UPDATE on University Situation - Advice?

[Juliette96]

So, I have just been told by my private exam centre that they’ve managed to get the coursework issue resolved so I’ve now got my 3 A-Stars.

This is great and means I’ve achieved my true potential. Also, it means I am eligible to reapply to Oxford (no need for fraud!).

The only issue is that the Cambridge Foundation Year is now creeping up on me.

I have to attend an induction week starting this Monday and I still don’t want to go. They keep phoning me and emailing me about it, but it’s just upsetting me. If I didn’t want to go, how can I tell them no at this late stage without them hating me?

Also, what do you think I should do? I don’t want to do the Foundation Year and can reapply to Oxford and UCL as I have the grades now and I’m quite confident at my admissions test performance as I recently did it. But, I know if I get rejected from Oxford, I’d think I wasted a whole year when I could’ve just gone to UCL. This is as although I could technically also get rejected from UCL, I got in this year.

Also, Cambridge is still good but I just don’t want to do the Foundation Year!! If they could let me just bypass it but they refuse to.

Also, if not for the private exam centre messing things up I could have just gone to UCL to study history for a year and then transferred to their law course or reapplied to Oxford while there as Oxford allows students studying at other universities to apply ONLY if they want a change of course or have other serious reasons for applying. This means that I wouldn’t have to be scrambling for things to do in an unneeded second gap year. It’s now too late for UCL Clearing.

Just thinking about how if I had just applied to Oxford by the deadline, and got an offer, I would’ve had no stress and no issues and would have met the offer.

I met a student who did a foundation year at Cambridge and the went straight into the degree course and she was very happy. I can’t see a downside.

OP, you are clearly very smart, however 3 A stars is average for Oxford. You would be throwing away a guaranteed Cambridge place for a gamble at Oxford. A gamble with an 87% likelihood of not coming out in your favour.

I went to Oxford many years ago and definitely don't view it as any better than Cambridge

Do the foundation year as everyone has suggested.

OP, you must have spent hours writing about this on social media and turning it over and over in your mind. That's time you could have spent so much more usefully on, really, anything. Doing the foundation course seems to me a no-brainer - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

For what it's with, my nephew got a first from Oxford but doesn't really rate it as a university. They were very keen on him coming back for a postgraduate degree, but he decided instead to go to St Andrew's, which he though was better. So don't write off Cambridge over some perception that Oxford is the holy grail.

Whatever you do, you desperately need to get out of this overthinking cycle. It's led you down some very dangerous pathways, particularly when you were thinking of making a fraudulent application, and I hate to think what sort of mess you will get into when it comes to choosing what to do after your degree. Or even before - doing law does involve making a lot of decisions, one way and another.

So, OP… where will you be tomorrow morning?

Bedroom in the parental house, procrastinating re a new Oxford application. I'd put good money on it.

@Juliette96
So Op, are you in Cambridge yet?

Do we know how old OP is?? Her new username would suggest 29!!

I assume she is 19, having done a levels and one gap year (so far)

Everything crossed that you've made the right decision and are trotting off to Fitzbillies for buns with your new college friends later today

Cambridge doesn’t start today does it? Not for a couple of weeks. Nobody I know is going up till first weekend in Oct.

The foundation year does apparently. Presumably to settle them in and do induction before everyone else arrives.

Wishful thinking, though sadly I think the OP won't be there today and will be sitting at home dreaming about Oxford.

I'd be tempted to think that all of this was just a long-running hoax but despite all of the many threads and posts under various usernames, the complicated story is always the same and there are never any mistakes/contradictions in any of the details.

What I don't understand is why the OP doesn't seem to have parental support to help her make a decision and stick to it. Or maybe they are tired of it too. She mentions them saying they said she can't take another gap year.

Over this series of threads I have consecutively assumed the OP was first inventing the scenario, and then male (given the lengthy solipsism of their posts). MNHQ couldn’t find a reason to doubt the genuineness of the posts, and other posters began to seem confident the OP was female. I’m prepared to accept all of that, for the sake of discussion.

The thread(s) obsessing over age mates and A’Levels suggest the OP is the age we would expect.

I do hope the OP is currently signing in for the induction week and looking forward to a busy and enlightening day amongst new peers. 🍀

If I remember correctly, under one of her other usernames OP posted a lengthy thread about being adopted and some issues with her parents.

I think there is a dysfunctional relationship with their parents and sibling. Op has said they were adopted but was recently encouraged by adoptive parents to build a relationship with birth parents against their wishes. Presumably they funded the retake gap year. The Foundation Year programme was available to them because of such difficult circumstances. The opportunity to move away and distance themself would be of personal and emotional benefit as well as developing independent learning skills.

I happened across another thread of OP's on The Student Room where posters also got sick of the timewasting repetition and a moderator even came on and told OP to stop creating multiple threads on same issue and going around in endless circles. It's a kind of madness.

And god knows how many other sites they're posting on over and over!

I missed all of that. Thanks for taking the time to explain that.
In which case, the foundation year would have been absolutely ideal.

Ah … I always forget there are other forums! As well as other SM. I’m sad to hear the OP has been using so much of their youth and energy on this.

I’d missed, or forgotten, the story behind the free Foundation Year. How could anyone turn that down??

I just hope no one reports the OP to the Cambridge admissions team so that the offer doesn't get rescinded with her having posted so much on various forums.

I don't think universities rescind offers for posting on social media, no matter how circular or repetitious the posts.

Of course they wouldn't. But if she's not there now they will.

I fully expect the OP to be back the day after the Oxford deadline having missed it again. Deliberately as if you don't apply they can't reject you and you can continue obsessing about allegedly worse candidates getting offers.

I could meet someone with a first class Law degree from Oxford and still find them mad as a box of frogs.

I must say my colleague with a First from Oxford Law was very clever and quite normal but so was my colleague with Cambridge Law degree 🤷‍♀️