Does anyone else's child has this many GCSEs?

[Murdochmysteries]

My db has a habit of exaggerating the truth, to the point of incredulity, supposedly my dn at a below average comp, is leaving the school with 18 GCSEs, 1 B all the rest As.

18?!?!?

Murdoch again your DB may be talking rubbish however your assumption that nobody would turn down an Oxbridge offer is incorrect.

Some people don't like Oxford/Cambridge. They go for the interview and decide that it isn't for them. Exeter is a fantastically good university, and it would suit some poeple better than Oxford.

I can understand turning down Oxford for Cambridge or vice versa but why else would anyone turn down an offer? Surely, they would not have applied in the first place if they didn't want to go there? That does not make a lot of sense to me .

Oh, x cross there with one reason, I suppose.

Ime a lot (but not all) of people who tell family they "turned down Oxbridge" actually got refused by Oxbridge. They usually justify it by saying "he didn't get a place but we would have turned it down anyway".

Or sometimes they looked at the grades offered and realised they wouldn't get them.

And because you do spend a certain amount of time during the interview stage it does happen that people realise it's not for them, for various reasons.

Oxbridge interviews take place over 2-3 days in December. And they don't invite everyone who applied for interview. Don't you think it's likely (given your db's tendency to show off) you would have been told "dn is away at present. Got an interview for Oxbridge..."?

OP
my DCs are at a comp where 6 pupils got 14 A* last summer
18 As and no A* sounds like a stack of 4 grade Btec - well dodgy to me.
Get him to name the subjects and grades.

sorry if someone already said this but am in a rush... did she do some BTECs, which theoretically are equal to 4 GCSEs - tho I don't think any university would count them as equivalent to 4. Very unlikely that they would take 18 GCSEs, surely she would have been set off on ASs rather than additional GCSEs?

( and talkinpeace hadn't posted before I started to type!!)

I genuinely know people who have turned down Oxbridge for LSE. Not everybody wants to go to Oxford or Cambridge.

SIL claims she turned down Oxbridge because she wouldn't have been comfortable there. A teacher had pushed her to go for it, her parents (very working class) were against her going to uni at all. She went to Durham,with 3 A's.

Sounds like the OPs DN wouldn't have been allowed to turn down a boasting opportunity, though!

Dyspraxic is not a synonym for non academic.

well i did 13 GCSE's, but that was 7years ago.

This link shows that someone got 18A*s in 2010 - Wow!

Okay I haven't clicked on the link - this is where I do and see a picture of my dn isn't it!!!!

Thank god for that, not my dn school, and his name is not on that list

No one said it was sigma. Dyspraxia is varied and the requirements at exam level are wide. But very few with dyspraxia will take the same route some need a scribe others only a computer others find the whole ideaof being tested an ordeal.

I know a boy with 14 gcse's, he was at private school, all A* and took he took 5 alevels. He is studying Maths at oxford. what or where is your dn studying now Murdochmysteries?

Noddy I am dyspraxic. Both my DDs are dyspraxic. I don't need you to tell me about dyspraxia.

I am not trying to tell you I am talking about my experience .

I would just ask your DN, OP. Young people tend to be far more honest about these things.