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Ref. FOI/2015/Sept
18th September 2015
Reply to request for information under Freedom of Information of Act
Your Ref: / Your email dated 1st September
Address: / What Do They Know
Request / According to the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting a spreadsheet on undergraduate admissions statistics to the A100 Medicine course at Oxford Medical School from this admission cycle (2015 entry), i.e, the most recent statistics.
I would like the spreadsheet to include:
1) For each applicant interviewed (anonymized) I would like to know what International Baccalaureate results and their BMAT scores (divided between Section 1, Section 2, and Section 3) I would like the same for those who were not interviewed.
2) The information of candidates with their IB predicted grades and BMAT scores to be split into successful and unsuccessful.
6) If any scoring system is used to grade applicants to be invited to interview, then I would kindly request this to be made available to me as well (for the 2016 entry).

Dear Mr Smythe

Thank you for your request. Our response is provided below.

Items 1 and 2

This information is provided in the attached spreadsheet. Please note that IB predicted grades are not routinely stored.

Item 3

The shortlisting calculation, which is not based on actual or predicted IB scores, is as follows:

In recent years we have interviewed 425 applicants (about 30% of the cohort applying to the course, though this varies according to the size of the field for that year). The figure of 425 includes international applicants.

As part of the process to decide which applicants are called to interview, we establish a numerical ranking on the basis of GCSE performance and BMAT results (both quantitative and objective measures and equally weighted). GCSE performance will be considered within the context of the school at which the GCSEs have been sat (using government data on the percentage of pupils obtaining 5 or more GCSEs at grade A*-C).

If applicants have not taken GCSEs or IGCSEs the ranking is based on BMAT score alone. This ranking forms the basis of an initial shortlist. See below for further details as to how the ranking score is calculated.

As we short-list the same number of people every year, and we use two variables (which carry the same weight), there is no actual cut-off for either BMAT or GCSEs. How well you need to do in the BMAT in order to be short-listed will be entirely dependent on how well every other applicant does, and how well you have done in GCSEs (if you have taken them). A slightly weaker performance at GCSE may be compensated for by a very good BMAT score, and vice-versa.

The applications of candidates who do not make the initial shortlist are reviewed by tutors, taking into account any individual circumstances - both academic and on-academic - that might indicate that GCSE and/or BMAT performance is likely to have underestimated their potential. Any applicants deemed worthy of further consideration are then reviewed by a cross-college panel, alongside applicants immediately below the initial shortlist. As a result of this process around 40 additional applicants are added to the shortlist.

Calculation of ranking score:

All applicants are ranked on the basis of the following equation:

Ranking score = 0.74 * normalised BMAT score (40 : 40 : 20) + 0.74 *contextualized GCSE score where (40 : 40 : 20) reflects the weighting given respectively to the three BMAT sections and contextualized GCSE score represents a combination of the number of A* at GCSE and the proportion of GCSE adjusted for school performance.

Where GCSEs were not taken, the BMAT score is ‘doubled-up’ in the equation.

The contextualised GCSE score is calculated as follows:

The number of A* at GCSE is normalised with respect to the rest of the cohort The proportion of A* at GCSE is normalised with respect to the rest of the cohort.

The two scores above are then averaged to produce the GCSE score.

For each candidate the GCSE score is spotted against the school performance data at which the candidate took their GCSEs (% of pupils obtaining 5 or more GCSEs at grades A*-C). The contextualised GCSE score is the standardised residual taken from the regression line.

Yours sincerely

FOI OXFORD