Top Unis - am I missing something?

[OnTheRoll]

DD is in Year 13, predicted 3 A, already has an A from a language A Level she did last year, and 11 GCSEs all 8/9. Got a great work experience in her chosen field, lots of academic reading, etc., etc. Has been working very hard and aiming for a top uni.

The problem is, it seems that unless she gets into Oxbridge, there isn't a suitable option for her?

We are in SE so decided not to go for Durham/Edinburg as the travel is just too much, 5+ hours, and she would not be able to come home more than once a term. She would very much prefer a campus experience rather than a city uni which rules out LSE/UCL in London.

There are of course great options like Warwick, Bristol, Bath, Exeter. We visited and DD loved them and so did I.

But I cannot help thinking that if she were to go to one of those unis she didn't really need to spend that much time working, studying and sacrificing her free time. Does it make sense? Entry requirements in those unis in her subject are all quite lower than her current and predicted grades.

Would appreciate some perspective.

Prejudice re what- calling out a parent saying saying no uni other than Oxbridge is good enough and not respecting or leaving her dd to make her own choices or preference for life balance.

We’ll just ignore the prejudice shown towards many good unis shall we.

Course content is generally based on the interests of the academics based at the university. If these don't align with your interests, the course may not be suitable, regardless of the university it is at.

Most academics (particularly at "prestigious" universities") are primarily research oriented and may not be great at teaching. Have a look at the TEF awards. Plenty of "non-prestigious" universities getting the gold award.

You’re a snob. I got 4 A stars and went to Leicester, because I liked the course and campus more than Oxford.

I often wonder what it’s like for the kids who go to these prestigious universities on the back of hundreds and thousands of pounds been spent on private schools and/or multiple-subject private tutition, who then meet kids like mine who went to State schools and never had paid-for additional tutoring or Summer schools but ended up with the exact same stellar grades

If they loved their school and made many friends there then they couldn't give a monkeys. It probably means more to the state school kids.

Grades are somewhat meaningless when you get to university.
I've seen students with reams of A stars struggle while students with much lower results absolutely fly once at uni.
If, by working hard, your daughter gets A stars then great. Another student may work just as hard and get a B. Clearly, she has an aptitude for the subjects she has chosen and has good teachers to boot. Just because a course has lower entry requirements doesn't mean it's bad or it's pointless to have better grades. Nor does it mean that others on the same course as your daughter will be any less able and successful.

What I would say is that Oxbridge is looking for far more than just top school grades and extracurricular stuff from students. It's great that she wants to aim for that, but you need to be realistic that everyone applying there will have top grades and oodles of extracurricular bumf. What they're looking for can't be measured in a grade or on paper - hence the interview (if one makes it that far).

Equally, the Oxbridge experience really doesn't suit everyone. I know two people who ended up at Manchester University instead of Oxford - one who turned down a place at Oxford and one who hated it and dropped out before starting again here. I also have a good friend who read social and political science at Cambridge and hated the course content and hated the Cambridge experience and wishes she'd gone somewhere else. University is a very personal choice.

Therefore, it's really important that your daughter looks at the course content and has a couple of options that she's really happy with that aren't Oxbridge. Setting her up to view universities that aren't Oxford or Cambridge as inferior or beneath her or for the less capable is a terrible idea - whether she gets into Oxbridge or not.

As for the travel time, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield are all within two and a bit hours of London. For campus unis, York isn't much further and Warwick and Keele are also not too far, as are UEA and Sussex. All good universities..

Thanks for that, interesting to hear.

Wow. That's a bold statement! I can't imagine many people preferring the campus at Leicester to Oxford.

Bloody hell, OP, wind your neck in.

If she doesn't get into Oxbridge she is not too good for Warwick/Bristol/Bath/Exeter.

I'd also bear in mind that she might not want to come home outside the school holidays, in which case travelling to Durham or Edinburgh would be absolutely fine (and indeed many students travel there from much further away than Surrey), and also that she might change her mind about the "campus experience". I wanted to go to Warwick because that's where my boyfriend at the time was and I'd had a great time with him on campus. Luckily I didn't get in and ended up at a city based university with much more going on. I later met some Warwick students on their year abroad who told me they were bored out of their brains on the Warwick campus and that Coventry was a grotty shit hole.

After I read this message I truly believe she needs a gap year and to apply next year. I felt the same way- totally burned out from working so so hard academically and not really 100% sure what environment I wanted for my next study choice. Once the pressure was off and I took a gap year and made my applications after the summer holidays to reset, I was 100% more sure of what I wanted. Which was a London university. Spent 3 years at UCL. She is right that for some of her choices it will be a lot more work than play and she won’t be the brightest kid in the class anymore. For me, I’d made peace with that and it actually gave me some important life lessons. But she might prefer a university that’s a bit less intense. The best uni is the one she will attend and be happy at. No good getting into Cambridge to drop out after a term due to being miserable. It’s an incredibly expensive mistake to make with student loans.

with her aspirations in the USA she could also apply for scholarships over there too. Or look at a degree programme with a year in Europe.

it sounds like the pressure (that she feels, not from you) needs to be eased and the best way to do that is to defer entry for a year.

the other way to do it is to go through her choices and kind of play a game. Eh if you opened an envelope with a rejection, would you feel sad or relieved or happy. And that can help make the decision for her.

It is true. A survey was published a few years ago which gave LSE in particular a terrible report for the quality of its teaching and its pastoral care. Universities which are prestigious because of their research and publication don’t necessarily focus on the quality of teaching.

I think you are focussing in the wrong thing. It sounds as if your Dd has always put pressure on herself to do well and get the highest grades and she is now wondering why - why is she sacrificing time and fun to get something that actually if she doesn’t get Cambridge she doesn’t need

Help her find her balance, both myself and DD got if we pushed and worked hard get that but I have always pushed for a balance in terms of grades and social life and the work life bakance

help her find it

I really don’t think societies, non relevant Alevels or working in a shop is going to get you an internship. Relevant work experience, degree content, life experience, a year in industry as part of your degree…might.

This. Also that learning 'too much,' i.e getting high grades she didn't need, is a waste of time. Surely learning should be for its own sake.

I got 4 As at A Level (before A star existed) but I wasn't interested in Oxbridge and the course I did (languages at a Russell Group uni) needed 3 Bs. I never felt that it was 'below' my intelligence. Many people on my course had similar grades and some were much more intelligent than me. I was happy and I absolutely loved the uni and the course. I think that's what really matters.

My DD went to a RG uni ,about 100 miles away.Still took 3 hours by car and similar by train no biggie! She also found it a bit of a shock at Uni . The first year is very different to A levels I think .She now works in industry earning over 50k!

I think the value of a Oxbridge education is rather over amped these days and more about parental bragging rights. My DH is a Cambridge grad, works for a FTSE100 company and recruits top candidates from all over the world (Harvard, Yale, the world ranked unis in Europe and, yes, London/Edin/ST Andrews/Bath etc).

When he graduated in the 90’s the HR department had a filing cabinet, one drawer for Oxbridge and one for ‘everywhere else’. They had a preference for ‘top drawer’ candidates, unless a candidate from somewhere else outshone them on the aptitude tests (I was one of those candidates!) Back then, at selection, Oxbridge cared about what else you brought to the table (rowers, cricket, music in my DH’s case), now they just care that you love your subject to the exclusion of pretty much all else and have the grades. They expressly state they don’t care what you do outside of studying, so do not select well-rounded people. The pastoral care at these unis/colleges is very poor and these students are under academic pressure from the second they arrive - fine if you want to go into academics and/or the civil service.

But in my DH’s company now? They actively don’t select Oxbridge - it speaks of an overly academic candidate that is great at book learning but is likely to have less in the way of life skills or street smarts and thus be unable to connect with colleagues and clients, most of whom statistically also haven’t been to an Oxbridge uni. The intensity of the studying regime also means they often arrive with little to no work experience so they can be ‘high management time’ absorbers (my DH’s pet hate).

Tbh I would stop being blinded by historic perceptions of Oxbridge uni (nb. they both slipped to 3rd and 4th in the league tables this year, no doubt not helped by the unrelenting student political posturing of the last few years, which is significant if you are Jewish or not from one of this term’s favoured oppressed minorities). What I would do is look at the league table for the subject she wants to study, consider the careers that she is interested in entering, and then look at the employment stats at 18m and 5 years post graduation to get a sense of how that degree and that institution is valued in the real world within the employment sectors that apply to her.

We’ve actively discouraged our two from even looking at Oxbridge as we genuinely think the degrees in the areas they are interested in are better at other universities (the London ones), even though they won’t get the campus experience that I had at York and Surrey.

One thing DD when younger wanted perfect - perfect grades etc and we spent time explaining that nothing ever is - I work in publishing and no book is published (bible maybe) without minor mistakes - I remember she brought me the special edition Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland and yes there were minor errors and thah is fine

The University of London is a federation of colleges, of differing sizes, locations and expertise. Not all University of London colleges involve commuting to a central London location.

Signed - someone who got straight As at A Level (no A stars in my day) and was very happy at one of the more campus like London University colleges.

She's pushed yourself to know she has done her best, and achieved the best she possibly could. That is a reward in itself.

A friend's daughter got into Oxford, hated it and dropped out. She then went to Keele to do Pharmaceutical Science, and absolutely loved the experience. Don't dismiss the lower unis.

Of course you are being ridiculous
She should do the best she can
If she doesn't get into oxbridge a first from one of the other Unis is still a first. Then maybe a ma at oxbridge

@OnTheRoll - why are you so hung up on prestige? It’s so unhelpful to your thinking. There are a great many excellent universities in the UK - not just 3.

I’ve got one in uni and one at the same stage as your DD. Neither were Oxbridge material but my older got offers from a number of good universities which are well recognised in her subject and I expect my younger (similar academic profile) will also.

My older daughter’s lowest offer but one was from her preferred uni and was below her predictions across the board (ABB vs A*AA) but it didn’t cross her mind to take her foot off the pedal. As a PP said, your DD is sounding a bit burnt out. My elder DD got her predicted grades and is surrounded by very able students.

I think you may be putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on your daughter with this focus on what you see as “prestigious” unis. I have a lot of terrific and very able colleagues who did not go to Oxbridge or London and who are doing very well in our high-pressure and demanding work environment. But she sounds on track for Cambridge. I went there and loved it but in fact many of my non-Oxbridge colleagues have progressed further than I have.

Or she could try for a harvard scholarship etc

Sorry I've not RTFT ... from reading your posts OP sounds like quite a lot of people responding can't read or comprehend what you're saying anyway and are answering unhelpfully.

My take is it's worth them doing as well as possible (ie congruent with work-life balance and MH) as an end in itself not just a means to and end. Doing A levels shouldn't just be about a letter on a piece of paper! But, as a means to and end, many employers do look at A levels as well as degrees classification.

Do good grades at school really separate the candidates in applications for internships? Genuine question

I don't know but they might well, particularly for any applied to during yr 1 for the first summer.

She says she has been working hard during secondary school and doesn't want to be in a high-pressure environment and feeling inferior to super-bright students. That she wants to have fun at uni as well as study. When I try to point out gently that people in Oxbridge and LSE too have fun, she says that no, they don't.

Oh yes they do...my dd definitely had fun at Cambridge, and that was doing engineering which is notoriously full on.
I'm afraid your dd is suffering from imposter syndrome (very common, perhaps especially among girls) ... if she's offered a place, that means they think she's bright enough, she's definitely not 'inferior' if she's likely to get four A stars!

She may just be doing that protective thing of downplaying any desire to go there in case she doesn't get an offer, of course. Maybe let the matter rest and see how she really feels if she gets one?

She has to work out what's most important, frequent visits home or the right course. DD chose the right course, at Edinburgh, approx 6.5hrs by train. Never regretted it. The positive is that you have the excuse to visit a lovely city every now and again yourselves!

I think she'll find there are plenty of A* students at other unis. When she gets out into the world, in a wider pool, she'll realise that other people are clever and hardworking, too. A bit of humility doesn't go amiss.
If she (you?) really want her to be on an elite course for elite students, she (you?) will need to choose something super competitive like medicine, architecture or law at a Russell Group uni.
Ultimately, having great school grades gives her free choice so she should choose the place that offers her the best course that matches her interests.