To have told my niece she won’t make it into Oxford uni?

[Awfulaunt]

Hi all,
first off sorry if there’s typos I’m typing this on my phone.
for context, I’ve been a private tutor for years, mainly English and History. Over the years I’ve helped with lots of UCAS and applications including a few oxbridge ones. My niece is at the age where she’s thinking about uni and her parents asked me to tutor her for English and History, I agreed. She is bright, gets Bs and the occasional A or C. She asked me if I think she should apply to Oxford and I said “No not for your undergrad. Maybe if you work really really hard at uni and do extracurriculars and things while you’re there and come out with a first you could try for your masters if you want to do one, but it’s not really an option at this moment in time.” All seemed fine, we carried on and she seemed okay. Fast forward to now and I just had SIL on the phone shouting at me that I crushed her dreams and that she was going to apply and get in and show me (etc). I said I’d love it if she did, I’d be absolutely thrilled if she got in to spite me.
I don’t think I was harsh when I told her, I don’t think it was cruel. I think it’s kind of my job to tell her. I didn’t rule it out in the future because I feel like once she’s at uni she will flourish academically because she will have more freedom etc and I’ve told her this many times. I feel horrible that I’ve upset her but I genuinely think it was the right thing to do.
I sent her a message saying I am sorry if I came off harsh or anything I just want what is best for her. Also spoke to DB who said SIL was just angry because niece was upset and that he thinks I did the right thing. Bit miffed that he let her speak to me like that, but also when she goes off best thing to do is stay out the crossfire.
Am I in the wrong and just blind to it?

I haven’t misunderstood anything. I made an observation about the number of armchair experts confidently explaining what Oxford do or don’t want, and how they can’t all be correct.

I would have thought it was obvious to even the meanest intelligence that universities will consider exam results as part of their application process.

That depends on what you want from the discussion, as I’ve explained.

The op didn’t get the result she wanted.

Its not, its being kind. But we live in a world where telling the truth is underappreciated.
There is no point applying to a selective university where you do not meet the minimum entry requirements.

'Contributing to the life of the university' is not something that British universities are supposed to take into account when admitting undergraduates.

Not unreasonable. She's not going to get in with those grades for her undergrad, and it makes more sense to aim for unis that will realistically give her an offer.

A B grade student won't only not get into Oxford, but probably not even the top unis outside of Oxford. A bit of a reality check is needed for them.

A student getting solid Bs now might well pull them up to A grades by the time of the actual exams, though.

No not in the wrong at all, and your SIL and niece will very soon come to realise that Oxford was never really in the picture (mock A levels etc, really Oxbridge candidates are A* all the way) and that plenty of other universities will meet her needs better and she’ll have a wonderful time there and do well. Pushy mums eh?

Also, tact doesn’t mean mislead, it means be tactful.

I think it wasn't your place to do that! You seem a bit arrogant and disempowering.
You should apologise and support instead

So much this.

Also they create an illusion of meritocracy, then, as soon as you leave, everyone reverts to type/class. It's not for normal people.

It’s the way they think and approach intellectual process. And yes: people with various hair colour or height can fit the bill, as can people from various schools or with various interests or from various cultural backgrounds.

I think you gave good advice.Forget what they think and move on.

We only sent our DD to public school as her cohort were not even vaguely in the same league. She was way in front and frequently got into trouble for reading under her desk as she had finished the work. At the end of primary school they did a theatrical performance. That year's leavers voted for the future career of each other. We had builders, nail technicians, beauticians, plasterers and tanning salon owners. My DD was listed as "author".Hence my DM and DF paying for tuition at a minor public school .Yes public school not private. Dating back to 1700s with well known allumni throughout its long history. The whole private school thing appears to be an Americanisation. I don't really care about this as i just wanted our DD to have an apt education. At public school she was in a cohort who were on an equal academic and social level which made her school life far more pleasant. It has not benefitted her in the least with her occupation. That has been entirely on her own merit. What I would credit the school with is giving her confidence and self belief.

Did you mean to put that on a different thread, myfaceismyown?

It is part of it. It’s the first hurdle. But, because they know the limitations of those grades in terms of what they can tell about the candidate, they don’t just take them in order of best to worst grades from that point. So in theory the person with the very best grades could turn up and not get a place while people with lower grades did. (And actually it’s not just in theory that people with higher grades get turned down while people with lower grades get offers. Otherwise they might as well just get a computer to do the selection process).

I honestly feel that we are so harsh on the younger generation. I wonder what it does to a young and still developing mind to live through a pandemic, to see on the news everyday the rising numbers of the dead and to see that reflected in one’s own family or the family of friends. I have noticed that this may have engendered a sense of hopelessness in some young people, the sense that the future is quite bleak. This is why I feel we should encourage them. Op is right not to give false hope but we should help them to see that there is a bright future ahead and give them options as to how to achieve it.

And you don’t know that people are “ armchair experts.”

Tutor here. I can tell you I deal with some parents and students whose aspirations and ambitions are not even on the same planet as cold hard reality.

Your assessment of your neice's academic track record in relation to whether she can get into Oxford is perfectly correct, rational and realistic. ('The occasional A'???)

Also if dreams were trampled underfoot by one comment by a relative is seems that those 'dreams' were on pretty thin ice. And what about the commentaries from other teachers and schools and career officers? Doesn't seem reasonable they are behaving as though one remark from an aunt is enough to scupper life plans.

I can say that you seem to have been unwittingly pulled in as an unfortunate scapegoat. I have been blamed dozens of times for crappy exam results and failures for people to get into their college of choice.

But no. You were not 'in the wrong.' Stick to your guns.

I have lost track of the number of children whose aspirations have been crushed by mean words. On my classroom wall is "Do not say you cannot do it, say you cannot do it YET". I had a very fierce word with my Grandson's football coach - he came home crushed and really upset, I finally found out that his coach had said he would not make a professional footballer because he did not listen - he was only 9 - how on earth would he know how the child would be? ( a child who was the major goal scorer for his team that year). What he SHOULD have said is that "if he listened more and did what was said, he might make a reasonable footballer". Just in the same way as advising the ways that chances can be improved is your job, and helping do those things, NOT telling them they cannot succeed.
I went to school with a boy who failed 11+, was bottom streamed by someone who was "facing the cold hard reality" for him. With a great teacher who analysed his problem, with specialist language skills help and remedial English lessons, he went on to FOUR A* levels in Maths, Pre Maths, Physics and Chemistry and an award winning career (but only a scrape at English GCSE it had to be said, but that was the door that opened it all).
Surely whatever her relationship, she was being paid to work out what was needed and provide it - if she is not good enough a tutor, she should have said so and recommended others

No, not a criteria. BUT Cambridge do interview more of their applicants than many other Unis, and going into interview alongside others with the same qualifications, as I said, it shows you have what it takes to get those AND do something else that rounded your life experience. With competition for space, it may well be the tipping point.
I can honestly say that I once got a great job - passed the assessment, and the tech interview. Final round was a quick chat with the big boss (the "fit" interview) A chat about my running Beaver Scouts was what tipped the balance.

Still not the case at Oxford though. Neither of my interviews so much as mentioned any of my extra curriculars, not even as ice breakers.
What did get me in was, I assume, my ability in the subject as demonstrated by the tasks set for me to work through in the interview, which also showed my capacity to be taught through the tutorial system, and my ability to back up what I said with super-curricular reading. Plus obviously the admissions test and A level grades.
There isn't a "fit" interview, it's not a job.

I wonder if the confusion around "contributing to uni life" comes from Oxbridge having very good sports teams, university orchestras, choral foundations etc. It's true that there are a lot of students who are talented in areas outside their degree, as well as in their subject. But that doesn't mean that they're selected on extra-curriculars, it just means that clever young people are often clever or skilled in more than one area. At junior conservatoire, if you weren't going to conservatoire, you were going to Oxbridge. And of course, lots have never done any of the apparently desirable (but actually irrelevant) extra-curricular activities, and devote their free time to JCR roles, or learning a language at the language centre, or the pub.

Congratulations on the job- but interviews for university admissions are not the same as (many) job interviews. Interviewers are not looking for rounded life experience! We are, after all, academics: i.e. what some would consider as un-rounded nerds!

We are not looking for all-rounders. We are not looking for a particular type of personality. We are not looking for ability to fit into an organization. We are looking for ability to think about the academic subject. What would make an applicant stand out is not their extracurricular experiences, but their ability, for example, to suggest ways of designing an experiment, if applying for a science subject, or their originality in discussing a literary work, if applying for a literature-related subject.

Of course, many universities don't interview at all; but those that do, are using the interview as part of an academic assessment.

The danger of the idea that universities are looking for 'all-rounders' or people with lots of extra-curricular experience, is that it can discourage students from disadvantaged backgrounds, students with health problems, or those who just lack social confidence from applying at all.

An object lesson in missing my point entirely and conflating utterly different things.

And yet we have Oxbridge sending out reach teams to schools in deprived areas where in reality very few students typically are getting A levels necessary for entrance with the message 'Oxbridge is for you!'

Ok for maybe 1% of a school cohort at a failing inner city comp this may have relevance but not for the vast majority. I think the out reach to areas which have historically sent few to Oxford or Cambridge maybe is slightly counter productive in that it gives false hope so I can see how some may have over optimistic thoughts of their offspring going to elite universities.

Yes reality checks are need as in this case but are Oxbridge helping by continually asking children for non standard backgrounds to apply when in reality those from traditionally underrepresented schools and regions can't apply because in the whole their grades are too low?