mrsrhodgilbert, good luck for your test results. My son is at Oxford (not doing English) so I have a bit of secondhand knowledge to pass on which I hope will help.
To state the blindingly obvious, your daughter should look at the websites for both Oxford and Cambridge to see if she likes the look of the courses. There's a lot there and she will have a good deal to think about before she decides whether to apply. A few obvious points:
- Does she like the idea of studying in a town rather than a city or a campus university? The universities are major employers and tourist attractions in both towns and that has downsides. OTOH, they are so compact that you can get about entirely on foot or by bike.
- It's not as expensive as you might think. Both places have generous support for students from lower income families, if this is relevant, and the terms are so short that the accommodation costs are a lot lower than in many other places. (See also point below about libraries.)
- It's strongly discouraged to have a part-time job during term-time. Most people would not have time as the workload is very heavy. This is a marked difference from other universities.
- The college system is completely different from every other university in the UK (including Durham) because (a) admissions decisions are made at college level and (b) teaching is organised at college level except for lectures. At Oxford students will often go to other colleges for tutorials/seminars, depending on the modules being studies, but in the last analysis responsibility for the student's progress rests with his/her own college. The student has the college library (often excellent) to draw on as well as the university/faculty library (for both universities, just about the best in the UK - huge cost saving that so much is available free and doesn't have to be bought by the student). Accommodation is provided by the college, and many colleges are able to provide it for the entire course. It's cheaper than private renting and there's also subsidised catering in college.
- The single biggest difference though, is the huge importance of the tutorial/supervision. (I believe supervision is the word used at Cambridge.) Students have to be prepared to spend an hour a week in an intensive tutorial with an academic, either 1:1 or 2:1. For each tutorial there will be an essay to write and this will be picked apart during the tutorial. This would not suit everyone.
There are a lot of similarities between the Oxford and Cambridge admissions processes, but also some significant differences.
- They both look closely at the academic record to date and the predicted A level results, but Cambridge pay far more attention to AS results than GCSE results, and Oxford do it the other way round. My son had excellent GCSEs. His AS results were very good but not stratospheric and this was for him the main reason he applied to Oxford rather than Cambridge, as he was equally attracted to both places and courses. (He loves Oxford, btw, so fortunately that worked out OK!)
Oxford also use aptitude tests for a lot of subjects. The tests are taken in school in early November. Details
here for English.
Both places will want to see an example piece of schoolwork.
Both will then invite some applicants to interview. Cambridge interview a higher proportion of applicants but that feeds through into a higher rejection rate after interview because they have a similar amount of places to offer. Oxford interviews are residential. Applicants are there for at least two days, usually, staying in the college they've applied to.
The interview is designed to be like a tutorial - ie very stretching indeed, lots of questioning, seeing if the applicant can react quickly, construct a good argument on the spot - and if applicants hate it and struggle with the approach, that may be a sign that they are better off elsewhere. This can apply even to super-bright students.
Pooling: if the college applied to doesn't want to offer to an applicant, they can pass them onto another college. At Oxford this happens during the residential period, so when the final decision comes through it could be yes from the original college, yes from another college or no. At Cambridge pooling is a second stage and involves going back for a second round of interviews.
That's a huge amount of information to get your head round! I hope it's correct, it's been three years since my son applied.
Good luck with the decision-making. Durham is a vg university and if your daughter decides she'd rather stick with Plan A that is a perfectly sensible thing to do.