Getting into Oxford.....

[CrushWithEyeliner]

My friends' son has not passed the entrance to Oxford.
He is super clever, v good at maths and has has a private ed all his life with great results all around. He is articulate but not overly cerebral or intellectual, he finds certain subjects v easy and knows it, he is also really interested in banking. investment management and that kind of career.

I was quite surprised when he didn't make it, and want to know a bit more as to why. I don't want to go into all the details with the parents as I can tell they are quite gutted.
Does anyone know what they are looking for at this exam/ interview and what kind of student gets into Oxford - it seems being clever isn't enough..does this sounds utterly naive?!

The only thing that made a difference to my application (I think!) was the college I applied to. Initially I wanted to apply to a very high flying college but my (yes, public) school advised me to opt for another, less high up the Norrington table college. The school also added that once you graduate, no-one cares about the college, only the university and the grade, which is definitely true. My college had a 50:50 mix men to women, my close group of friends was about 50:50 state to private and the college seemed to value those who were more rounded than straight academics - we did well in sports and arts around the university as well. Sure there were people who were up their own ***, but you find those everywhere.

As previous posters have said, not everyone can get in. It's not the bee-all and end-all either. A good grade from a good university will serve you well anywhere.

I'd be more worried about wanting a career in investment banking right now.

Dragon, my school said that too, and advised me to apply to a women's college. I thought 'bugger that' and applied to Magdalen. When they asked me in interview why I'd chosen that college, I said I liked the architecture.

Back in the day, I think there was a certain willingness to make allowances for fourth term applicants from shite schools. Nothing else explains my getting a place, anyway.

frogs, did that answer work ? I'll never know, maybe my whole life would have been different...

Er yes, it did. Well, inasmuch as they offered me a place, it can't have been too wrong. Maybe they were fed up with all the other candidates smarmying about how great the library was and how erudite the tutors and all that jazz...

Who knows.

I'm very grateful to my school's tactical suggestion of notso "prestigious" college - meant lovely friends who combine flair with originality & perspective, and who did not at the end of it all logroll round the milk round looking for the most lucrative graduate trainee opportunity. You Know Who You Are.

Comparing that with other colleges (inc. knowing dh back then just-as-a-friend, who'd been to one of those public schools which send dozens, so belonged to that other Oxbridge world in which it all seems a birthright), my modest college meant it was much easier to find my feet.

Offering this just as food for thought for the process.

money

There are three letters in today's Times about Oxbridge entrance by the way.

Dh and I work in 2 different law firms which are in their own unique way a magnet for Oxbridge candidates.

My dh is involved in graduate recruitment and I trained a revolving series of the graduates that got recruited.

I have to say that all the people that get taken on as trainees are generally bright and well-rounded. Neither Dh nor I could tell you which one was from Oxbridge or which one was from a Russell Group uni or otherwise. The Oxbridge 'intellectual rigor' basis of selection does not seem to have filtered into their batch of graduates. But I accept that selection methods have changed in the last 5 years.

The upshot to striving parents (which would include myself once dd and ds are older) is that Oxbridge only gets you through the door. A Russell Group uni degree is just as good. Given that every candidate is bright, personal qualities greatly overtake intelligence in what it takes to succeed in the commercial world. There is no need for a burning interest in, say, law to become a partner at a law firm. Though there are partners who do have such an interest and they are valuable in their own way, particularly in writing articles, representing the firm on legislative consultations and in ensuring the law develops in step with commercial and practical considerations. But equally valuable are partners who are good at a knees-up and easily liked (rainmakers) or in recruiting and getting the best out of their employees (managers) or who can think strategically and advance the firm's business (senior management). In fact, these personal qualities are already self-evident in trainees and you can almost predict which one will become partners and which ones will choose a different path to success.

Viewed in this light, it is not a sad thing a child does not have the 'intellectual rigor' or 'burning interest' in a subject to ace the Oxbridge interview. It takes lots more to survive and thrive in the commercial world and a non-Oxbridge uni which nurtures those qualities would be an equally worthy choice.

Also, not all children are ready at 18 for rigorous debate and intellectual sparring. They might be on the cutting edge of the social scene instead. That does not mean that it will not come out later when they are ready to focus on scholastics.

VirginBoffinMum - I know what you can do with a degree from another place. An Oxbridge degree opens doors for you that the other degrees don't because by and large the people who can open the doors for you have Oxbridge degrees and like to recruit their own. But it will not be my decision whether they apply or not, it will be their choice.

And since I currently have a relative at Durham who says they are the only one without an estate I agree with the remarks about that being the Uni to avoid if you don't want posh.

I chose college by closing eyes and sticking a pin in the list.

Happily my guardian angel was obviously hovering over my shoulder and steered me away from Christchurch .

I chose a college by looking at the state school ratios and going for one that had a highish proportion of state school pupils and wasn't particularly traditional. I didn't really want to be surrounded by a load of public schoolboys.

And I think I got in by being passionate and argumentative in my essays about current affairs in the General paper, but the system has changed totally since then.

I do think a lot of getting in is luck. Many very bright articulate motivated etc students don't get in and go elsewhere and have a great time at other universities. Having studied and worked at a few other universities since being an Oxford undergrad I'm really not that bothered whether my children want to go there or not, the Oxbridge experience has advantages, but the other universities have various other advantages which I think are just as valuable.

Do Oxbridge colleges still have closed scholarships?

Don't even know what a closed scholarship is/was (and I was a scholar) .

So there is a hierarchy of colleges then?
Sorry to sound naive but I have no clue about this...

Every Durham person I met while at Cambridge was wonderfully normal UNTIL they realised I was at Cambrige, at which point you could see a chip growing on each shoulder as they felt obliged to explain how wonderful Durham was and how it was their first choice and they didn't go there due to Oxbridge rejection etc. I thought that seemed a shame.

At my Cambridge college I recall there being 2 Etonians in years above, and that they (apparently) chose to live out of College accommodation as they felt they did not fit in!

I am not sure I agree with Tatt's point re Oxbridge recruiting Oxbridge. In my last life I was involved in recruiting graduates for a prestigous scholarship programme to study abroad, and there were so many truly outstanding candidates from across the country. The sad and ironic thing was that there were many more Oxbridge people chosen, but I honestly put that down to the fact that the Oxbridge Careers Services were the best in the country (and I was in touch with all universities). They had the funding to offer us free advertising, free email shots to all graduates, next to free use of interview rooms etc, and I'm afraid that their students are aware of the best prospects because they have the funding and facilities to provide the best services. I always felt downhearted that the best at other universities might not have heard about our programme because of their shoddy careers people (and our budget was limited as a charitable foundation)...

Back to closed scholarships: I know that public schools used to have 'reserved places' for their pupils at certain Oxbridge colleges - they were linked, I suppose they contributed funds.

I wondered whether this was still the case.

I will be seriously surprised if that is the case in these days of transparent admissions policies...

blueshoes - I thought that was an excellent post re not needing to have a "burning interest" in law to make it in a law firm.

My father and my maternal grandfather both did have a burning interest in law. My father was a legal publisher; my grandfather a solicitor within a Ministry (a civil servant). Neither of them ever wished to work as solicitors within a law firm.

In any commercial environment the desire to ply a trade and make money is going to be a pretty strong driver of success. Technical skills or intellectual interest in one's trade will only take a person so far.

This is one of the big problems with education & training in the UK today: universties recruit on the basis of "burning interest" and a candidate's desire to progress intellectually. But most students actually need to be thinking about preparing for plying a trade (in whatever field) a few years' down the line.

I think a lot of oxbridge graduates never get over the surprise of getting in and find it all inexplicable - I'm in that category but am eternally grateful to the DoS for picking me anyway.

But the transparency point. I thought it was all much better these days, and obviously the ratios of private:public are better if still a long way off representative BUT I am astounded to find that many of the top public schools have an Oxbridge academic on their board of governors. I'm not sure why this is? Or why the academic would want to waste their time with such things.

I wouldn't have thought parents could say much to get their children in, in any case. If the teenager doesn't really want it, that's going to show through at interview - and if they inadvertently got in, they're unlikely to enjoy it, I'd have thought.

Great thread.

I have an oxbridge interview this week

Good luck!

No closed scholarships left. They went a long time ago, I think.

I don't think there were even any closed scholarships when I was applying (and that was the 70s)

It's so not true about Oxbridge people only wanting Oxbridge people

Good luck MissAnthrope

(yes, it's a very interesting thread; apart from anything else I'd always thought that extra curricular interests were given more 'weight' than they obviously are)