Are these grades Oxbridge material?

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There will be lots of targeted events to encourage applications from historically low application groups

Oh dear. All of that points to a school that doesn’t understand the way to prepare candidates for Oxbridge. It was wrong to do more subjects which meant there was less teaching time for maths x2. Preparing early can be useful but my DD wasn’t identified as anything special either. I think the problem is that some schools see a certain type of child as being worthy of special attention and often these are the obvious candidates and not those who come up fast on the rails, like mine did. However mine did have a far better GCSE profile and didn’t coast on subjects she wasn’t so keen on. In any degree you get topics you are not so keen on and definitely in professional qualifications so perseverance is a good trait.

Quite often schools don’t have a younger member of staff who went to Oxbridge and have outdated ideas. For example, my DD was discounted because her UMS scores for two AS subjects were below 90. The school’s test was above 90 for everything.

I don’t think low predictions are really going to come into it if schools predict Bs and the candidate gets 3 x A*. You just apply for next year. I think most teachers know who the real stars are but do not plan or act strategically.

My ds wants to go to Cambridge because he thinks it's the best and dh went there. Currently I don't think ds is achieving the grades - 7&8's at GCSE but like dh he is a late developer and a very hard worker - knowing what he needs to do to achieve gives him focus and leaves the decision up to him - he can't say to me in 10 years time that we should have told him!

Yes, definitely a case of the earlier the better, even if it’s just to make parents aware of what’s required.
Parents could then decide whether it’s potentially too stressful to inform pupils of the high benchmark or not.

They also have every applicant with A or As predicted at A level so GCSEs can be used to differentiate between candidates.*

Therein lies the rub!

This, more than anything discriminates against children who are likely to be underpredicted by teachers.
Pupils with less than three A grades predicted may be sifted out at the admin stage of some of the most competitive courses.
The whole system is opaque and open to corruption as soon as the issue of predicted grades comes into play, IMO.
At DCs school there are children with C grades in mocks predicted an A in some subjects, while teachers in other subjects will stick to the schools stated policy of giving all their pupils no higher than marks achieved in the mock exams. Two pupils, same grade at mocks, two different outcomes. The official reason is that the school treats each pupil as an individual. No, it doesnt, it discriminates one over the other using subjective value judgement. If a process is not empirical, as is feasibly possible, i.e. a test, ideally marked by someone unknown to the candidate, the prediction may be subject to conscious or unconscious bias, IMO. There are stark inconsistencies when one compares school against school. DC knowns pupils with D grades in mocks with straight A predictions. These pupils may never fulfil the offers if they are not up to the task academically, its true. But theyve been incentivised to do well in the final exams and may possibly do better because of this. Lets adopt the system common to the rest of the planet in Post Qualification Application. Surely, universities should have unbiased data on candidates and the power to sift out who can and cant apply. Sadly, they will focus more on GCSEs now as these represent harder data than predicted grades. This is bad news for the unprivileged and untutored who realise too late that you need more than a handful of As in your GCSEs in your best subjects to even be in with a chance of being in the running. It shouldnt all rest on the professional opinion of school teachers. This might be an informed professional opinion. But it`s still an opinion nonetheless. Scrambles for hard hat!

There may well be additional tests to take. PAT for physics related courses etc. Everything required is given on the course page within the faculty at the universities. I would also suggest that you look at the courses now because on some science courses they really like Further Maths so checking it out now may help make decisions.

He is super inquiring, and sucks up new facts and new ideas super fast. What isn't inherent in him is talking about it and debating, arguing his case, believing he has the 'right' to hold his views. He just gets on with it. I think he could benefit from developing that aspect a bit, wherever he goes.

Would agree with you there. Oxbridge tutors are looking for people they will enjoy teaching, which means they do need some ability to explain and debate their view, since they would be doing it once a week every week of term with their tutor. This skill can absolutely be practised before the interview and if the school support his applying, they may be able to arrange some practice for him there. The good ones will want to draw him out - "what interested you about that, how did you come to that conclusion" - but he needs to have some ability to show them his interesting mind.

I made it 3 x A, an 8 and a 9. That’s five at A or equivalent so borderline. There are also Bs in there. However nothing to lose.

He will also need to see whether they have any internal exams

Again this will be identical for all colleges at the same University for the same subject. Please don't make this more complicated/mysterious than it is.

he needs to carefully research colleges and pick one that is known for prioritising intellect over academic attainment

All colleges have the same selection criteria for the same subjects. And there is a lot of re-allocation anyway.

OP, some enrichment would really help his confidence. If he knows which subject he'd like to apply for, can he get some work experience in that or a closely related field? I agree about going to lectures, reading specific journals and books on the wider subject than the A level syllabus.

he needs to carefully research colleges and pick one that is known for prioritising intellect over academic attainment and then read up on the people who work there, read a few of their books and other note worthy books in the subject area.

[blink] I have never known a whole college have a profile for "prioritising intellect over academic attainment" - colleges have different reputations for scoring highly in the internal academic league tables e.g. Oxford's Norrington, but virtually all tutors and colleges I've ever known prioritised intellect as a default anyway. If you've got to interview your academic record is largely moot, you've passed the bar so it's all now down to how they experience your intellect.

Reading around in your subject area because you are interested and being able to comment on it intelligently = great. However, most tutors I've ever known would be a) not fooled and b) downright annoyed by a student who expected to get credit for name-dropping the tutor's own work. "I thought your book on X was great" will get them nowhere, "your book on X made me think about the theory of Y and whether it had [these interesting implications]" is good.

Not impossible at all, provided he has excellent A-level predictions and does very well on any subject aptitude tests.
Context will also be taken into account for the GCSEs and it might also make a difference which subjects got which grades.
I think he should go along to the event and see what he thinks.

I'm an Oxbridge admissions tutor.

BubblesBuddy - with the 9s 8s and As that the OP's ds has he has over 6 As and 4 As as well as 4 Bs.

I think that he has a very good shot and should definitely apply for an Oxbridge place.

I assume that he doing subjects at A level that he got 9s or 8s/A*s in and therefore the likelihood of him getting high grades at A level is high especially having achieved those sort of grades at a state comp and taking so many subjects.

His application should focus on super curricular rather than extra curricular to show his passion for his proposed degree subject.

Very good luck to him.

Those GCSE grades are lower than most I know that have gone to Oxford. I think they have stats on GCSE grades and it’s usually 6 A or more. Plenty of applicants have 8,9, or 10. Therefore don’t hold your breath about getting an interview. They also have every applicant with A or As predicted at A level so GCSEs can be used to differentiate between candidates. Yes, there are anecdotal tales of getting in with half an O level but it’s not the norm. Most schools say 6 A*s but the unknown factor is how much they are prepared to be flexible. One suspects in hugely oversubscribed subjects not much. Worth a look though to see how the land lies but those results are not stellar and far too many subjects which suggests school doesn’t know the time of day, sadly.

One way if thinking about the people they are looking for, is whether they want to talk, discuss things with them. So a love of the subject is important, but also having something original to say on the subject goes a long way, too. Especially if he sees himself ultimately in research, it would be a pity to not investigate the possibilities.

We went to an event run by Cambridge about Admissions - they said straight A's at GCSE demonstrated a student was a great generalist but they wanted a great specialist! So they were a lot more interested in the A levels - in the progression made from GCSE level. His science results are strong - if that is the case for A level, he should consider it. He'll need to demonstrate his interest in his subject beyond A levels.

DivisionBelle - lots of debates at the dinner table, going to lectures about their areas of interest etc...super enrichment +++

Wouldn't you say, though, that a super active and super curious and inquiring mind is inherent rather than learned?

From growing up with DSis (who is an Oxbridge graduate), I would say that she was always so much more than 'just' clever on paper. She used to be up reading until midnight when she was still at primary school, she wrote a musical (lyrics and made up the tunes too) in her early teens (despite not playing an instrument or being able to read music). She chose do to extra subjects out of school to stand her in good stead to get in to do the subject she wanted to study...We weren't encouraged to be like that by our parents - she just naturally was!!

I think you have to look beyond grades and consider whether the workload and working style at Oxford or Cambridge would suit your ds. I applied to Cambridge and was offered a place, but I failed one of their sixth term entrance exams and so went elsewhere. I think I would have struggled there - both because I obviously wasn't that bright if I failed their exams which were designed to weed people like me out - I was just good at A level exam technique but also because of the workload and I think the tutorial system would have broken me.

So please look at your ds' abilities and the way he works. I am an 80-20 person - I can get 80% of the way on 20% of the effort but really struggle to work on something until it is 100% perfect.

I think my ds is similar to me, so I won't necessarily encourage him to apply to Oxbridge. DH is a grafter, and he went to Oxford. But he says he might have been better going somewhere else especially as he thought other unis actually did better courses for the subject he did, but he was seduced by the idea of Oxford.

It's not the be all and end all. I trained with a large city law firm to be a solicitor despite not having gone to Oxbridge - I would not have done any better if I had taken up that Cambridge place and I might have even crashed out of my course altogether and had to start again elsewhere.

As you are in London, are there any exhibitions, talks (Royal Society?) lectures or whatever he could go to that would interest him and give him stuff to talk about?

As the school regularly gets a couple of kids in they must have some knowledge of the system. Would they help prepare him by giving him practice interviews?