Would a person need to be officially GnT to consider Oxford?

I got into Oxbridge - by fluke- I just happened to click with my s- level paper on the day, whereas I'd struggled with past papers. However, I was on a very intense academic course, and didn't really enjoy it tbh. I did quite a bit of sport, but not the ones I was most interested in as they were done in the afternoons when we had labs and lectures. A lot of the art courses had very little teaching - 1 lecture a week if that, in some cases,so I missed out on that side of college life.

So having got into a profession that realistically I'm not naturally bright enough for, I am now a Sahm, happier by far, except for the persistent nag in my head that I am making myself less employable with every year, and wishing I'd done teaching or accountancy.

DH is an Oxford graduate. He is (relatively) normal. It was expected by his hateful family that he would go there, failure wasn't an option and he had to apply two years in a row to be accepted.
His first year, by his own admission was awful. He loathed it because he wasn't sure what the expectations were.
As it turned out, he got a first but, still went on to work as a bus driver.

worldgonecrazy - yes what you said is a much better way of putting it.

No you don't need to be G&T but hard work alone is not going to get you in to Oxbridge.

Your DD is up against the top 0.1% of scholars in the whole World.

She needs to be naturally all round intelligent, have a real gift for her chosen subject and very very well schooled and prepared.

Going back to the OP - I would definitely suggest she goes to an open day or two, but looks into other universities as well so she can end up with a good portfolio to apply to. Hopefully between teachers and admissions tutors they can help her see what to aim for and whether she does have a realistic chance. It is grim being somewhere where you can't keep up with the work, but very hard to suss out in advance.

Good grief. IME (went to Cambridge from a very average comprehensive) the main things are: try and get good grades, and believe you have every right to apply and be there. In the end it is just a university and anyone can apply. Like a previous poster said, I'm no brain surgeon either, just interested in my subject and managed to get a reasonable amount of A grades.

I think it's a myth that you need to demonstrate loads of sports/music/extracurricular talents. That's easy for the private-school types who have all those opportunities handed to them on a plate but that was not my type of background. Oxbridge admissions are pretty clued up to this I imagine.

Actually, Oxford at least do look at postcodes during their admissions process. A little is explained here, but basically they flag applicants from deprived areas and for applicants with more than one flag (you can also be flagged for having been in care or attending an underperforming school) they are more likely to be invited for interview than otherwise.

Perhaps your Ibizagirl's friend was lamenting that her council estate wasn't deprived enough to get a flag?

Quoted from link above...

The postcode that an applicant gives as their home address, assessed using ACORN information. ACORN is a system that associates specific geodemographic profiles to individual UK postcodes; it is widely recognised and used by both the public and private sectors to assist in the effective targeting of policies, services and communications. Where a candidate?s postcode falls into ACORN groups four or five (Moderate Means and Hard Pressed) the application will be flagged. More information about ACORN can be found at www.caci.co.uk/acorn-classification.aspx.
An additional postcode factor will be used in the flagging for the coming admissions round. The postcode from an applicant?s home address is matched against the POLAR2 data set. This classification places regions into Quintiles based on the rate of young participation in Higher Education. Applicants from the lowest two quintiles will be flagged. More information about POLAR2 can be found atwww.hefce.ac.uk/widen/polar/polar2/ .

Oxford are looking for bright candidate who are obsessed very interested in their chosen subject. They are more interested in how a person thinks - can they think outside the box, argue their point convincingly, are they passionate. These are the clues as to whether your daughter should apply for Oxford.

Piffle to the postcode thing Ibiza.

I'd have thought G&T was a complete red herring OP.

I'd always strongly discourage any DC from taking the view that it's Oxford or bust.

Which subject has she decided on, or which subjects has she in mind?

ibizagirl, your friend was talking out of her behind.

It goes on academic excellence. They are looking for brilliance in their subject, an interest in it that goes beyond school and can be demonstrated through their personal statement on their UCAS form, a string of As and A's at GCSE and 3 or 4 A's at A-Level.

Absolute rot that a council estate postcode would put them off. Actually they are actively recruiting from the very deprived estate near us (students from local school have been invited to taster days etc. by the uni.)

Ibiza that's complete rubbish. Oxbridge do not discriminate on the basis of postcode.

GO FOR IT! Be careful though. Friends of ours have four children. All of them were on g and t. The one boy got 14 gsce passes all A* and a's and could not get into Oxbridge. Mother said it goes on postcode and as we live on council estate they had no chance. My daughter apparently is oxbridge material and she is only in year 8 and on g and t so what chance would we have? Still go for it though you never know. Perhaps it goes on how many spaces left?

Definately go and have a look :). My DD was totally inspired by her first school organised trip to Oxford and it made her up her game with 6th form study.

(My DD is an 11+ "failure", got higher than average but not wonderful CAT tests but she works like a trojan and got the required results).

I didn't know any reasonably bright people when I was there. The range was more very bright to extremely bright. Just about everyone was one of the top few (if not the top) from their school and in some subjects the 'only very bright but hard working' were treated with contempt by their peers (esp. if they had aspirations to continue in academia). I would think the chances of someone not in the top 10% (official GnT threshold?) at their school enjoying themselves at Oxford (if they got in) would be fairly slim to be honest, although not necessarily if they are a late developer or had some particular reason for underperforming at school. Otherwise I think they'd spend most of their time struggling to keep their heads above water. Around 6A* GCSE is the usual guidance given for minimum GCSE grades to think about applying (without special circs.) and I suspect it's reasonably sound advice.

When I was there, there were quite a lot of relatively thick people, actually, mainly from posh schools where it was assumed you could apply if you were reasonably but not phenomenally bright. Whereas from a normal school like mine, only the real high-fliers were put in as there was this assumption you could only go if you were doing amazingly well.

Of course you don't have to be G&T, just normally bright and very hard working is fine.

She ought to really like her subject and be genuinely keen to go though, as the workload is - or was when I was there - about triple the workload at my friends' universities. Not worth it if you're not v motivated.

Definitely to be encouraged. (Have been involved in Oxford admissions in the past though not there now; was there as an undergrad too.) GCSEs are not in any case a very reliable indicator. She might be a good-but-not-fantastic GCSE candidate now but have a lot else going on that translates into a strong Oxbridge candidate in a couple of years. The fact that she's thinking about it is a start! Especially if she's motivated by the subject as much or more than the place. Her interest in the subject and evidence of pursuing that interest beyond the school curriculum will be of vastly more importance than any of the extra-curricular stuff (sport, debating etc) that schools often feel are important. Does she know which subject she'd like to do?

Definitely worth going for a look and you should of course make sure that your DD knows that whether or not to apply in the end will be her choice and you'll be happy with whatever her choice is (i.e. there's no pressure from you). Make sure she looks at other places too and if she does decide to apply that she has good back up options.

I ended up at Oxford having never been to an open day because no one ever suggested it (parents or teachers) - I was bright (not 'G&T' though) but at a very good school so there were other more obvious Oxbridge candidates than me and when I mentioned that I was thinking about applying (a week before the forms had to be in after a friend suggested it) I was actively discouraged by the school. I got in, got a first, like to think I'm pretty normal and now have a very very average job and very few people guess that I went to Oxford. I say this just to emphasise the point that Oxbridge churns out people of all sorts, some of whom go on to be Nobel prize winners but the majority of people turn out just like everyone else!

I wish I'd gone for a look around beforehand as I might have got some more support when I was applying and would have understood the process and the college system better - I ended up choosing one pretty much at random which is not a good idea as it really does have a big effect on your experience once you're at uni.

I also have a friend who teaches and takes kids to visit Oxbridge regularly - she encourages anyone who's interested to go along but does also have a frank conversation with them about why they're not universities that suit everyone, even everyone with the right grades, and that even some of the best and brightest don't get in - so have good alternative options and don't pin all your self esteem on getting accepted.

Yes, I agree with Trills and others who say she may as well give it a go as she has plenty of choices. It's good too that she's thought about this early, so has loads of time to research a little and work out what she needs to do, and what she really likes about the courses or the colleges or whatever.

I think applying to Oxbridge is in a way quite reassuring, because they have so much money to devote to the admissions process, so it is very personal. They will have the time to really get to know her a bit through interviews, whereas anywhere else, it is much more of a lottery because good grades and a personal statement don't tell give you much chance to show what's special about you.

FWIW, I know people who got no offers except from Oxford/Cambridge - those places obviously saw something that wasn't apparent from the grades-on-paper that all the other universities get to see.

Best of luck to her.

Well, I'm no rocket scientist, and I went. The majority of us were just that, completely normal (though I do have some friends whose brains are the size of planets). I'm from a state comp too. You never know if you don't try.

Oxford/Cambridge isn't just about 'brightness'...it's also about being someone who meshes with the teaching methods - shorter terms that are very work heavy.

It's only an open day, of course she should go.

Encourage her to go to an open day at oxbridge AND else where.

Good idea for her to have ideas about her aims BEFORE starting A levels.

thinks