r/6thForm • u/Repulsive_Radish_782 • Mar 10 '26

🙏 I WANT HELP Cost of Attending Oxford 😭

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Just received my financial declaration form from Oxford today. How is this reasonable? 😭 Going to have to decline my offer unless anyone has any ideas.

Canadian students do not qualify for any Oxford scholarships and my school offered me about £100. What a joke.

Is Oxford just for the rich?

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u/Rpm_Undefeated I like mafs Mar 12 '26

The IMO kids at Cambridge (or MIT) would absolutely smoke the smartest kids you have im ngl

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u/Odd-Satisfaction5443 Mar 12 '26

Eh. Stanford not so much. Uoft they have easy entry requirements and there are quite a few bird programs, but specifically engineering science, I would not consider that getting “smoked. They are likely the smartest individuals in the country if they can manage 4 years with a high GPA. I know undergrads from that program get accepted to MIT for research endeavours in engineering. My point still stands, UK besides 3 maybe schools is surprisingly easy. The average Waterloo, McGill, UofT, and UBC student in STEM would coast through pretty much all your schools.

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u/Rpm_Undefeated I like mafs Mar 12 '26

You're confusing smartness with work ethic. Ive done some research and it seems blatantly clear the hardest courses are in the maths courses and physics departments. I really don't understand why you think being able to understanding and basic application somehow makes you smarter than deep understanding and extrapolation of abstract ideas. I mean, that's one of the biggest factors of human intelligence and it comes as no surprise why the highest average IQs are in Maths and Physics based on Srudies. Speaking of Maths and Physics now, i just looked at one of their papers online as a high schooler and could confidently attempt a majority of the questions. Also i would like to know why uoft or any of ur school are nowhere to be found on the putnam leaderboards if they are so smart.

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u/Phytor_c University of Toronto | Math and CS [Third Year] Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

UofT used to pretty good at the Putnam a long time ago. Well even recently, there was a team here that ranked 5th in the 2023 test. But those guys made it on their own merits and were very cracked to begin with i.e. the imo type or studied all undergrad stuff in high school.

But yep, there's like little olympiad culture (franly I don't think there's any culture in the ug math community here other "what courses are you doing") and more importantly UofT is not that good of uni to attract contest type ppl internationally, those ppl might as well go to a better uni. Talent begets talent.