The Re-Application

So you’ve made up your mind, for whatever reason, just like I did, your going to try out for Oxbridge a second time. How are we going to make this work?

It’s time to be brutally honest with yourself, take a step back and look at your entire application, from each individual UMS score, your personal statement, reference, interview, admissions test etc.. What let you down? Why weren’t you considered good enough to be made an offer?

For me it was obvious. I just wasn’t good enough. The boys I met from St.Pauls/Westminster applying for the same course (NatSci), were just on a different league to me. Their minds had been cultivated to a level far beyond anything I could have imagined, the amount they had read and their approach to work was unparalleled, its no wonder that they dominate Oxbridge. Furthermore, there were many fundamental flaws in my application, such as having dropped a subject I claimed to be so passionate about (Physics) and a low to average Chemistry UMS score (86%). I had to accept the fact that I probably wasn’t even given a chance, despite being invited to interview. 

 

I asked Cambridge for feedback and there was little to no mention about my academic performance, which means I can deduce with a reasonable amount of certainty it wasn’t bad, but obviously not stunning, what they did mention is that they felt I was a bit of a “bluffer” a.k.a I’d come across as an arrogant prick that acted as though he knew a hell of a lot more than I actually did.

The question now, is how do I turn this around? Better myself to be in a position where I’m made an offer in a years time? 

 

For some of us, its simple, maybe we underscored a little in the admissions test, were incredibly nervous at interview, were so close onto the border-line its just a matter of playing the odds.

I believe if you want something to work, you’ve got to make it work. There’s no relaxation in re-application. 

 

From the moment my January exams finished, I continued reading “Feymann’s lectures on Physics vol 1”, making daily notes and getting up early to discuss the Physics with my then mentor at school. Beyond preparing for my exams in Chemistry, Further Maths and Physics, I advanced my mathematical techniques by preparing for STEP I and AEA. I did everything I could to try and fortify my application beyond that of having good grades. Once having achieved my grades, I further read through all the physics journals I could get my hands on, making notes on derivations, idea’s and complex problems, extensively prepared myself for technical interview questions by working through STEP II/III and Physics Olympiad paper 2.

Should I get help?

This is an often discussed question, and the answer to this is definitely YES. What is all this rubbish about the honour of not “needing” any help to get in? Do you or do you not want to do everything in your power to give you the best chance of success? If you feel like your able to go through the entire re-application process without any external guidance, your obviously not pushing yourself hard enough. No matter how smart you are, there will always be moments when you hit a brick wall, questions which even after staring at them for days you will fall short of any progress. It’s times like these, when you’ve put in the leg-work, that it really pays to have a great mentor. Someone who can really stretch your mind, teach you different methods of approach and most importantly inspire you. If you work and train with the best, its only a matter of time before you will join their ranks.

Interview training

Same thing here, giving a stellar performance in interview is just like any other skill, something that can and should be practised. The amount of people who spit out crap like “interviews are something, that cannot and should not be prepared for” is absolutely disgusting. The idea that you will be subjected to a variety of random nonsensical questions to see “how you think”, is absolute nonsense. So you walk into your first interview, completely unprepared, literally can barely open your lips because your shitting yourself with fear, can't start the half the questions and the ones you do you get completely and utterly wrong. For my first mock interview, the first question caught me by such surprise, I stuttered for about 5 minutes before the teacher gave up and asked a different question. Only with plenty of practice will your mind adept into such a manner that it will become second nature.

Remember that you're being interviewed to read Physics, a hardcore rigorous academic subject. At Oxbridge, such a degree will demand a lot of you. They want to see how you work under pressure, how well you react to new information and most importantly how able you are to apply your knowledge to unfamiliar circumstances.

Start off with asking yourself questions, about anything and everything mildly related to your course, really push yourself, research the answers you don’t know about. Find friends and family who had previous interviews, ask them what they were asked, see how you’d respond. Then go to your teachers, arrange as many mock interviews as possible, you want to walk out of each interview feeling that you did abysmally, that there were a million things you’d overlooked in your preparation, that there is so much more for you to learn, so much more that you could improve on. For those of you who don’t have particularly helpful teachers, you may want to consider companies that offer specific Oxbridge preparation. I never used them, so I can’t give an opinion, but take my word for it, that exposure to the kinds of problems you're likely to be asked is definitely very helpful.

Should I apply to the same University I got rejected from?

This is a very personal decision, something that you'll need to think about. My blanket advice would be not to. Out of the small sample of people I’ve known to re-apply, the success rate amongst people who’ve switched (i.e camb-ox or ox-camb) has been significantly higher than that of those who re-applying to same uni. The major factor here, I believe is purely psychological. I think it is much easier to motivate and throw yourself into a completely new application, for a different subject, different university and sell yourself as a completely different person, than it would be just to do the same thing for a second time. The other thing is, do you really expect the uni to look at you as a completely new applicant? Having tested and interviewed you, made an extensive file on you, it would almost be stupid of them to throw it away and not compare the 2^nd you to the 1^st you.

Then you’ve got the fact that both universities offer slightly different courses, have slightly different reputations and have a very different look and feel. I was personally very tempted to re-apply to Cambridge, my girlfriend at the time was studying there and on a global scale I would say their reputation for science is that bit more glitzy. The question you’ve really got to ask yourself, is can you stomach being rejected twice by the same university? I couldn’t bare the thought of being pooled one more time after another set of interviews which I felt went well, I needed a fresh start.

Other small pockets advice

Having given the rest of this article a really serious tone, I think its important to truly understand that this article is not the be-all and end-all. I don’t feel you should take a gap year solely to re-apply Oxbridge and consider it a failure if you don’t get it. At some point you’ve got to realize that a lot of it is really out of your hands and you’ve got to make the most out it! Whilst I definitely think hard work is necessity, you need to know when to relax.

During the application process, I was definitely out on the lash/clubbing with London uni students 4-6 nights a week, in fact I would argue this was essential to my success. You can’t advance mentally if you don’t allow your brain time to recover. You’ll find that by being that bit more adventurous in your personal life, your academic life will also benefit.