DS off to university but I am so disappointed

[susie4]

This should be a happy weekend for us - my youngest ds is off to university but I am having to hide the huge disappointment I feel about the way things have turned out. Some reading this will think I am ridiculous and that is why I cannot talk about it with anyone I know but I am hoping that someone will read this and understand the way I feel.
It was obvious that my ds was very clever from a young age. Teachers at his primary school would mention the word Oxford at parents evenings and that I suppose is when I started to dream. We are only ordinary parents who both left school at 16. I later returned to education but my husband's highest qualification is a grade 3 CSE. So we were always secretly proud of our son. He did extremely well at school and applied for Oxford but didn't get a place(It makes me mad to sometimes hear of Oxbridge tutors implying that they can somehow pick out the best applicants from their interview process because at my ds's school there were some very strange outcomes and they certainly didn't pick the best). Anyway after receiving his excellent a level results he announced that he would defer his place at the university he had accepted and think about reapplying to Oxford. However as the weeks progressed he slowly changed his mind about reapplying. He had an offer from his second choice university and with all the media talk about competition for places he couldn't be sure that if he withdrew and reapplied he would even get an offer from them again. The school couldn't get him to change his mind and nor could I. A second miserable christmas followed when a friend of his who had repplied did get an offer from Oxford.
So tomorrow he sets off to university but i am finding it so hard to accept what has happened as I never imagined anywhere else other than at Oxford. The university he is going to is a a good second best choice for him but it is second best. All this has spoiled the last 2 years of my life and I know I have got to get over it but I am finding it hard. Is there anyone out there who has experienced something similar and can offer any advice?

ZOMBIE THREAD

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!

I went to a uni stuffed to the gills with oxbridge rejects.

Everyone I discussed it with speaks of a great relief at not getting in. They knew the teaching style / colligate atmosphere wasn't for them, but they felt too much pressure from home and school to just not apply.

Plus we all knew that the undergraduate teaching of our subject was no way near as good at oxbridge as it was at our redbrick Russell group uni.

Wonder how the OP's son is getting on two years on and whether she did get over it!

I think he should reapply, and you should support him in reapplying, provided HE wants to reapply. Provided his A levels were as good, or better, than expected.

He will interview so much better this year than last, and perhaps he will apply to UCAS, more mindful of his back-up choices.

It's all about supporting our children's choices, if his choice is this new univeristy, without remorse, then you MUST support him.

Where is he going and what is he going to study?

He's probably already studying it LittleFrieda (only a year off graduation!)

I bet the son has enjoyed his 2 years at university - but whether OP has ever got over the "shame" of her son not getting into Oxbridge is another matter.

Sorry but I second Narmada's post. This is not a terrible thing. I can't sympathise. I myself am of course prone to worrying about things which are pathetic in the grand scheme of things and I therefore tell myself TO GET A GRIP! Sorry but you really have to ...

Why the fuck do people resurrect old threads?

So annoying.

THE THREAD IS TWO YEARS OLD FFS!

Pagwatch, the thread may be old but the events and feelings that led to it two years ago keep recurring in other people's lives year after year.

Also, common misconceptions about the social class/school background of students at Oxford are persistent and need to be dispelled. Someone whose state educated child is thinking of applying soon, but hesitant on that basis, might be interested.

ok so start a new thread about yer isshoos, so that folk don't have to waste time wading through old stuff

Ta

Pagwatch, the thread may be old but the events and feelings that led to it two years ago keep recurring in other people's lives year after year. Also, common misconceptions about the social class/school background of students at Oxford are persistent and need to be dispelled. Someone whose state educated child is thinking of applying soon might be interested.

The problem was in applying to Oxford. He should have applied to Cambridge. Its far more egalitarian. I have never been able to understand how Oxford selects its students. Some colleges are more of a mystery than others, but all are a little strange there.

A few years ago, at our DC's indie open day, we were led around by a 6th Former. One of the mums asked how many were going onto Oxbridge. About 30. Where are you going? Warwick. I could see the 'loser' expression on the mum's face. The OP kind of reminds me of that mum.

I can understand you are disappointed, and as a clever person who didn't apply from a comprehensive school I agree with you about the odd choices.

The peole who went to Oxbridge from my sixth from were a very odd choice in my opinion and I think everyone elses, there was a kind of shocked csilence when the offers came in.

If its any consolation I think that despite what Oxbridge and many alumni on here claim, the many (not all) of the people doing the interviews just don't 'get' comprehensive students, and are unwilling to acknowledge why they will present differently/not perform as well as privatly educated students. Perhaps as it would acknowledge that there own admission to the institutions was unfair?

Either way, you do need ot move on or your son will feel like a failure. Did you look at US universities?

This is two years ago so it would be interesting to hear how it got on. I never tired (and I suppose might have got in) but it hasn't made a single bit of difference to me. I don't think my older daughter (who didn't try and went to Bristol) is going any worse in her career (£60k salary in mid 20s) than had she gone to Oxford either. Just concentrate on the positive. Make sure he can communicate and has confidence and social skills and is robust and hard working and always does what he says.That staying power and ability to charm in my view is just as important as exam results. I am not sure comps are much good at this either sadly though.

ethlb and others. It may not have dawned on you but many of those admissions tutors were state school educated (and also from non oxbridge universities) so they definitely do 'get' comprehensive students.
The misconception about the educational backgrounds of Oxford tutors is shocking to me. Now if you were to talk about their work experience beyond academia, that would be a different matter....but then that can be said for any occupational groups.

It has dawned on me. Don't be so patronising and presumptuous.

I did say 'not all' or are you just looking disagree with someone. Oxbridge?

ethelb - why have you questionmarked 'Oxbridge'? It is well recognised shorthand.

I was making a valid point. And of course I was not looking for an argument but I am pretty fed up with a commonly held view on mumsnet about how admission tutors come from such rarified background that they don't understand students who come from 'ordinary' backgrounds. It simply isn't true.

Oxford is not for everyone. It is not just about being bright.

My Brother in law interviewed at Oxford. I was there at the time as was DW. We met him for coffee on the day of his interview. He clearly just didnt want it. He is a truck driver now and just as bright and nice a person as he ever was.

I know some people who did get in to Oxford and totally flunked every exam. One left and became a landscape gardener and he was very very successful.

Others left Oxford and made nothing of themselves.

Much as I hate prolonging a zombie thread, the OP sounds like my mother. When I got the phonecall to say I'd not got through the exam, mum took it (I was out) and when they picked me up, I was greeted by "And I thought you were clever - obviously you're not! How could the schools lie to us?"

It took years to get an apology for this astonishingly cutting outburst, and even more to regain my lost self-confidence. It wasn't the failure to get in that did it, it was entirely my mother's remarks. I now have three physics degrees and work as a senior researcher. There was a lot of humble pie eating around the time of my PhD...

(In hindsight, not surprised I didn't get in. I had one lesson a week for 6 weeks for three subjects in my little, not very good comprehensive. When I got to my second-choice (wonderful, glad I went there) RG uni, I found loads of fellow rejects, most grammar school and public school, who had been coached for months and months in much greater detail than me - and who still failed.)

The responses on these threads about comprehensive students are always very odd.

It is like racism threads where people keep claiming that if black people simply stopped going on about racism, the problem would just go away.

Every time somebody claims there isn't any issue with many bright children from comprehensive schools fitting in at certain universities, it makes me more certain that my children shouldn't apply to such universities because my child will be seen as the problem (or not seen at all) rather than the culture of our universities.

We will never resolve a problem that we refuse to believe exists.

Sorry but I can't agree with you. It's nothing like racism
Why should you child be seen as a problem?