To think you can't coach people to get into Oxbridge?

[RangeTesKopeks]

I suppose I also mean this more generally for other universities, but in particular, for Oxbridge.

My feeling is that because, quite important parts of the admissions process come down to how you perform on the day (which may be unfortunate or fortunate) - the admissions tests, the interviews - this means that it's very, very difficult to coach someone to get into Oxford or Cambridge?

I also think that getting a place is down to the applicant's ability to think critically, how prepared he or she is for defending why they enjoy their subject and why they want to study it at university and how good they are at their subject. But it's still up to chance IMO.

PS I went to Cambridge - didn't get in when I first applied (had an interview from hell with a philosophy professor - wasn't even applying for philosophy!!) and had much more positive interview experiences the second time around when I re-applied.

But even demonstrating a passion for your subject and reading around your subject and gaining an understanding beyond the curriiculum is not a level playing field.

I know young people who were taken on holidays by their parents specifically to support background knowledge, the school sent them on trains to London to specific exhibitions, lectures, invited starry speakers into their boarding school, subscribe to expensive magazines.

All a bit different if you rely on your comp and a local library service that has closed half its libraries and halved its opening hours and has stock last updated in the 1970s

It depends what you mean by "coaching". Does it help to have received an education which gives you excellent subject knowledge, rigorous reasoning skills, and an enquiring mind? Yes, obviously. And enough confidence to to be able to say what you are thinking rather than stay almost silent or completely collapse. I'm afraid, yes (though we get very, very few who really can't cope with the interview).

But specific coaching on crafting personal statements and interview "technique"? No, I honestly don't think so.

In my subject at least, the personal statement receives the least weight. To be honest, it is almost unheard of for it to tip the decision one way or another. It would only happen either extreme cases of obvious inappropriate course choice, or when everything else is absolutely border line. Both very rare.

And regarding "interview technique"? This is absolutely what tutors are doing their utmost to look behind! Because we don't care one bit about public-school polish and rhetorical flair.

In my subject a good half of successful candidates come from non-UK schools. They come from all over the place. Yes, they are probably "good" schools in affluent areas. But very often no-one from that school will have gone to Oxford before. The teachers do not have experience in crafting personal-statements and references (and it shows!). There are no practice interviews. The candidates are fluent in English but absolutely do not have the kind of polish in the language that you people seem to think you need for Oxbridge. And still they get in.

“no chance of preparing for the questions because, well, the interviewers are there to catch you out (in a nice way).”

But lots of young people are warned that it will be like that and given practice at thinking on their feet, and techniques for doing so!

And yes, I'm sure chance plays a non-negligible role in the process. It will never be perfect.

Oxford and Cambridge have (or certainly had in my day) quite different approaches. I was not south east, state school, no coaching apart from one teacher who just said she’d never forgive me if I didn’t go to the interview. I got the grades and got into Cambridge where I was surrounded by very normal, state school educated people who just happened to be very bright. I found that Oxford, which offered low grades but their entrance exam that people were coached for, was far more full of “old school” types. That was some time ago and I’m glad to read upthread of posters with different experiences of Oxford - but perhaps lumping them together and not thinking of applications in terms of individual universities or (indeed colleges) this could be part of the barrier to entry.

Also it’s so interesting how often Graduates from these unis are assumed to be overly privileged snobs. It’s just another ‘ism’ - most graduates are very normal people who worked hard and don’t deserve this disdain.

My DS's school is a comprehensive and had 23 children to Oxbridge last year. They run a thorough preparation programme including mock interviews, study groups and there is a dedicated higher education team. I doubt that they'd have those numbers getting offers if the didn't offer the level of support that they do.

I'm a Cambridge graduate (from a northern state school with no history of Oxbridge applicants) and DH is a Cambridge professor involved in applications.

You can't 'coach' someone to get in - it really is obvious at interview if they've just been fed the lines, but interview practice etc can help. However, the interview is less critical now as more emphasis is being put on entrance exams.

To be honest, one of the main obstacles is that some able students just don't apply - I think the statistics in the Guardian article would be much more meaningful if it explored the proportion of Oxbridge applicants vs all the university applicants for that region.

Oxbridge do invest a lot in outreach, but there is still also quite a distance between what some schools think students need to do to get in and the reality - I know this was definitely true of my own school. Lots of extra curricular stuff is a red herring, admissions are not particularly interested.

Another thing is that some schools don't offer the relevant A Levels (e.g. many of the scientific subjects prefer you to have Further Maths A level, not many state schools offer this) but by the time of application it's too late to change this.

The more state schools can encourage students to do relevant work experience, read around the subjects (and not just focus on exams etc) and become familiar with the knowledge needed in entrance exams, the more the playing field will be levelled. But Oxbridge admissions teams are all very aware of all these things and really do try to see beyond what is just a product of school background etc. In the end they can't admit those that don't apply and that is the fundamental stumbling block. I personally think the outreach work would be better focussed on schools rather than sixth formers.

Looneytune I definitely think your daughter should give it a go if she's interested - there are open days and regional events where she can go and chat to people and get a feel of course etc. This is why the disparity exists - people are put off before they even apply and it shouldn't be that way!

@Looneytune253 please don’t rule out Oxbridge for your daughter if it is a good option for her. I’m an oxford graduate and come from a single parent family, low income, council estate, state school etc. I agree you can be coached to perform well in the interviews (especially as regards general confidence), but I and many of my fellow students received no coaching and did not come from affluent backgrounds. In addition to just being academically strong (which is almost taken as a given if you get to interview) the key is to demonstrate a real love of the subject. This often means demonstrating how a student has pursued a subject independently and outside of normal school work. If your daughter is really interested I would advise her to visit a few Oxbridge colleges. I’m not going to lie and say snobbery doesn’t exist - it does, and more so in some colleges (and subjects) than others. I loved my colleges and didn’t feel at all out of place. I would have hated to be at others.

Gnome re geographical proximity, NI actually has the highest rate of acceptances per application. My theory on this is

A. Good grammar schools and
B. As travelling to the interview etc. is very expensive and time-consuming if you have to fly there and stay a few nights, most likely with a parent, an NI student will only apply if they have excellent grades and a high chance of admission.

However, there are very few NI students at Oxbridge, as very few apply due to expense etc.

I also suspect there is a perception of Oxbridge as being 'a bit of a Protestant thing', so Catholic students are likely to be put off applying.

To be honest, one of the main obstacles is that some able students just don't apply - I think the statistics in the Guardian article would be much more meaningful if it explored the proportion of Oxbridge applicants vs all the university applicants for that region.

Absolutely, I find it incredibly frustrating that this is being reported as bias against the North without any attempt in the press to look where the disparity in the figures come from. It's poor journalism and is giving people like Looneytune's daughter the impression that there is no point in applying, which then perpetuates the problem.

All of the regional data is already available on Oxford's website here and there is data on pretty much every other measure if you are interested.

So, if you compare the North East and Greater London on that table then the difference in the number of offers looks terrible: 190 offers to the NE over 3 years against 2,100 to Greater London. But if you look at the success rates then the NE has the highest success rate of any region at 28.2% whilst Greater London is 24.5%. So the issue really comes from the fact that nearly 13 times as many people apply from Greater London than the NE. Why is that? Well partly it is because qualified applicants are more likely to apply from Greater London: so 45.3% of students with AAA apply to Oxford from GL whereas only 23.2% in the NE do. There might be a lot of reasons for that and distance might be part of it but it would be good to investigate that further. It's also because there are about 30,000 more people getting AAA over those 3 years from Greater London than the NE. It would also be good to look at that a further, presumably it is partly because there are a lot more people in GL than the NE but that probably doesn't account for all of it given the North/South divide on school quality I don't know why journalists simply spout David Lammy's conclusions rather than looking at these freely available figures and actually doing a bit of journalism on the causes.

Looneytune please don't let you daughter be put off if she wants to apply and is interested in the course. There is not a bias against students from the NE, there are just fewer applicants. I was pretty much in the same position as your daughter 20 years ago and now I am doing the interviewing. The information on bursaries etc is all here and colleges often have further support available if there are financial issues when she's on the course.

Sorry OP that was a long answer that didn't actually relate to your Q!

But lots of young people are warned that it will be like that and given practice at thinking on their feet, and techniques for doing so
Understood, although I wasn't.

What I meant was: I was asked academic questions that were entirely novel to me. I had zero knowledge to work with. I was confident enough to say 'That isn't a subject I've covered, what does XYZ mean?' and essentially work my way through to the answers (almost like leading a discussion and asking for facts as I needed them).

Is that what you mean?

FWIW, I wasn't asked any 'geberal studies' questions about whether god exists, or the state of the current government. I was asked whether the chicken or egg came first (but was a candidate for Natural Sciences, so it was subject-relevant).

My Oxford College approached every State secondary school in a county with some prosperous and some poor areas.

They got a few applications from better-heeled districts but silence from the rest - except one HT who wrote saying No, her school served a working class area and she was not going to encourage her students to cut themselves off completely from their roots by mixing with the public-school types at Oxbridge.

And that was the one who at least had the courtesy to answer. How many other youngsters are being held back by that sort of class-bound ignorance?

I agree with school-blind applications - also gender- and race-blind except where there is an interview and it is impossible - because it would end the practice of making softer offers to state-school than to independent school applicants. The universities would of course have to abide by the outcome - if it turns out that all the offers for Subject A in University B have gone to public school boys, so be it.

There is a lot to be said for offers being made on A Level results for the following autumn - everyone takes a gap year. Some would decide not to go on but I imagine that they would be largely the same peoples who turn up and drop out, disappointed and in debt. And my recollection is that gap year students were generally more mature than the straight from school types.

SchubertsCat Why does an applicant from NI who is old enough and mature enough to be contemplating study away from home need to be accompanied by a parent on the journey to Oxford or Cambridge for interview?

I believe that school-blind applications would have precisely the opposite effect than that desired. Currently contextual information about the school is used in order to allow candidates from low-performing schools to be interviewed despite lower grades/test scores.

If you mean school-blind but still receive the contextual information, then I am not sure that would help.

In my day public school pupils had an extra term at school to enable the school to coach them for the Oxbridge interview - this is why there are so many public school kids at Oxbridge. In my case the interviewer was a Manchester City fan just like me and as City were going through one of its many poor seasons we talked about that for an hour - nothing else. I was lucky - although I did have 4 A grade A levels and 9 grade 1 O levels - they didn't have all these stars back then. What I did find was that those of us who came from state schools were much more comfortable with university way of teaching with much focus on self reliance - public school kids who had been spoon fed often struggled. The public school kids I knew didn't do as well as me with a double 1st.

You absolutely can be coached and you absolutely can fake a love of a subject though that's unlikely to be necessary

I went to state grammar and also to Cambridge. We had no coaching whatsoever. However I disagree that you can't have coaching that gives you a significant upper hand when applying, not to mention a deliberately enhanced subject knowledge and the ability to go into the interview and converse with confidence. It's daft to think such assistance won't make a difference - and the statistics showing the proportion of private to state school students at Oxbridge speak for themselves. It isn't a level playing field.

You also don't need all A*s. I had several Bs at GCSE and my offer was AAB. They want you to be exceptional at the subject you've applied for.

When did you go, NetRunner? I’m surprised as we have found in recent years that our pupils are always required to get A at least in their degree subject/that subject closest to it. We encourage them to apply if they have some Bs at GCSE but we are only normally getting interviews and places for those with all A and A.

It's daft to think such assistance won't make a difference - and the statistics showing the proportion of private to state school students at Oxbridge speak for themselves. It isn't a level playing field. Surely to look at whether private schools offer preparation that enhances the chance of getting in, you need to look at success rates of the two sectors rather than at the proportion of private to state school students who are at Oxford. The latter is clearly affected by who applies in the first place.

The success rates broken down by subject for state and independent schools for Oxford are here. They show that the overall success rate over the last three years has been 23% for state school students and 27% for private school students. So there is a difference but it is not that large. So why is there a difference at all? It is often said that the difference in stats is partly a result of subject choice as state school applicants are more likely to choose oversubscribed courses e.g. here. I haven't been through the individual subject in detail to assess that but look e.g. at History (a very popular subject) where the success rate is 26% for state and 27% for private, or Economics and Management (the most oversubscribed) where it is 12% for state and 13% for private.

Of course state schools might also be putting a lot into interview prep, especially selective schools/those with a lot of applicants so I am not sure that it fully answers the OPs Q but I am not sure that you can look at those stats and think that private students are being given a huge overall advantage through interview prep.

A few of the other popular ones. Medicine has a 16% success rate for state and 17% for private. PPE (the famed course for politicians) 23% state and 24% success for private. Modern Languages 38% success for state and 37% for private.

NetRunner's information on offers is out of date. All Oxford courses require at least AAA these days and AAA for sciences. All Cambridge at least AAA I believe.

AAB offers date back a good few years ago!

Information on standard offers can be found online. Certainly within my subject at Oxford it is almost unheard of for offers to differ from the standard, apart from perhaps specifying particular subjects when more than 3 are being taken.

The interviews are designed to replicate the tutorial process (how subjects are taught). The professors and tutors push the students until they find a topic outside their knowledge to see how they cope with it and how their thought process works when they reach that point. A public school student can therefore end up with a 'tougher' interview because they've been exposed to more things so the interviewer will have to reach for more obscure subjects. But the public school student is just as likely to screw up when pushed beyond their comfort zone, because that's about native intellect, personality and curiosity.

Public school students maybe have the advantage that they might have been pushed to that point before. But so have most kids in some way. Remember getting the bus for the first time on your own? It's just trying to identify it. The public school kids also have the advantage of not being quite so overawed by surroundings, and maybe more experience talking to strange adults. The interviewers recognise this, and try to work around it and put the students at ease.

So all you really need are the A*AA!

Looneytunes it's worth pointing out that Oxbridge is actually a far cheaper place to study than most, as the biggest cost, accommodation, is heavily subsidised for most students. I'm pretty sure help is on offer for costs with interviews etc. as well - do get in touch with the admissions office and ask.