x - Balliol College - University of Oxford

University of Oxford
Department of Engineering Science
Request for information
Congratulations on achieving your place at Oxford! In getting a place this year, you have been
successful against the largest field of applicants to the course we have ever had. If you were given a
deferred place then you were successful against the next largest field. We are pleased to see the
rise in the number of applicants but it is beginning to cause problems for us in timetabling the
admissions interviews. We need to find a way to reduce the proportion of applicants we interview.
In the coming year we will be asking all applicants to sit the Physics Aptitude Test to help in this
process, but we are investigating other sources of information that could help refine the selection
process. Cambridge makes extensive use of the module scores achieved at AS to help select those
they interview. I am writing asking for your help in collecting data that will help us decide what
other data might be useful.
AS and final GCSE module scores
Cambridge University uses the Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) of the modules obtained at GCE as part of
the assessment in deciding who to interview. Normally the results it uses are those obtained by the
time of application – so, for instance, the UMS of a paper taken in January will be superseded by a
second attempt in June. After each round of examinations the examination boards issue statements
of provisional results. We are particularly interested in the mathematics and physics papers.
Please send us a copy of the “Statement of Provisional Results” containing the results of modules
going towards GCEs in any form of Mathematics (Maths, Further Maths, Additional Maths,
Statistics etc.) and for Physics that you received i) by the summer of your AS results (for most of
you this will be June 2010) and ii) the final GCE set (June 2011 for most of you). Please post
photocopies to Dr Jane Frew, Academic Administrator, Department of Engineering Science, Parks
Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ, or email scans of the documents to academic.administrator@eng.ox.ac.uk
If you did not do GCE A levels then please send a copy of the equivalent final results notice and any
information that was available by the time of application to the course, usually the previous year.
Professor A Blakeborough
Admissions Coordinator
8 th August 2011