Why does Oxbridge do this? Do you know any Students like this?

[janeeire244]

Why are there so many students at Oxbridge who study competitive degrees like law with relatively low A-level grades such as anything below 3A*s but also including AAA or even AAB? Most of these people applied with inflated predicted grades but are let in when they get lower grades than they were predicted either because they still met the really low entry requirements (shockingly Oxford Law is at AAA) or if they miss it and get AAB, they are reprieved?

I don’t even think it’s fair to say that they shone at some other stage of the application process because I know of some students who got relatively low admissions test scores or mediocre GCSEs and got in as well.

This is all the while they reject people with much high admissions test scores or much better grades.

That being said I’ve never heard of anyone who did poorly on the interviews get an offer (poorly by Oxbridge standards not just them thinking they did badly).

Do you know anyone at Oxbridge studying a degree (especially a competitive one like law) with an average admissions test score or below average; or less than 3A*s at A-level?

OP you either need to reapply or move on. Stewing isn’t helpful to you.

Gosh OP, you're certainly not lacking self belief are you. Maybe you need to work on a little self reflection too, and be wary of tipping into arrogance.

Thousands of people will be in your exact position regarding oxbridge. It's not an exact science to determine who gets an oxbridge place as many people have explained to you. Many very capable, hugely intelligent students will miss out. Sometimes it might not be fair by your definition. But constantly bemoaning the fact won't help you. There are many other excellent universities to attend.

Any reason you can't still apply to Oxbridge with your new A-level results?

My brother did his Masters at Cambridge and he didn't have all A * at A-level (or equivalent as he did IB) but he had a very high First from his undergraduate degree at a RG uni. You could still get into Oxbridge for a postgrad degree if you don't get in as an undergraduate.

Look at Whatdotheyknow website & search on admissions for law & actual grades ….. and LNAT.
You will find the data

I attended a state comp then read law at Oxford. I arrived for the interview entirely unaware that there were books and coaching materials available to buy to prep you for the interviews. I only discovered those existed when the law tutors at my college told the interview candidates to not worry about them.

As a few people have mentioned, the teaching style at Oxford for law is incredibly focused on discussions about complex topics, involving typically 1-2 students and a tutor. Interviews are a decent way of assessing how a candidate will handle that. My interviews focused on tutors testing and challenging my opinions on new material (which they gave me about twenty minutes beforehand in the library). No application process is perfect, but the interviews can reduce the impact that a Great School or Excellent Tutor or Pushy Parent has on an application. The tutors wanted to hear how I thought about a new tricky question - to see if I was smart enough but also to see if I would suit the course / loved the subject.

Similarly my UCAS form was filled with all sorts of extra curricular activities. I don't think the tutors gave a hoot whether candidates were hockey champions or ran a soup kitchen or had swim the British Channel. To my mind, it was more about demonstrating your interests as a person and that you had capacity to do demanding things in addition to getting good grades.

I'm sorry you're so upset you weren't accepted. I hope you'll get over the shock and upset, as it is really doesn't matter that much. And if you are a law student who is extraordinarily keen, there's always the BCL at Oxford for postgraduate..!

You seem very fixated on specific grades and test results - almost everyone who applies will have great results though. The whole point of the admissions interviews is to test candidates' ability to argue persuasively, think on their feet, and demonstrate a deeper understanding of key concepts that exams can't test.

If you didn't get in, you probably didn't interview as well as other candidates. It's not that you're not intelligent, but there are different types of intelligence, some of which go beyond written exams.

I went to Cambridge. One of the key parts of the law course is moots and 1:1 supervisions with professors. You need to be highly articulate and very quick thinking to succeed. It's about far more than A-Level and LNAT results.

That's not to say you can't try again, you can reapply, or if you've already tried that then you can aim to sit a Masters at Oxbridge instead where the admissions requirements are less stringent.

I know it's really hard, you're very young and have fixated on this one thing and it's hard to let go, but it doesn't matter in the long run. Literally nobody cares that I went to Cambridge now. My career hasn't depended on my choice of university.

@janeeire244why do you think Oxford is the best place to do your degree? Why are you so obsessed with it? People from other unis do get jobs too!

The other thing you could apply for OP is scholarships to study in the US - Harvard and Yale both offer full scholarships to very talented students.

OP, in September this account was your mum posting about her son failing to get into Oxford and wanting to resit A-levels. Now it’s apparently the son posting.

You’ve posted a lot of threads about this. Some less coherent than others.

Oxbridge really is about more than grades. They want to see every aspect of you. Grades are not a sole indicator of intelligence. Real intelligence will be more apparent in interview. Aptitude will be more apparent in grades and tests.

Might there be some counselling available to you to help you process why you’re not achieving what you seem quite obsessively focused on?

other universities are also available! clearly some back story - YANBU for being so obsessed with one type of academic institution.

Cambridge and Harvard are linked universities. My brother got a fully paid scholarship/grant to do his Phd at Harvard after finishing his Masters at Cambridge.

You can still have your Oxbridge (or Harvard) dream at postgraduate level if you wanted OP.

This is because Oxford places slightly more evidence on its own admissions tests than Cambridge.

As you said you applied to Cambridge, you didn’t get the grades so you didn’t get in.

Neither did my daughter (well she got the right letters but on in the right subjects A rather than Astar in history, still had 2Astars and 1A) she went to her her insurance and is having a brilliant time, really shining on the course and getting lots of opportunities as a result. It has done her no harm whatsoever, she moved on.

Which you need to do. Obsessing and starting post after post won’t help you.

Posting for fun as this is ridiculous.

Clearly, exams are a form of barometer of intelligence & aptitude. Otherwise there is literally no point in them. But, they are not the only barometer, and not a perfect barometer by a LONG way. And since Oxbridge want a pool of students who will thrive in their particular environment (specifically the tutorial system), they interview to evaluate against their own criteria.

In the interview, they're looking for aptitude and intelligence in different ways, and how you can engage in their learning system.

It allows for students to be successful, even if for any reason, their A levels are not actually a good reflection of their abilities.

It's not a perfect system, no system in the world is perfect. They have to make decisions according to a way that works for them, in a time frame and budget that is reasonable. They invest heavily in interviews (it will cost perhaps close to £1k per student to house, feed, interview & assess by multiple staff, and most will be rejected), because they believe in the value added this brings to their decision making. Because, exam results are not perfect.

Here is why results alone don't reflect intelligence: I've recently sat 12 professional exams. Due to working full time and being a grown up with other shit in my life, I needed to play the system each time on how much syllabus to learn to get me over the line and how much just to let go, how much I could probably just work out myself. My scores ranged from 60%-92%. I'm pretty much equally good at all subjects (they're all in one career field), my score is just how lucky I got on the syllabus coming up.

Oh dear OP. You’re clearly not as clever as you think you are. I’m also guessing that this is the first time in your life that you’ve had a serious knock back and you don’t know how to deal with it. Hopefully, you’ll get some perspective from these answers and stop feeling sorry for yourself?

Have you any idea what it’s like to attend a school where every single class is disrupted by loud and obnoxious students and the teachers have no control whatsoever?

This is the reality in my son’s school.

My son wants to take Chemistry at a higher level but won’t because he knows they’ll be lads disrupting the class again. Due to their poor behaviour, his teacher won’t allow them to do any chemistry experiments because it’s deemed too dangerous.

The kids getting into Oxford with slightly lower grades are because the admissions tutors can see their potential despite their disadvantaged schooling.
These are the sort of kids I want to see in government, not the likes of Liz Truss who is utterly clueless about the lives of ordinary people.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/grades_for_llb_law_admission#incoming-2756371

No university gives out less offers than they have places - that’s just rubbish.

In reality - you were predicted grades on how you were performing and didn’t get them. Your grades weren’t predicted based on you getting extra time, the were based on what you had at the time so your diagnosis would make no difference to those predictions nor how you performed at interview

you need to face the fact that you didn’t get in and either try again or go elsewhere.

I dont think it needed to be reported. There is nothing wrong with g with posting it and the poster has been responded to appropriately by others? Why did you feel the need to report?

@Mamma2452 it was common practice in the 90s for Oxford (not Cambridge) to give two E offers - they obviously expected you to do far better. We had a terrible maths teacher at school and a handful of the Oxford entrants in my year ended up with 2 As and an E in Maths. The colleges were not impressed, but they got in regardless. None of them were studying Maths which may have made a difference.

I mean why would why you want to go there. You obviously dislike the place and how they work. Just go somewhere else.

The fact that there is n interview stage as part of the selection process makes it's very clear that whilst grades and achievements do matter, personality and presence at the interview is very important. People who were very successful during interviews can and have been admitted despite lower grades. Basically people interviewed better than you and despite your academic achievements they felt the other candidates had more potential for the course.

Three As are not low A level grades, but I agree they are not three A stars. However Oxbridge does not take people who have the highest grades - if that were the test then they could take people after A levels and see the precise A level score and take exactly those with the highest ie highest of the A star candidates. Instead they want people who are bright and will benefit from their form of education. I have no bias in this. I did not try Oxbridge (my siblings did and got in) and my 5 children didn't try but have/have had cousins who went. It has not affected my legal career (nor that of the 4 of my children who are lawyers in London) that we didn't try for nor go to Oxbridge. I think those of us in the family who are not Oxbridge are largely fairly intelligent. I expect Oxbridge want that quick flow of thoughts interesting conversations and that kind of thing, a bit like the 3 days of 3 hour written exams I did for a university scholarship I won - being able to talk or write about a subject, quick ideas, picking up on what someone is saying, debating it, thinking about it - that kind of thing.

If someone is quite bright they will tend to be fine whether they go to Oxbridge or not. 3 of mine went to Bristol (having rejected Durham which is arguably better).

Once people get their first graduate job (probably the hardest thing to get in most careers compared to later jobs) then I think if you are hard working and bright you are pretty much home and dry. Whether you went to Oxbridge or not does not matter.

[No need to report any posts - let freedom of speech prevail]

I understand your post but you seem not to have caught the jist of my issue.

I was on course to get the higher grades but didn’t because I was disadvantaged due to the lack of extra time. Furthermore, I also come from a disadvantaged background, socio-economically speaking and was in care, so the analogy of your son does not really work with me.

Finally, Liz Truss, herself, came from humble roots so it’s impressive that she actually got top grades to get in Oxford and did well.

I recall that this poster was advised previously to focus on universities that may offer a place, rather than refusing to let go of the bitterness about failing to secure a place at Oxford.

It seems that advice has not been heeded.

Maybe they need to be able to spell Jane Eyre to get in!

I understand your post but you seem not to have caught the jist of my issue.

Might it help if you stop changing your background story with every post?