myOxbridgeChoice.com, the definitive resource to help Oxford and Cambridge applicants make informed decisions when choosing their university, college and course was launched on Thursday 3rd June 2010.
On Sunday 20th June an article highlighting some of the discrepancies in admissions data that our system has exposed was published in the Sunday Times.
Since then the concept of myOxbridgeChoice and what we do has stimulated a lively debate about the use of data to help applicants when having to make difficult decisions about the choice of course and college at Oxford and Cambridge.
John Green, a former senior tutor at Queens’ College, Cambridge and founder of myChoice Data Systems Ltd which developed myOxbridgeChoice, said, “We’d like to make it clear that myOxbridgeChoice has never claimed to do anything but present data that is already in the public domain. The site’s unique features enable comparisons to be made between courses and colleges at Oxford and Cambridge over 10 years of carefully researched admissions data. Sources are clearly referenced throughout and we see our service as a significant break-through for prospective students who simply don’t have the time or the inclination to trawl through countless websites, prospectuses or editions of the Gazette or Reporter.”
Dr Green is also keen that myOxbridgeChoice be as useful and relevant as possible and does not want to be at odds with the universities’ admissions offices. He says, “We acknowledge that Oxford and Cambridge have gone much further than any other publicly funded university in publishing admissions data. We do not wish their openness to be misconstrued and believe that many of the behaviours demonstrated are apparent in other universities. We will be contacting admissions tutors at Oxford and Cambridge over the next few weeks and asking them to give us feedback on our service.”
Dr Green answers academics who have called our service “a scam” saying that the real scam is that universities take money from the taxpayer and want to increase fees without being in anyway publicly accountable for the services they provide. “myOxbridgeChoice is showing the way in which university admissions data may be presented in ways which are informative to the public, revealing systematic behaviours in admissions systems which may demonstrate unfairness. The concept behind myOxbridgeChoice is very simple and could be developed a lot further to cover all courses and universities. As the cost of a university education is set to increase dramatically the public will want to know what they are getting for their money. myOxbridgeChoice is not creating data. It shows what can be done with publicly available data.
“If such services are to be useful and relevant it is important that we find out what information people would find useful. We are committed to developing myOxbridgeChoice and we hope that Oxford and Cambridge universities lead the way for all UK universities in making such data available.”
We'll be sure to keep you updated on the responses we receive from the admissions tutors as they come in.
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