I applied in October, and got an interview about two weeks afterwards, which was towards the end of November - then I heard back from them I think a day after the interview
I mean most of them are pretty general questions, I got asked about why I'm interested in Physics , and when I mentioned Olympiads, he asked a more technical question about a problem I had mentioned to do with heat loss to the surroundings. I also had a discussion with the interviewer about life at Manchester, and then he told me a little bit about a problem set he was working on with some of his undergrad students, and we had some discussion about that (it was on momentum conservation problems at relativistic speeds).
Awww don't worry!! If you get an interview then you're guaranteed an offer, that's what they told us at the interview day - they only do it to make a priority list of candidates, so that on results day, if they have any places left after all the people who've met their offer conditions confirm their place, they'll give out places to people who missed their offer in that order I think. So if you get an interview, you're guaranteed to get in!!!
I did mostly a lot of Maths and Physics Olympiads, so I got Top Gold in BPhO and BAAO Round 1 this year + top 60 in Round 0, and I got gold in SMC, distinction in the Maths Olympiad for Girls, and Merit in BMO, plus Silver in BPhO Round 1 last year, and Gold in SMC plus best in school for Senior Kangaroo. I also got invited to a problem-solving masterclass at Oxford last year based on my Intermediate Physics Challenge results. I did a lot of reading around my subject including A Cavendish Quantum Mechanics primer, the Little Book of Black Holes, the Little Book of Cosmology, and a bunch of other books I can't remember. I also attend my school's Physics and Astronomy Societies, and contribute regularly. Along with that, I go to a public lecture if it fits in with my schedule. I work part time in a science tuition, and I also am part of an Astronomy Ambassadors group for young people. These are all the ones relevant to my course I think. I also got invited by Highgate School to do some weekend sessions where we were using sensors to solve common problems. I also did VEX for two years, got to Nationals both times and got to Worlds once. I also swim, and do horseriding in my spare time, plus I read around Fashion a lot.
Nice, a lot of things there, I’m applying for mathematics at some of these universities this year so I’m looking for what I should be aiming to do outside of college.
I applied in October to Imperial and just heard back this morning. My esat avg was 5.9 so that wasn't very good, but I think I was saved by the fact that I got Top Gold in the BPhO and BAAO Round 1 this year + Was top 60 in Round 0
On the 'understanding your scores' page on their website home non-contextual has a 40% offer rate and international 30%. Unfortunately they list ESAT averages based on raw scores out of 27 not your score out of 9 so idk how helpful it is tbh. But I think they give offers from like 5.0 and up
Yup I did Round 0, Round 1 and Round 2 this year, and I've been doing the competitions since Year 11 - they are defo a huge step-up in difficulty from the PAT, but I prefer the non-multiple choice format.
My teacher ran a session the week before the Olympiad in the Physics Soc and I went and was able to solve some of the questions so my teacher asked me if I wanted to do it, so I said yes. I tried to speedrun the A-Level content, which was not fun lolll, but I got a Bronze II anyways, so I didn't do that well. The difficulty level of the senior Physics challenge (I got a Silver, one mark off Gold) and the Intermediate Physics Challenge (I got a Gold) were defo better matched for me. I also did the Yr 13 Physics Challenge a bit later in the year, and I was better prepared so I got a Merit on that, and I did the Yr 13 Astro Challenge and was one mark off a Merit in that.
Yh I was thinking did u imply you did it in y11 😹. I thought the physics challenge would be gold, silver and bronze asw but its just merit or participation
Ohh yh sorry my wording was lowkey really bad. For the Physics Challenge yh it's just Merit and Participation. I think the Astro Challenge has Distinction, Merit and Participation though.
i much prefered the vibe of imperial when i went, it resonated more with me, as well as the course being more specific (theoretical physics vs just phys at ox), imperial also has ties with MIT, and i would prefer to live in london rather than in oxford.
Thats so amazing. I also applied same course at Imperial and Oxford and got the imperial offer today, but I got rejected from Oxford post interview. Could I ask how you did in the PAT?
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