Oxbridge and State Schools

propitious the corollary of your belief that a pupil has to be prepared in a "pretty focused" way is that a pupil who comes from a disadvantage background with parents and a peer group who may give working hard pariah status, let alone not be encouraging, or provide "pretty focused" preparation, should have no chance. Yet Oxbridge goes out of it's way to help the pupils that are helped by the mentoring charity I am involved with, which provides them with positive role models and the encouragement to work hard to achieve their potential. Not least because those pupils, as the evidence shows all pupils who have overcome real disadvantage (by which I mean succeeding in spite of poorly performing schools, difficult home backgrounds and SLDs), actually perform better than their peers. Do you believe your DC was given the same advantages over those pupils that you perceive private school pupils gain over your DC?

Russians For music substitute CDs /downloads for books, obviously. Whatever is accessible..........

Well, DD1 wants to do music so in her case I suspect that being well read wouldn't necessarily have much impact. And I'm not entirely sure whether her list of books read (which must be well over 1000) would count at all as being 'well read' in Cambridge terms. Although her knowledge of contemporary and classic multi media sci fi is, of course, top notch. She is 'well listened' though. And she has certainly seen significantly more decent theatre than anyone living where we do has any reasonable expectation of seeing. But still.

propitious DD went to one of the powerhouse London schools, though perhaps none of the girls' schools perhaps quite penetrate the golden circle but from a very selective intake many bright girls did not get in, in spite of being prepped and even having parents who went to Oxbridge themselves (and there is no parent thwarted by a DCs failure to get into Oxbridge like one who went to Oxbridge themselves). The reason? that they were, quite rightly, not cut any slack. Of course some of the thwarted parents moan that it was their DCs who were discriminated against. Please read the link I posted earlier to the article on the Cambridge admissions procedure, that gives some facts amidst all this ill informed parental speculation. My DDs peers went to all sorts of schools and I can honestly say that in the end the ones that got into Oxbridge were the bright well read ones from whatever their background, many from state schools who were not put through the scary bootcamp you advocate (not least because I know few independent bright DCs who would submit to such a regime, my DD would certainly have told me where to get off). However many bright well read ones, including from the schools you highlight, did not get in. All I can read into the process is that if you are bright and well read you have a chance of getting in but there are NO guarantees, and lots of other great unis.

People Like Us

Incidentally I am certain there is zero possibility of DD1 or DS wanting to apply to either place or even being in the ballpark for such an application to be a fair enough option. So while one might ask - and I am asking myself - why I'm bothered with this thread (there's always DD2 though), I certainly don't have any particular agenda to push for a good 9 years yet.

What is P.L.U?

Propitious - did your parents do loads of networking before you went to Oxford or Cambridge? Do you genuinely think you wouldn't have got in had they not done so? Do you genuinely think that telling people who have zero experience of networking, and therefore haven't had - and cannot now manufacture - the years of experience necessary to hone that black art, that unless they get networking pronto their kids are dooooomed is anything other than incredibly unhelpful and off-putting?

If you're an established successful networker then, sure, network your socks off. Why not. It won't actually help, but if it makes you feel better then go on. But if someone can't do it, hasn't had years of practice, or feels intimidated by the prospect then they shouldn't be made to feel like they have failed their child. They haven't.

I do always wonder what can possibly be the motivation behind people claiming that such brobdignagian efforts must be made to have any hope of getting in, when we have such a wealth of evidence that this simply isn't the case.

Meanwhile, the independent schools are selecting & finessing their potential Oxbridge candidates:

www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/the-secrets-of-oxbridge-what-londons-public-school-powerhouses-are-doing-right-6421889.html

Also, 'hard-wiring' their Oxbridge networks: just a handful...

www.westminster.org.uk/about-us/the-governing-body.html

and,

www.etoncollege.com/GoverningBody.aspx

and,

www.winchestercollege.org/governing-body

and,

www.mcsoxford.org/supporting-mcs/governing-body

...there are many more examples. This symbiotic relationship in some cases has been going on for centuries.

So is the MN consensus that state school candidates should?:

....just rock up to interview 'as you are' because it's all a bit random and you might get lucky and get in, or not.

Don't bother networking because...well, that's trying a bit too hard and just not done...not very P.L.U.

Or could you learn something from the independent schools' pretty 'focussed' (to put it mildly) approach?

(Something to get your teeth into here Yellowtip and Russian......Comment?)

Copthall

I was simply offering up antidotes to some posts that might result in some parents thinking it would be of benefit to put in place some fairly scary bootcamps for DCs, as well as putting off some candidates who are have all the qualities needed to get in because they don't have those sorts of parents, or the resources to build up stella CVs.

Exactly. I do always wonder what can possibly be the motivation behind people claiming that such brobdignagian efforts must be made to have any hope of getting in, when we have such a wealth of evidence that this simply isn't the case.

anInspectorCalls It isn't consistent but most unis and certainly Oxbridge will use some measure of a pupil's performance in exams against the average for their school, and the school's overall exam performance too, and there is an qualitative element to the judgement in that it is sometimes glaringly obvious from the school's reference that there are problems, either because changes in staffing and shortcomings in teaching are highlighted or because it is, sadly, just glaringly obvious from the standard of the reference. No uni is going to hold against a student the fact the teachers don't even give them a decently written reference. It was all apparent in the link I posted earlier on Cambridge admissions. I would have thought if the Ofsted rating was taken into account it would only be in the sense that it was highlighted as evidence of contextual information by the school i.e the school's present or indeed past Ofsteds highlighted particular problems which had placed the pupil at a disadvantage.

Copthallresident
especially if not gained at what the unis would regard as good schools
How do they judge what is a good school? Is it based on the current OFSTED or the one 3 or 4 years ago when the child was approaching GCSEs?
My DCs school was put into special measures when DC1 was in year 8, so presumably things were in decline from the day he started there. It's since been reinspected as good but my DC didn't necessarily get the benefit of that.

alreadytaken totally agree. I was simply offering up antidotes to some posts that might result in some parents thinking it would be of benefit to put in place some fairly scary bootcamps for DCs, as well as putting off some candidates who are have all the qualities needed to get in because they don't have those sorts of parents, or the resources to build up stella CVs. The fact is that a personal statement that demonstrates the candidate has the necessary qualities through what they have gained through the wide reading that is accessible to all coupled with academic success, especially if not gained at what the unis would regard as good schools (state as well as private ), will be as impressive as it needs to be. Then the application is subject to the randomness of the interview process and the college system. (and that is based on my current experience within a university and my DD and her peers' recent experience of the Oxbridge process)

How on earth does merely 'sitting through the process' give 'expert' knowledge?

You do seem to have quite a downer on the Oxford process though *alreadytaken'. Why so?

It is the case that individual Directors of Studies no longer have the same level of autonomy/power to admit whomsoever they wish as they did in the 80s.

Copthallresident it's inevitable that people post their own experiences and sometimes without thinking about whether the system has actually changed since they applied/were admitted. There seem to have been attempts to make the process slightly less idiosyncratic but the decisions can still seem quite random. It's natural to want to try and see some order where perhaps there isn't any.

Within the universities there seem - based on the experiences of my teenager and their friends/facebook offer holder acquaintances - to still be differences between colleges. Therefore your own experience may be misleading even about the rest of the university, never mind the other one. The only people who really know why decisions are taken are those who have sat through the process. For anyone else to consider themselves expert would be arrogant.

Agree again Copthall and thank you Russian, quite right, although I imagine having children amenable to being marched anywhere would simplify life quite a bit :)

As far as Cambridge goes, only DS1 out of my elder four ever seriously considered it. Arguably, he was the only one with the AS scores to merit it. But they all actually far preferred Oxford anyhow, so that choice simply played to their strengths. It wasn't about passion or lack of it. I didn't (and wouldn't have been able to effectively) put any pressure on DS1 but I have to say I'm glad he chose as he did: it makes logistical sense (it would make even more logistical sense if they agreed to come home and go back on the same day, instead of four and five days apart).

On this subject of passion, I think one of the DDs would have been equally happy reading History and the real passion of another was Art. What I find interesting is that they've all developed what others might term passion for their subject as they go through, largely thanks to exceptional tutors, which each has been lucky to have.

But thank you Russians, for allowing me to clarify,since my attempt at a gentle tease is perhaps too clumsy.

No, definitely meant with a smile as she often asks how such young people can routinely be expected to know their 'passion'. I hope she understands that is how I intended it.

Even with a smiley that doesn't look like a terribly friendly comment, really. I get far more of a sense of young people being marched towards particular destinations from other posters than I do from Yellow.

Oops meant do a smiley :)

It is natural to make a narrative out of experiences I suppose and to think we have found the formula when we or our children succeed. Things have changed massively over the last twenty years too.

I have however. Been browsing the Cambridge prospectus and have counted AT LEAST 5 usages of ''passion' or 'passionate' just in the few pages I read. No wonder the Yellow twinkies are all marched towards Oxford😄

On the other hand in the interests of supplementing the subjectivities I offer the experience of my friend in the 80s, from large family with problems, underperforming rural comp, bounced into the interview (as indeed she bounces everywhere), Tutor said "Do you want to come here?" She said "Yes" and he said "You're in" and she was given a 2 E offer presumably on the back of having achieved so much from such a beleaguered background. No networking, no parent herding her down corridors, certainly no high table discussions, no great independent studies, projects or memberships of societies, just being herself, spectacularly bright and charismatic. As they say "it takes all sorts"

I have to say I am not sure what has happened to this thread, a few people seem to be trying to generalise their own experience in a way that doesn't reflect the experiences of the people I know who have gone through the admissions process either now or in the 70s when my northern grammar sent quite a few pupils there. Or to be suggesting there is some magic bullet for success? Of course amongst able people you will get all sorts of personality types and interests but apart from having been able to demonstrate ability and an inclination /enthusiasm/passion /Arsedness (delete as is your inclination for a subject I don't have any sense amongst those who succeed, that you have to be a particular type or to have networked in a certain way to get in, or to have a particularly proactive parent or even think in a particular way.

There is the random factor in that interviewed by those who will teach you an element of subjectivity creeps in (and it works both ways, a tutor might want to teach you but you might not want to be taught by the tutor) and in any given year your subject at your chosen college may be very popular and pooling isn't a perfect way of levelling out chances (nor is looking at the statistics for past years since a less popular subject at a less popular college one year may well attract more applicants the next. ) Any applicant has to be prepared for that randomness, it may sound a tired old cliche but it is true many bright people don't get in and some surprising people do.

If your DC is thinking of applying from a state school then there are good outreach courses which will enable them to get some sound advice rather than the extreme subjectivity that seems to have taken over this thread.

Don't be silly Jessie I don't for a moment seriously think that Cambridge students are above shared house living. It's very common in Oxford, that's all.

Boffin I'm definitely not interested in you defending your credentials, despite what alreadytaken suggests. Nevertheless any academic tutor worth their salt at either Cambridge or Oxford should probably think twice before being too flip about eating disorders ('Anorexics Society' is certainly flip). I don't usually get heavy, but that remark was pretty lightweight, so I assume from it that you may be too.

The best article I have seen about Oxbridge is here www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9601544/Why-Oxford-and-Cambridge-might-not-be-for-you.html and is something anyone thinking of applying should consider.

Cambridge gives more weight in selection to AS grades, Oxford to GCSEs. Perhaps as a result Cambridge recruits more of the people who go on to get 3A*s at interview. Oxford seems to make some rather odd choices about who it will interview and that inevitably gives rise to suspicion about how genuine a commitment it has to widening access.

When my teenager was considering Oxbridge they looked at the different colleges and where they might like to live, that was quite a large number of colleges. They then tried to identify admission tutors with whom they felt they could have a dialogue based on shared interests. They visited those colleges at open day to make a final choice of college. Maybe that wasn't necessary to get a place but it wasn't going to do their chances any harm and it does mean that if they make the grades they have more prospect of enjoying themselves later. Of course that process would be much easier at some public schools where the teachers may know the tutors personally and be able to suggest a good match. If we'd know about varying levels of supervision they would probably have looked at that, but we didn't.

Boffinmum I wouldn't waste time defending your credentials, It isn't necessary. My teenager is attracted by the Assassins' Guild too. They were slightly put off by Cambridge freshers being shorter than Oxford's though and by Cambridge laying on less activities for those attending interviews.