To push DD to apply to Cambridge?

[AllieinWonderland]

So I'm relatively new to posting on mumsnet, but have been a long time lurker, so if I mix up the lingo a bit then apologies!
DSS1 got 9As 3As at GCSE, 4 high As at AS level, and is on track to exceed his AAA offer for Oxford.
Oldest DD achieved 13A*s 2As and a B at GCSE (the B in music - she had a panic attack in the exam and it was on a tape so she was unable to get the time back) and is looking on track for 5 high As at AS level in French, English lit, history, physics, and art. She is seemingly good at almost everything (triathlons at county level and has previously played and trained younger children in cricket and basketball, plays the cello, the xylophone, and the clarinet, won a local photography competition, always gets lead roles in an amateur dramatics group and solos in choir) yet has always struggled severely with self esteem, and focuses on the things she is bad at: sees her B in music as the end of her chance of going to good universities, can't bake or cook to save her life despite much encouragement and teaching, is awful at tidying (she is happy to do it but ends up gradually making more of a mess and gets flustered. Again, I've tried forms of 'teaching' and noting has worked). These latter two issues have led her to thinking she needs to stay at home for university and she is driving me mad by saying she'll go to the local university, which is really not a very good one at all, and the only others she'll consider are those with offers of "BBC" or below.
She has finally settled on studying English literature, and I took charge and booked her on open days at Warwick, Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Durham, and her school took the 'Oxbridge' candidates to Oxford for a trip. She hated Durham, didn't like Edinburgh, thought Oxford and Warwick were okay, but loved Cambridge.
In spite of this she is refusing to consider applying, says it's a waste of an application.
I don't want to push her, but I do want her to apply because she clearly loved it and is more than capable. All of her teachers have been saying it since before I can remember, and she reads almost constantly.
Aibu to try and change her mind?
Sorry for the lack of coherence here, my mind a bit of a mess!

Loads of great advice here. I'm normally an advocate for giving Oxbridge a go, even if unsure, but it really doesn't sound like it would be a good environment for your daughter. Some pastoral care is probably excellent but my experience there was appalling pastoral care. DH (also Cambridge but a different college) experienced the same thing as did many friends at both Cambridge and Oxford. I don't want to tar everyone who works there with that brush, I'm sure many people have fantastic experiences, but it's not guaranteed that the pastoral care will be good. I don't really want to go into detail about my experiences but it was fairly traumatic. I enjoyed my time there immensely in any case but the pastoral care was the biggest failing of the University that I encountered.

Even the best University pastoral care doesn't work if the student doesn't want it.

I haven't read everything - BUT a neighbour of mine applied for Unis (all middling ones). She then got much better than expected results, so decided to take a gap year and apply to better places - and is now off to York. This might be a good plan for your DD. Let her apply, so she has a back up if she does "awfully", but really plan for her to reapply after the results, and have a gap year to sort out her mental state etc.

Oh, OP.

This is a girl who is one thing above all else - scared.

Her aggressively dismissive attitude towards MH issues stems from her terror of ending up like her father - ending up in that place - experiencing and perpetrating the horror of his suicide. (And of course she is more (obviously) affected than the others, she found him!)

Her insistence on an 'easy' university close to home is to make completely, absolutely sure she can't fail, because 'failure' is her other big dread - perhaps (in her eyes) simultaneously what her father punished her for and what he eventually succumbed to?

Her inability to cope with untidiness - she sees it (subconsciously) as a mirror of the mess and chaos she fears will engulf her if she drops a ball, iyswim.

She's terrified, but not allowing herself to be.

I think the post above about your and her narrative being of mother-daughter closeness woven through triumph over adversity is very insightful. So you continually reassure yourselves of the other's closeness and no adversity must be allowed to triumph over you/her now.

As a family now you seem to live at an incredible intellectual intensity - arguments re popcorn as a breakfast food written out and stuck on the fridge? That combined with the way everyone appears from your posts to have relentlessly and matter-of-factly got on with their lives after trauma. I think you are putting pressure on your dd, OP, but not in the tiger-mum sense a lot of posters assume you are. I think your ultimate pressure on her is to Be Okay. And in a way, who can blame you? But she's struggling, and badly. And again, who can blame her?
Perhaps Cambridge matters to you for her because you think she'll do it like you, but happy - iyswim?

FWIW, I went to Oxford as an overachieving, under-confident emotional wreck who had been through, and was in denial about, significant MH issues and emotional abuse at home. The pastoral care I got, and the sheer unspectacular belief in me as if it were the most natural thing in the world, particularly when the abuse became open and nasty (over a life choice I made while there), was amazing.

Try Manchester, Newcastle, London UCL or Kings and Leeds. All excellent Russell Group Universities but it sounds like she really wants anonymity.

Haven't read the whole thread - but, shock horror, not everyone wants to go to Cambridge / Oxford. I can think of a couple of people who were bright enough and had the grades but didn't want to go there. They both applied due to school / parental pressure but their heart wasn't in it and they ended going to other Universities. It hasn't affected their subsequent career at all.
Let her go where she wants.

" I think you are putting pressure on your dd, OP, but not in the tiger-mum sense a lot of posters assume you are. I think your ultimate pressure on her is to Be Okay"

I identify so much with this- I think it's very common among mothers of children who struggle. The thought of your child in pain is so hideous that you do everything you can to make life seem normal, and what your child is experiencing "not that bad really" because thinking about it any other way is too painful.

Posters can stop making suggestions of other universities. This is not the point at all. She is a very intelligent girl and if she was in the right state of mind to apply to university she would be doing the research and making the decisions herself. But she is not.
She needs time to deal with her mental health issues before embarking on living and learning away from home.
Regards being older than the others at university. My oldest son had 2 false starts and is now going into his 3rd year at the age of 24. He also had mental health issues to deal with. The age difference is not noticeable and often mental health issues affect a young persons emotional maturity anyway. He has remarked on how many other students are also older and had to miss a year or so due to illness.

Posters can stop making suggestions of other universities. This is not the point at all.

Agree.

I agree with everyone else that she could benefit from a gap year - a 'study' gap year sounds a good suggestion - to work on her mental health and gain independence. Though it is possible that a university with good pastoral care might help with her confidence levels, and that a certain distance from home might be good for her. She has obviously had huge amounts to cope with for her whole life and her relationship with you is clearly very intense and potentially problematic - PPs have talked about a narrative being written with co-dependent 'roles' and this sounds very likely. While she obviously respects your opinions, she must also have questioned some of your past decisions and the situations you and your family have ended up in as a consequence. She must find life-decision-making very confusing and overwhelming. If her counselling is causing her unhappiness, it is probably time to try a different kind of counselling. Is there a possibility she may have high-functioning autism? (I ask this as some of your description rings bells from my own experience). This would affect her response to counselling and to advice, too.

I was in a similar situation once - high-achieving, Oxbridge application, fear of rejection. In fact, I accepted Oxford because of its EE A-level requirements back then (did an entrance exam). I actually got rejected by a much lower-rated university despite my 'perfect' grades, so you and your daughter should be aware that 'aiming low' could just possibly lead to unexpected and more demoralising rejections.

As an aside, I too chose English literature to 'keep my options open'. Regret it now. I work for myself, which suits me much better than a standard professional career (might suit your daughter better, too, as it means you can structure your own life and avoid triggers like rejection), and I'd rather have studied something with practical application, or something difficult to study independently. While study techniques and critical analysis are useful life skills, I reckon I could have read books and discussed them in my own time.

Please read GloriaGaynor and Jaboo's posts again OP. They are inciteful, and clear. It seems very obvious to everyone reading this that she (and you) have some massive issues to overcome, but you aren't seeing them (maybe you can't?). These absolutely need to be your priority as a parent. I fear suicide is a real possibility otherwise. (She doesn't suffer panic attacks by the way, she has full on PTSD.)

As an aside, most universities are well attuned to mental health issues. However, only if the student seeks help and support. SHE WON'T SEEK THAT HELP. So going somewhere with the best pastoral care in the world won't make any difference.

"I think you are putting pressure on your dd, OP, but not in the tiger-mum sense a lot of posters assume you are. I think your ultimate pressure on her is to Be Okay

I think it's a bit of both.

But I don't have a problem with tiger moms - they can be very effective with the right children. The child needs to be strong and healthy emotionally to get the advantages. Otherwise it's a disadvantage.

I think your dds PTSD is an issue and will continue to impact on her life. I think you are minimizing her panic attacks. What she went through in finding her df will probably stay with her for life. She does need time to heal.

When you say about walking on eggshells and her taking everything you say as meaning she isn't capable, have you ever turned around and told her that no she isn't capable.

Have you ever pulled her up on her thoughts about other people being weak and called her out on the hypocrisy maybe she needs to make the connexion between herself and those that she thinks of as weak.

What does she think happens to other 16 year olds that don't manage to get 16 GCSEs and 5 A levels. That would be interesting to find out.

Just to add, one of the most intelligent, kindest and most well-adjusts people I know (my best friend) did Peace Studies at Bradford (before postgraduate studies at a Russell Group university). It's a great and well-renowned course.

BUT, having RTFT, I really do think you should just STOP talking about universities altogether for the moment. The priority must be her mental health. Academics matters nothing compared to that, and if you and she keep putting pressure on, she will end up breaking down anyway, like the young woman I'm trying to help at present who's just finished her first year at Cambridge which has involved two compulsory hospital admissions and a diagnosis of a menu of serious mental health problems.

Tell her you'll support her doing whatever she decides to do in terms of university, but the important thing you both need to work on now is helping her get well.

She sounds like me! I was absolutely the smart but insecure and unhappy teen, convinced I'd screwed everything up.

I took a GAP year and it was the making of me. Ideally, I think, a GAP year away from family and you, and old ghosts and expectations could well be insanely healing.

I ended up with a phd from Oxford, which I don't think I could have managed had I gone straight from school. It sounds like she needs to breathe.

You mention art therapy and counselling, I assume this is private?

When mental health issues are at crisis point, a psychiatrist can be needed instead of therapy. Does she see her GP? Has she been referred to CAMHS (I know they aren't always very good)? Perhaps you could get her to see a private psychiatrist who can diagnose something like PTSD.

It's important for mental health issues to be triaged into the correct "box". Some people spend years in counselling, ruminating over and over about problems, only to realise that they needed anti-depressant medication from a doctor instead. And vice-versa.

Has she looked at Manchester Uni (not Met)? Dd and I were both impressed with it. She's thinking of doing English or History so we looked round both departments. She's also predicted high grades but doesn't want to apply for Oxbridge.

Sounds like it would be close enough to home in case of emergency or for weekends?

On the Uni side of things, she will have to apply to 5, so she may as well list Cambridge as one of them.

What was the point in doing 16 GCSE's though? Universities will concentrate on what she achieves at A Level, so she would have spent her time more wisely doing the requisite 8 GCSE's and then doing a few A levels alongside. That way, she could have had a few Unconditional offers in the bag.

she is looking on track for 5 high As at AS level in French, English lit, history, physics, and art

^ How can you possibly^ know this, when she hasn't even started the year yet? I am baffled at this?

The results for AS are out tomorrow husky

All the advice given out by Cambridge admissions tutors last time I checked was that they don't care at all about extracurricular activities, only your ability at your chosen subject.

I've only read the first three pages but I really wanted to respond - apologies if I'm repeating anything.

I noticed that earlier in the thread you mentioned potentially taking your daughter to an open day at St Andrews. Over the course of my lengthy university career I have attended both halves of Oxbridge and St Andrews (where I am currently finishing my PhD). Obviously the undergradate/graduate experience is a bit different but, from what you've written about your daughter I would really encourage her to think about St Andrews. Its teaching style (small group tutorials) is quite similar to Oxbridge and although it is a very good university the atmosphere is a lot less pressured. It seems to me that the student body has a whole has a lot more fun than I ever observed in Oxbridge. Not necessarily in a mad clubbing way, but just a bit more carefree. It's also a small town so a good alternative to the bg city experience which I know you said your daughter wasn't keen on.

I know you said your daughter really liked Cambridge when she visited but I think it's important to bear in mind that open days don't always communicate everything about a university - and it is easy to just fall in love when it's a place as beautiful as Cambridge! PPs have already mentioned that it's an incredibly pressured environment both academically and socially. There's a real 'little fish in a big pond phenomena' that shakes a lot of student's confidence not just in terms of their academic prowess but also in all of the hobbies they were previously 'best' at and are now just suddenly one among many very very talented actors / sportspeople / chess players! If your daughter struggles with self-confidence then I think she could find Cambridge very tough.

PPs have also mentioned the possible value of a gap year for your DD. As someone who was always very academically successful and who has now spent 21 years in continuous formal education I would say this sounds like a very good idea. Between high school and uni is an ideal point to get off the treadmill and gain some experiences outside of study and, in your DDs case, perhaps build some confidence and independence. It also takes the immediate pressure off her to decide her future right now when it sounds like she is very stressed already with schoolwork.

Could you maybe sell the idea of a gap year to her with the idea of her getting some teaching experience abroad maybe? Could you get her tutor to have a chat with her about her options when school starts again (assuming she's just finished year 12 - only if you know they are non pushy though as the school will often push students to apply for uni if they are unsure, even when it's not in their best interest).

Purpledaisies I read this that she was 16 and hadn't started her AS exams yet, but I see from a bit of googling that she must have done her AS levels and will be going back to school in September, to start A levels. That makes sense. I'm in Scotland, so we don't have AS levels.

No problem husky. Lots of very nervous teens in England and Wales today.