To be fed up of the obsession with Oxbridge?

[toucanjungle]

Both of my children go to very academic schools. From age of 14/15, they’ve had drilled into them that oxbridge is the goal.

Anything other than oxbridge or medicine/dentistry is seen almost as a failure.

I’m sorry but it’s just ridiculous, they’re both so so so much more competitive than when the teachers attended. Lots of these children are brilliantly clever and am sad that lots feel like they’ve failed if they don’t gain entry.

An Oxford report has 2,000 more applying in 2017 than in 2013, which is interesting. However it isn’t the full story without knowing what the academic capabilities. I am surprised though, that the number has risen that much in recent years.

Oxbridge is a term used at the school. Weird that you’ve not heard of it used, although they do say “Oxford or Cambridge” more often.

gazette.web.ox.ac.uk/statistical-information-university-oxford

Here are the entry stats I was talking about. They do take a bit of digginf to find!

In my subject (one of the least competitive), the success % seems to have actually got higher in recent years (from what I can find of recent statistics vs what I was told at entry 20 years ago, as I can’t find data going back that far so far). I expect that is because of it being a more and more limited subject so it isn’t representative of all of them. Law, for example, has always been far more competitive.

Just help your children to look into the alternatives. I agree that overseas universities and a gap year are well worth looking at to gain wider skills and a global outlook.

Thanks, Toucan.

Much higher numbers of pupils applying to Oxford as time has gone on.

But it's not so easy for schools to boast about a gap year or overseas university when it publicises its leaver destinations.

Looking at that data it seems that success/application ratio went down from 1:3 in 1990 to 1:6 in 2013. Interesting.

It sounds as though the grade inflation at A level has something to do with it. The more people getting As leads to more people applying.

On another MN thread there was some discussion about the fierce grades Cambridge is asking for Maths entry. Cambridge now uses STEP papers to sort people because all/most of the applicants for maths are predicted (or in the case of Maths, already have) great A level results.

I always find it funny in interviews with famous people/politicians/CEOs that if they went to Oxbridge they just have to mention it in the interview. Pretty much everyone else who went to university says just that rather than mentioning it by name.

Likewise in so many books I've read recently there's always at least one character who went to Oxbridge. It's never Durham or Bristol and certainly not Nottingham Trent!

It seems the world, including MN is still obsessed by it and for many schools it's the Holy Grail whether we like it or not.

it was the same at my school in the sixth form (academic, selective, independent) , you were only considered 'ok' by the teachers if you were either oxbridge, law or medicine. I was Cambridge but a waffly subject (yay My old Director of Studies Mary Beard getting a Damehood) so I was ok. But my sister, who wanted and did go to the Royal College of Music, so the equivalent for what she wanted to do, was constantly told she should do an academic subject. Mad. In her industry, where she went is the Oxbridge of music.

Agree this must have had an impact, Pearl. I know the GCSE and A Level requirements of my subject have become lower over the 20 years since I did them. And my older colleagues would hasten to add that they were lower when I did them than when they did! Until the reform of the GCSEs over the last few years most of them had become very devalued. It was routine for the clever to get all A* whereas that was very unusual 20 years ago.

I was lucky to have a teacher who had turned down Oxford for somewhere she felt suited her more and that was a great example to have. Also my school wasn’t that academic. It is poor teaching to make any child feel like a failure for not getting into or applying to Oxbridge. And very important not to be blinkered and believe they are the best for all people and all courses (as murasaki shows). I had a friend who chose Oxbridge for prestige value knowing the course components wouldn’t suit him, and then had a miserable four years.

I don't agree NewYear. I hear the term Oxbridge a lot in RL. They use it at DD's school (bog standard state comprehensive).
My friend's daughter is being encouraged to apply but she doesn't want to. She says she wants a social life at university.

I know MN gives the impression of being a bit hung up on Oxbridge, but I think that parents of potential Oxbridge students are more vocal. Having lurked on the Oxbridge threads they come across as a nice bunch, but I'm inclined to think that us parents of children of more average academical ability stay quiet.

Oh I had a social life at Cambridge, probably to much of one. But I wouldn't change it if I could. But if that is her issue, it's a non issue. yOu find your people, same as everywhere.

IME the most academic London private schools schools (and Eton) do very much promote the option of going to university outside the UK, and especially in the US. It’s no longer an “Oxbridge or failure” mindset. Mind you of course those families can afford not to worry about the cost and a lot of them have family links outside the UK: it’s a very internationally minded demographic.

Well, that's the ethos of the school you have chosen to send your children to.

Unless you want to remove them and send them elsewhere, just let them know that they don't have to try for Oxbridge no matter what their teachers say; or if they try and don't succeed it's not the end of the world; or if they get in and don't want to accept the place, then that is okay too.

If they were really forward thinking they'd teach languages to a high enough standard that children could go to uni on the continent if they wanted - producing truly global citizens.

I think plenty of students in the UK speak more than one language. (my dc included)

Oxbridge are world leaders but is this purely based on the past?

Is the oxbridge bomus in the job market as good as it was?

I've been a professor at both Oxbridge and Russell group unis.
Research is one thing but for undergrad teaching: go to Oxbridge
if you can.
And if you are offered Oxbridge and decline in favour
of any other UK uni, you are an idiot.
Sorry but that's how it is.
Again, for u/g only. For PhD and research things are completely different.

Ethylred - I'm not sure I agree with you there. You're speaking from an academic perspective.

I've met (now) three separate people who left their Oxbridge degrees because they were not coping with the stress or pressure. You might be good enough to go but not resilient enough to cope with the pressure.

Also you might prefer a course not offered by Oxbridge. When I was applying I wanted to do English and French - a combination that was only offered by Sussex University at the time. I caved and just did English only but I still think that might have been a super course.

ethylred, would you say that’s true for most subjects or just because of the tutorial system?

On a sidenote, if it were all down to grade inflation in regard to more applying, then surely only those with aaa* would be getting in. And those who got AAA and in would all be failing?

I think some students are "Oxbridge shaped". They can cope with the intense pressure and compacting a huge amount of work in shorter terms. A lot of students aren't, and that doesn't make them lesser students.

I know perfectly well that DD would cave in under that kind of pressure. She was never interested in applying to Oxford or Cambridge. It doesn't make her a poor student. She knows her strengths and weaknesses.

Lonicera that's an acute observation and now that you say it I realise you are entirely right. It's made a lot of things fall into place.

On one of the Oxbridge threads, someone commented that their DC had been offered AAAA, plus a Grade 1 in STEP II and III. This was for maths

So you are right OP - with grade inflation the grades go up. DS explained to me that both maths and further maths A levels are nowhere near hard enough to sort the candidates. So for example you need 80% (there's more to it but essentially you need 80%) to get an A* for A level maths. Cambridge won't even interview you if you have less than 95%. They insist on getting the raw data. And all of the applicants will already have A level maths when they are applying, I think.

"Ethylred - I'm not sure I agree with you there. You're speaking from an academic perspective."

Of course I am! Universities are academic places.

[Insert eye-rolling emoji here.]

The reason is simple. Students learn far more, far far more, from
each other than from the staff. So go to where the best students are.
Which, at the u/g level, means Oxbridge. Because these things are
self-perpetuating.

Ethylred , when you were working at Oxbridge, do you think your students were happy?

Not every academic school is like this. Mine was academic. I wasn’t called a failure for not getting into Oxford. They were encouraging of any university although we did mostly go to Russell Group ones. There was also a fair number of girls in my year who did an art foundation course, and one girl went straight into an internship with JP Morgan. I think there was one girl who apparently wouldn’t touch Oxbridge with a barge pole even though she could’ve got in.

It’s also interesting that you mentioned dentistry as that isn’t offered by either Oxford or Cambridge.