Oxford open day next week :how are we supposed to fit it all in? How do we know which colleges to look at

[Opendaymaddnes]

Hello I'm trying to get my head around the open day and distances. The subject talk is quite early but it looks like we could spend all day at the subject talk area meeting tutors but we need to look at accommodation options also and colleges.

I've googled the best colleges for her subject and I hope to visit three? Does this sound like a plan? Is this what uther people do?

Yes, it used to be the case that people could make a strategic application to a less popular college - but now admissions are coordinated. So, say, St Hilda’s might not care for any of their applicants or interviewees and take all from, say, Merton who have a surfeit of superior applicants.

Eg when ds interviewed at a college, they were told brutally on first night, “There are 40 of you here, but we only have 8 places, and we might not take those 8 from anyone here.” I think it was good to be honest because otherwise applicants do take rejection very personally.

Adding it now.

This is the most recent report:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/AnnualAdmissionsStatisticalReport2025.pdf

Another big fan of Hilda’s here! Such a beautiful setting and relaxed / unstuffy vibe.

@Sevillian Thanks. Wasn’t sure why 21/22 kept popping up!

They seem to have more places for Experimental Psychology now? Am I reading that accurately?

I'm pretty sure my college didn't have any psychologists, so a key consideration will be to make sure of which colleges offer psychology. I would say that tutor interests are not particularly relevant, partly because tutors can change as mentioned by PP, and partly because it's very normal for what you're interested in to have changed drastically by the time you get as far as choosing any options compared to what you thought at 17. In humanities students have their pick of the optional papers, and get sent to the relevant tutors regardless of college. Some colleges will have particular alliances between colleagues, so if you go to X college you might be more likely to get a particular tutor at Y college than at Z college, but it's neither here nor there because you will, regardless, get an excellent tutor in the relevant subject. In sciences, there's a lot less choice, they just study everything, so you mostly stay with the same tutors in your college - but again, where specialist options are available, you will see the necessary specialists. I'm not sure about the balance of optional vs compulsory in social sciences.
And in terms of extra-curriculars, they do not care. It makes no difference at all whether someone can sing or play rugby, tutors are mostly extreme nerds in their subject and only care whether someone's interested in it (I know, cos they told me). There will always be enough musicians and sporty people in a driven academic cohort to make up the choir and everything, and choral scholar auditions are a separate process which also happen before admissions - so it's not like they'd let in someone who sings in choir over someone who doesn't on the off chance they might like to join the chapel choir, it's a competitive process.

@RejoiceandSing Around 20 offer it.

About two-thirds then, not much use for shortlisting

I would add Univ to your list. Good for EP, excellent location, the poo monster has graduated and the people are lovely. DD's best friend read EP there after an open offer.

@RejoiceandSing One tip we had was to go back as a tourist on another day and just say you want to have a look round as a prospective student. So book a weekend there and have a better look!

St Hilda’s is “unpopular” for a very simple reason: it was originally a womens college and so is necessarily much less “established” when you look at the several-hundred-year histories and feted alumni of some colleges. It’s less pretty and elegant than Lady Margaret and hasn’t got the fearsome blue stocking reputation of Somerville. But it’s an Oxford college nonetheless, you attend the same lectures, have to work to the same standard and have access to the same university facilities. And it has a river running through it. And less applicants. If your DS thinks Oxford will be bending over backwards to take him then he should dig in his toes about about a college with a Hogwartsesque dining Hall and a string of Prime Ministers as alumni. If he’s not that confident, Hilda’s can be a smart move. They will still require Oxford standard applicants but the reality is many candidates of potentially the “ right” standard don’t get taken because they don’t have the places.

At
https://public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-CollegeSuccessRates2023/CollegeSuccessRates?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no
you can find data on how many students apply to each college and more granular data by subject.

St Hilda's isn't particularly unpopular. Along with colleges like St Peter's, St Hugh's, Teddy Hall, Mansfield it doesn't get as many direct applications as some but it's far from an outlier.

You can also see they've taken 2 EP and 3 PPL students on average recently, from a standard-sized field of applicants.

When DD was interviewed years ago now, the interviewers were not just attached to the college she chose. They were listed at other colleges too. Different subject but it presumably means they see a range of applicants and will offer to the best and move them around.

A couple of my DC have had close encounters with rats in their college too. So along with asking about building projects maybe ask about the size of the rat population too (assuming you aren't a huge rat fan).

And one of those two had a squirrel resident in her room, but she was cool with that, except that the squirrel ate her chocolate (less cool).

Applying to a less oversubscribed college won’t give you a better chance of getting into Oxford (because the less oversubscribed college will expect to have other candidates reallocated to them from more popular colleges, and won’t be choosing only from their own list). But it will obviously give you a better chance of getting into your first choice college as you won’t be reallocated away from it.

Don't overthink it. Some colleges we walked in & walked out. The one DD went to caught her imagination so she gave it a chance & was lucky. Her BF from a very famous school deliberately applied to a newer college as he had done the whole beautiful surroundings thing for the last few years at school & got it out of his system!

Agree: don’t overthink it. My DC opted for colleges they thought were attractive and central. The only other thing was checking that a reasonable number of students for their subject were in each cohort. They didn’t go beyond those criteria .

Yes, my best friend applied to St Hugh's for the same reason, whereas I wanted exquisite quadrangles, fountains with carp and a gallery stuffed with Old Masters because that was very much not my background. I could have done without all the Old Etonians, though.

Friend had a great experience at Hugh's, and when she stayed on to do postgraduate work, did so at Linacre, another low-key, unstuffy (graduate-only) college.

And yes to whoever said things could be rodent-y.

And yes to whoever said things could be rodent-y

Although to be fair to the colleges, the City centre hotel that my brother stayed in for one of my DC's weddings in Oxford three months ago had a very bold rat in its dining room at breakfast time. A notably insouciant air the rat had, apparently (confirmed by my nephew who was also there).

Teddy Hall is actually lovely.

Is it weird I find that vaguely cute?

Also Old Mum opinions (or any old student’s!) are bound to be out of date. It really isn’t Brideshead/Saltburn. And the stereotypes about colleges no longer hold true, eg Teddy Hall being the home of poshos having food fights. Although Merton really is where fun goes to die, according to current students!

Well, not that much has changed, then. 😀