Why didn't your child apply to Oxford or Cambridge?

[ZeroSomeGameThingy]

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/27/oxbridge-state-school-numbers-falling

Given that most people who apply will not get in - there's no shame in an unsuccessful application. So what are the real reasons for this apparent reluctance?

But isn't that a good reason for interviewing, creamteas? If the interviews are carried out in a fair but rigorous manner, the applicant has a chance to show whether they're well drilled-but-limited or genuinely able.

creamteas I'm curious: what is your experience of interviewing at Oxford or Cambridge that makes you so sure that the process leads to the wrong result, or to unfair results? I can't see that you explain the intrinsic inequity very well. You're not making any particular case for the prosecution, beyond mere assertion. Interviewing is surely bound to lead to better or fairer results than relying on paper alone, especially if the paper evidence is also carefully scrutinized. Other universities on the whole don't now interview because the expansion in numbers and applications makes the process no longer viable, but it has nothing to do with fairness.

senua ten applicants aren't interviewed for each place at Oxford. The average number is considerably lower than that. Cambridge interviews way more, certainly. But it's not always useful to conflate the two universities, given their different approaches. You refer to an 'atmospherically high' basic standard as a prerequisite for applications. I can think of one applicant this year whose GCSEs were only slightly above average for his state school, his AS levels included two Bs and he had no mitigating circumstances beyond slight idleness in his teenage years. Nevertheless he scored incredibly high on his aptitude test and was interesting and engaging at interview. He got a place, deservedly so. On your 'basic' measure and on creamteas model, he couldn't have applied. To my mind, given clear potential, that would be very 'unfair'.

It's certainly true that the current system of AS levels and A levels seems to do little to show just how engaging and interesting some applicants' minds are. There seems to be 'one way' of answering questions. They know how many points they have to make to get each of the points in a section. It's all very formulaic, seemingly, for humanities AS/A levels, from what I have seen with my son. I asked why he didn't refer to other authors' texts in his English, but was told that it wasn't worth it as there was so little time to answer questions that he couldn't risk not making one of the 'right' points. AS level papers seem sometimes to be ridiculously crammed.

So different from writing ENglish essays at Oxbridge, where I was years ago, where there was no right answer and you could argue any point as long as you could back it up. Some of them must find the leap very great.

Interviewing is surely bound to lead to better or fairer results than relying on paper alone

Why do you think that?

For example, most universities now mark anonymously. When this was brought in, the average marks for women and BME candidate increased. This happened even though the majority of staff believed that knowing the student made no difference.

There are also examples of when identical applications/CVs are sent for job applications and discrimination is shown to take place. Removing demographic information when shortlisting has found to increase the numbers of minority candidates getting shortlisted, but not the numbers being appointed.

If you are interested theoretically try reading Bourdieu on cultural capital or Bernstein on restricted and elaborated codes. Both offer good explanations which can be used to explain why interviews can be so problematic.

Still seems to me that by trying to "eliminate as much unfairness as possible" you are just creating a different kind of unfairness - one that is totally lacking in humanity. It's all so very "computer says no."

I think a lottery might work if we could assume that everyone with straight As would suit Oxbridge. But actually it's such a different experience, so very intense that actually its not the right place for many. The admissions process of PS/testing/interviews is a better way to at least try to find those who would best suit it.

I think interviewing is bound to lead to better and fairer results than relying on paper alone because it is by definition more thorough.

But aside from the general point there's a specific one in relation to Oxford and Cambridge and that is the obvious one that they have a unique method of teaching at undergraduate level. Tutorials in other universities have mushroomed in size from their former levels, but even in the old days (the seventies and eighties say) those other top universities taught in relatively large groups. Where a tutor is engaging one to one or one to two with a student for long sessions at a time, then that student has to be tested as to whether they're likely to be capable of benefiting from that teaching style. This is not relevant elsewhere but is critical to a student's progress at Oxford and Cambridge. It has nothing to do with interview 'preparation': the interviewing tutors are on the whole cleverer than the students they interview (I'm sure with some honourable exceptions) and will be capable of seeing beyond that just as they are at reading between the lines of an ultra slick (possibly ghost written) personal statement.

Cross post with TheWordFactory, sorry - same point.

'as to whether they're likely to be capable of benefiting from that teaching style. '

A friend who interviews at Oxford used exactly this phrase to me recently.

You could argue that part of "whether they're likely to be capable of benefiting from that teaching style" is "whether I, personally, could bear to spend an hour a week in their company talking through their essays," which is most definitely subjective!

Absolutely you could rabbitstew. Now I wonder whether Oxford tutors are more likely to be able to contemplate an hour or two a week with some pleased with him/herself mediocre but well reheased public schooler or with some reticent but very clever state schooler with little or no practice at interviews but with obviously untapped potential?

Because many subjects are taught better else where

I still stand by the lottery idea. If you are looking at selecting 10 people out of a hundred, the usual normal distribution applies. There will be two or three applicants that anybody on any day of any week would pick as being head&shoulders above the rest. There will be another forty that you can discount. The rest are then pretty much of a muchness, where the 'fine-grained' decisions are. You might as well put the decision to chose the remaining 7 out of 57 into a hat. Or, if you want to get scientific, allocate on postcode or ethnicity or somesuch.

Sorry, don't see how you're picking out the head&shoulders above the rest ones... is this before or after they've taken their exams, and on what else are you basing your evidence? On what their school says about them? What if the school is crap and has no idea? Are you assuming if this is the case and they've applied to you, anyway, this is because they are head&shoulders above the rest???

Head&shoulders are representing the country at an Olympiad, are a published author, have a botanic species named after them, have won the XYZ prize, have been corresponding with you for a number of years.
There are always a very small number who really stand out.

I wouldn't necessarily consider an Olympic rower to be head&shoulders above anyone else when choosing who to accept onto a degree in English literature. In fact, the huge amount of time devoted to sport might be quite off putting.

As for getting onto a physics course for having written a Mills & Boon novel...

I think you can pay to have your name attributed to a new rose hybrid.

Sorry - being childish on a Thursday pm.

Maybe someone should suggest to businesses that they shouldn't interview potential employees, but just put the names of applicants into a lottery. I bet they'd love that. After all, most of us are much of a muchness, aren't we?

I'd say the 'corresponding with you for a number of years' would be even worse rabbit. 'I first toured Wadham College aged three and was completely enthralled.....'. I mean why would you do that? Who drove you there? Why weren't you watching LaLa or Dipsy? I don't quite get why the received wisdom is that those who get offers are quasi supernatural on the academic front. Many of those getting offers are just very clever but not crazily so. That fact may not suit those who get rejected, and the line that the process is random, a lottery, is so much easier to digest for those rejectees. But the plain fact is that the spectrum is wide, and the exceptional students are a tiny minority, even at these two universities. Perhaps that's the missing message, and the one to put out there to encourage more state schoolers to apply, rather than the starry eyed version of Oxbridge where everyone is simply amazing.

He wanted to be in the North of England and nearer mountains. He could mountain bike and rock climb in the summer evenings.

Haven't been able to stop thinking about Delphinium's post. Perhaps Oxford and Cambridge could follow the BBC's lead and open outposts in Salford? (But if you were from the south it would be compulsory to spend some time in the northern branch - and vice versa.)

Did you actually read my post Molio? The quasi-supernatural were my two or three in a hundred. The remainder - the majority - would all stand equal chance so it would encourage "more state schoolers to apply".

rabbitstew I didn't say representing at the Olympics, I said representing at an Olympiad eg the Maths Olympiad.

I know you didn't say the Olympics, senua, but the Olympics is an Olympiad. As for a maths Olympiad - that's a sign of exhibitionism, for sure, I'm not so very convinced it's a sign you are one of the world's greatest mathematicians.

And sorry, but I don't think 98% of the people who apply to Oxford and Cambridge should all stand an equal chance of getting in to whatever course they happen to have put down on their application form. I genuinely do not think they are all THAT equal.

senua your post refers to an 'atmospherically high' basic standard as the norm. That's just plain wrong.