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.

But Ethylred not all students are clever enough or want to go to Oxbridge. Should they be written off as duffers then? Your view is rather narrow and biased IMO.

The point I was making ethylred is that the vast majority of undergraduates are not interested in pursuing a career in academe.

I read an interesting article that said kids at the top of RG universities tend to earn more than the kids from the bottom of Oxbridge. It makes sense.

You didn't answer my point on courses not offered at Oxbridge or in fact on pupils not suited to Oxbridge. Most academics of my acquaintance generally answer points made at length.

I don’t think grade inflation can be the whole picture, as grades haven’t inflated enough to go from 5,000 applying in early 90s to Oxford, to 19,000 it so last year. If I do think it covers some of it as more AAA prediction people may apply (hoping they’ll impress at interview or get a higher grade). If they’d have got a ABB prediction 20 years ago, they wouldn’t have necessarily have been encouraged.

I wonder what the interview percentage is now with the increased numbers - I’m assuming more are turned down before interview as surely they can’t have that many more interviewers?

Well my Oxbridge education clearly taught me nothing about grammar from the number of typos in that post.

If you want to micro-manage your DC's expectations and disappointments in life, then take them out of that academic school. Easy peasy.

Loni, nor is there room for all of them.
What I wrote was that you are an idiot if you have the chance to go there
and turn it down. I didn't say anybody else was an idiot.

Pearls, I wasn't responding to you.

Twenty years ago virtually all applicants were interviewed. Now a relatively high percentage (depending on subject) are weeded out, usually on the basis of performance in the aptitude tests. Cambridge’s fury at the reintroduction of the Linear A level stemmed from their heavy reliance on AS in deciding whom to interview.
Completely agree with ethyred that students learn more from each other than from any of their ‘teachers.’

From DS I understand that Cambridge interviewed a substantial majority of the people who applied. This was for natural sciences. All the candidates had A level maths already and Cambridge don't interview people who hadn't scored 95% or more for maths A level. There was also an exam which meant that a proportion was culled after the exam. But the vast majority - 80% or more - were actually interviewed. It must place a huge strain on the Universities.

No one. Absolutely no one uses 'Oxbridge' IRL.

Yes they do. The law firm I trained at regularly dismissed comments about its lack of diversity by pointing out that only 70 per cent of people recruited had been to Oxbridge.

As an aside what is the percentage of students who miss their offers for Oxbridge?

It can be really high - I checked that. For maths, they make 3X more offers than they have places at Cambridge. So getting an offer is not necessarily a cause for celebration

DS has a relatively soft offer so we are optimistic. But he knows what will happen if he has a bad day.

On the flip side, Ethylred, there are those who are ‘bright’ enough but lack the intellectual curiosity to benefit from the peer group or the teaching.

I should add that that's the highest ratio of offers to places that I am aware of. It's lower in other subjects but I think roughly a third don't make the grades overall. DS has to get AAAA with no STEP papers - although he is doing one voluntarily because he needs lots of maths for his subject.

These - do you mean 80% from your DS’s school were interviewed? I’d expect similar from a good school (i.e one which has encouraged the right pupils to apply) but that doesn’t mean it’s 80% across the board. It used to be about 70% interviewed for my subject and then 1 in 3 interviewed getting an offer. However, that was a long time ago now...

Hi, no I meant across the board. DS is in bed with strict instructions for me to wake him up at 8 (because he wants to get a good few hours in before lunch, bless him and I won't even be able to persuade him to come and walk the dog with me) so I can't check.

Most of the kids from DS's school got interviews - around 18 applied and I think 15 were interviewed and 5 offered places.

My course (languages) interviewed most applicants (this was December 2012 for entry in October 2013). But then, language applicants are low everywhere, not just Oxbridge. The Oxford course in particular is very literature-heavy, which doesn’t suit everyone; Cambridge doesn’t have so much literature.

I think the course with the lowest interview and entrance rate is Economics and Management (25% interview and 7% intake). But it’s a fairly small course.

And of course students have a social life at Oxbridge They have loads of societies (although many are college-based). Think of all the comedians who went through Footlights, for example, or the Boat Race rowers.

One thought I will share which I hope will be relevant

Don't get discouraged by all this talk of percentages. DS has been in the same school since he was 3 years old. The boys know each other inside out and backwards.

One of the boys who applied to Oxford really hadn't distinguished himself academically over the years (in context). But he is unusual and a free thinker. It was a massive surprise to all the boys and to the school as well when he got an offer. Don't go thinking it's cast in stone because it isn't. Please encourage your children to have a shot.

The point of this thread is that Oxbridge isn't the be all and the end all. That's absolutely right and let's not lose sight of that.

Yes good point made above. Grades don’t always mean someone is good at a certain subject.

Selective schooling encourages this type of thinking.

We treated Oxford application as a lottery.

For ds's course they get a huge amount of applications for a very small intake.

The applicants are A* types with all the cv bells and whistles. They need to do really well in extra exams set by Oxford.

Ds with 4 A*s prediction from a comp, no tutors-didn't get an interview.

He didn't see it as a failure at all. Just unlucky. The school sends a handful to Oxbridge every year.

The school encourages and supports applications, but they encourage all students to to aim appropriately according to their predictions and ambitions. A student getting onto an excellent apprenticeship will be celebrated along with the dcs with profound learning difficulties who may have succeeded in learning enough life skills to live independently in the future.

This is how the comp system should work, if it wasn't complicated in many areas by private and selective schools.

Sorry for random bold type there

he had 4A*s prediction

The school encourages and supports applications, but they encourage all students to to aim appropriately according to their predictions and ambitions. A student getting onto an excellent apprenticeship will be celebrated along with the dcs with profound learning difficulties who may have succeeded in learning enough life skills to live independently in the future.

I’ve taught in two schools where this was the case and it is lovely and the correct way to educate. It’s a shame that the OP’s DCs’ school doesn’t seem to be able to celebrate the successes of each child commensurate with their needs and abilities. I had a great Head of sixth at school who said our school would never promise all As, but the best grades of which we were capable as individuals. I do believe in pushing for academic excellence (not at the expense of mental health etc) but this needs to be differentiated for each pupil.

Scipio absolutely.

I have two DCs who went to Cambridge, each from different schools. One of the things they bot hated, and which happened in each school was the enormous fanfare for the successful Oxbridge applicants, which extended to photographs for the school magazine. This was never done for any of the other successful university applicants.

I think that for some kids Oxbridge is genuinely the best place. It offers opportunities - academically and otherwise (eg in debating, Cambridge footlights) that aren’t available elsewhere. It can be a huge boost to your cv depending on industry. However, of course it’s not for everyone. Hopefully you’ll teach your kids to do their best and make their own path.

It makes the country feel very small to me. This obsession with 2 universities.