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.

PS an awful lot of it is up to chance. Just because person A didn't get in, doesn't mean they aren't as bright as others who did. At the end of the day there are loads of bright kids, they can't all get a place, and once exam results are given, interviewers make their decisions based on who they think would be good to teach, on the day.

I hope my kids get to go but hardly think its the be all and end all. It can give problems too if you're not psychologically rounded enough to cope with being in a hothouse. It can give you funny ideas about what a successful life looks like. Plus for some courses, other places may be much better.

But I honestly don't really think my kids chances of getting will be much affected by whether we (a) send them to the local comp (good one, granted), the local academic grammar school or indeed push them to get a scholarship at a public school.

My youngest son is in his second year at Oxford. He went to a secondary modern school for GCSEs, we live in a county with state Grammars and secondary moderns. No comprehensive schools.
He did well, As, As & Bs and went to the grammar for sixth form because the secondary modern doesn't do academic A levels. He had wonderful teachers at his first school who took him to visit Unis, and encouraged him to aim high.
At his sixth form he was discouraged from applying to Oxbridge because he wasn't a straight A student at GCSE. Thanks to the internet, we found out that Oxford takes contextual data into account and would look at my son's results at his school and previous years results.
He applied to a college that takes a high number of state school students and was successful. All this from the support of a good teacher and the internet!
He's got a scholarship lunch next week because he got a First in his first year exams.
My son tells me his background is not unusual, although the other state students have usually been to comps or Grammars.
However if contextual data hadn't been taken into account, I doubt he'd have had an interview.

Pretzel yes exactly. I was hit with a big wave of imposter syndrome when asked the question about cesura, and totally froze up like a rabbit in the headlights! I could have done with some interview coaching in order to deal better with the situation. At 17 I had never been exposed any situation even remotely similar, nor had I done any kind of practice interview.

The only interviews I'd had before had been along the lines of "I see you live in X - we have a works bus running through there at 7am, can you be at the bus stop by then? You know that you have to pay for your own uniform? Good, are you available all summer? Can you start tomorrow?"

It probably didn't help that my parents didn't think English was a proper subject, so it didn't occur to them I'd need any kind of preparation. If I'd been applying for medical school or to read law I'd had been forced to talk to so many doctors and lawyers about what to expect at interview I'd have been put right off been the most over prepared candidate in the building...

Oh you certainly can.

I'm used to teaching the expensively educated two-three A* brigade who think they are super intelligent, but probably wouldn't have made it through were their backgrounds very different. Many of them lack a certain spark, but know how to talk the talk, and have had a massive amount of help. They certainly aren't there entirely of their own making. Our stats show that, once admitted, state school students generally have a better degree result.

This is at a northern RG uni, but we're hardly an isolated example.

independnet schools give coaching with a great deal of success. If state schools provided it then more would get in.

silly question really - a bit like asking if you can practice for a job interview. Obviously if you think about and practice answering questions in advance, then on the day there is a better chance you will perform well (but no guarantee).

[my perspective is that i went to cambridge from a comprehensive school]

camper I think it is the difference between staff in a private school setting potentially having pressure on them to inflate predicted grades and staff in run down state schools perhaps underestimating their students a little.

Honestly, if we were site/school/sex/deprivation blind we wouldn't be able to attempt to correct for the conscious and unconscious biases loaded onto predicted grades...you would see a big drop in the number of students from deprived backgrounds getting into Ivy league type places.

It all depends on the starting position, doesn't it? I wouldn't fancy my chances coaching someone of below average intelligence to be accepted. A reasonably bright but by no means intellectually brilliant applicant who has generally decent presentation and responds well to constructive criticism: definitely doable!

I've personally coached such a person to be accepted not to Oxbridge but into a highly selective graduate scheme (because ... reasons). They were turned down for two similar schemes before but were borderline competent for what the position requires and good at performing to specification, so to speak.

If you can't be coached for Oxbridge and it all comes down to natural intelligence and love for the subject, does that mean that white upper middle class kids educated in the private sector are just naturally brighter and more passionate? What an odd demographic coincidence.

Of course coaching matters! It makes a huge difference!

(I went to Oxford, if it matters)

looneytunes...just get crackin’ wi’t’ knackin’!

someone of below average intelligence to be accepted

How would you know what someone's intelligence is?

Andrew for moral support, and also so the applicant is less stressed-out on the day. 17/18 is very young really, most sixth-formers of that age would never have travelled overseas alone before.

Fair enough. I was 18; I went on my own and would have been embarrassed if my mother had been around; my father was already dead. But each to their own.

I suspect the idea, suggested by some posters, that admissions should be blind would massively benefit students who already have many advantages. When I did Oxford admissions, admittedly some time ago, we very much took into account the student's background, and it was a benefit to those candidates who might have looked less polished if we hadn't known about where they'd come from.