who didn't come to offer holder day

Here is a link to the Maths and Joint schools admissions report 2024 which has lots of useful statistics in terms of application to place rate for different courses.

https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Feedback%202024.pdf

As you will see, the most important data point is not GCSEs but performance on the MAT test as this is critical for getting shortlisted even though other data is also taken into account.

Thanks for sharing the file. It looks like they over offer a bit as the number of places on the joint courses are very few ( apprx 25 I think if I recollect ) I must say that the MAT scores have been high even though the school technically does not prepare them but the bright students have not got in.

DC says that the teacher mentioned something about Oxford colleges linking with local non selective schools in the area and the preference tends to be for students from these schools. Of course it does depend on the course but the teacher ( a maths teacher) was specifically talking about Maths courses.

I know there is a big drive for ' widening access' but was rather surprised of the impact it has been having on a grammar school especially as it's London (so more applications ). To put it bluntly DC said teacher was subtly implying that being a London superselective grammar school student, in actuality you will stand less of a chance to get into Oxford, so think if you really want to apply.

I don’t see why he shouldn’t apply? As long as he is strategic with his other applications he will end up somewhere.

It is absolutely not true that Oxford colleges give preference to pupils in their link regions when offering places. Either the teacher has misunderstood or DS has. What is true is that each college has a set of link regions which they are meant to particularly target and work with for outreach events. So there may be summer schools or widening participation events where students in those regions get priority. But it has no bearing on offers. The purpose of link regions is just to spread resources out when running outreach activities so that (eg) 5 different colleges aren’t targetting Yorkshire while Norfolk is completely ignored.

Your DS teacher is spewing a very wrong take on widening participation there

teacher was subtly implying that being a London superselective grammar school student, in actuality you will stand less of a chance to get into Oxford, so think if you really want to apply.

Less of a chance than they used to have? Or less of a chance than a kid from a non-selective? Possibly the former as things get slightly more balanced, but not the latter. The teacher is subtly being a tad conspiracy theorist to cover their arse with people who thought going to that school gave them some advantage. If DC want to apply to oxbridge, it's no bad thing to have a healthy perspective on the chances of getting in as opposed to thinking they're destined for it. Most people who apply to oxbridge from comps know it's a massive longshot but have a crack anyway and are, as PP says, strategic with their other choices. Your dc can do that or give up on it and focus their efforts on other unis, but they've not been disadvantaged by having a super-selective education and that's a poor message for the teacher to be spreading, especially if the subtext is 'give up on your oxbridge dreams because the comp school kids are taking your places.'

My son has an offer. Mostly 9s at GCSE, some 8s and one 7. He did an extra one by self-study. Astar for his EPQ. Four Astar A level predictions. Excellent personal statement. Has done summer schools, and read around his subject. He’s done the maths competitions at school, and has helped coach other children at maths clubs. High MAT test results. We are not in a link region.

My ds has graduated now but was at a standard comprehensive. 10x9, 2x8 GCSE, 4 x A* A levels. But the critical thing really is the MAT - a high enough score to get an interview and once a dc has an interview place it's really all about who the Tutors feel is the best fit - in reality by that stage all the applicants are a very high calibre. MAT scores are released after offers are made - DS scored over 80.
There are very few places for the joint honours courses, at DS's (large) college there were 6 straight Maths, 2 Maths and CS, 1 Maths/Stats and that was it. Lots of the Maths students took Stats courses in 2,3 and 4th year as there are lots to choose from.
Lastly, Oxford don't over offer by much, all courses have a standard offer so any dc getting one is very likely to achieve their (very reasonable) offer. For Maths, only about 30% of applicants make it to interview.

I would agree it's all about the MAT. DS had 10x9s for GCSE, 4A star predictions and gold senior Maths challenge results every year since Y9 and 70% MAT. Didn't get an interview. Boys from his schools who got 80+ in MAT got interviews and a good number of those got offers.

The thing about widening participation is that as more people apply, the talent pool of applicants gets bigger, and so schools who 20 years ago would expect to easily get X number of people into Oxbridge find that they are getting fewer. It’s perhaps not surprising that some of them then get conspiracy theoryish about it and so start to feel Oxford is biased against grammar schools or private schools.

In Maths specifically, the number of international applicants has also gone up over the last decades - many of whom will score amazingly in the MAT. And so the grammar school/private school applicants, who back in the past would have been largely competing only with each other, are now not only competing with a wider range of UK students but also with a larger number of brilliant mathematicians from around the world. But from a school’s perspective, they don’t know who else has applied, they just see that Tom is great and he didn’t get in, or that we used to get more people in than this.

As Maths & Stats was mentioned by the OP, it seemed worth mentioning that the Maths and Maths & Stats application routes have now been combined. A prospective student applies to both and, if admitted to Oxford, chooses between the two courses early in the second year.

OP - Oxford's admissions pages state that the average number of people offered places for the joint degree in Maths and CS over the last 3 years was 51 per year (not 25, as you've been told): www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/mathematics-and-computer-science

There will be a bit of fluctuation year on year as many colleges will have some flexibility about how many places they offer for a joint degree vs the parent schools, and that will depend on who they feel are the strongest applicants that year.

Friends d c at O reading maths. Naturally very gifted at maths without any tutoring and very little revision. Super selective grammar, 11 x 9 plus 4 x A star A levels. Did a little bit of maths mentoring in the sixth form and attended a couple of maths master classes at Oxbridge. Very confident in their maths abilities. Scored 85 on MAT and had two good interviews. Another friends ds is very quirky, amazing at maths and computer science has an offer for Maths and Philosophy at O. Also 11 x 9 plus 4 x A star.
There are a couple of dc who have been rejected for maths but then reapply for Chemistry which is slightly less competitive. The Chem course is mathematical.

OP even if the school doesn't prep for exams, the Oxford websites have links to past papers for all their exams and they encourage applicants to practice them. They also have links to YouTube videos where professors talk about interview content and show some practice interviews with people as well. So your DC can be as prepared as the next applicant, they just have to look this stuff up and get on with it.