Just one. You.
Whilst there are annual quotas and targets for each branch, you can do nothing about these. However, as you will no doubt be told by the President of the Board in his address on day 1 (assuming they still do this), you may all pass, you may all fail. If the entire board comes up to scratch, and assuming there are still spaces available in your chosen speciality, you will all be offered a place on IOT.
Just be yourself, do your best and don't worry about others or the perceived competition - there is nothing you can do about it other than be ready in your own mind.
That said, the bit about there still being places available is largely outside of your control, however, depending on the time of year you apply, things may be easier for you than at other times. Assuming there are a lot of spaces in a specific branch, if you go at the start of the financial year they will in all likelihood make offers to people reaching the required standard. If you go at the end of the financial year and they still have spaces in branches, you should get an offer. The problem comes just after the mid-way point in the year; depending on the quality of the applicants, they may put all those that reach the required standard in a pool to see if they get any better candidates later in the year before making offers on the final few places.
I applied at the back end of the calendar year and went to OASC in Feb just before the end of the financial year in April and received an offer by late March without going into a pool as some of my friends did who applied before me.
PS - watch your spelling & grammar. You will get shot down in flames on here by some of the old and bold for lack of attention to detail, but more importantly that attention to detail will be needed to pass OASC and more importantly still to pass the block inspections at IOT!
Last edited by Melchett01; 14th Jun 2008 at 23:42.