Year 12 #1 - GCSEs are sooo last year!

[bpisok]

New thread to see us through to Christmas?

goodbye I think bpisok’s DD is at an independent school. When DD was applying to Oxford from her (selective) independent the advice was that, while they wouldn’t block an Oxbridge application from anyone (I’m not sure that they could anyway), in their experience any fewer than 7 As wouldn’t be usually* be competitive.

BUT that advice was obviously based on that school where the average was around 8 A*s and where the DC had had the advantages of a private education. I can’t remember what they advised wrt A Level predictions but I would have thought that they would need to be high for the same reasons.

Cherryburn the idea that any school dispenses 'backing' just makes me go grrr! The fact that the best independents (I stress best, because there are some dire ones out there as everyone knows) have far more Oxbridge educated teachers than other schools means that they're probably better at talent spotting and can see past wayward behaviour and other similar things which can cloud the opinion of some non Oxbridge educated teachers. And for the same reason they probably don't put Oxbridge on such a pedestal, which in itself can deter perfectly credible applicants from even applying. But yes - just grrr.

Our school says 6A* as the minimum, as a very general rule. I don't think the rule about being amongst the top few holds water either, for good grammars or independents - either that or Westminster and SPGS etc have a special dispensation....

First, in case people are interested in Warwick they are holding some subject information evenings in London at the end of this month. See link: warwick.ac.uk/about/london/study/pre-university/subject-information-evenings/

Secondly, my DS school (also a super selective which I assume BPIsok's DD's school may also be) has a similar view to theirs. It is however a school which got 95% 9-7 A*/As at gcse this year.

It had 50 Oxbridge places. A large number of people apply because they superselect ie. fall within the top 5% so if at another school they would be in the top end but at their school it is "average"!!

DS would not be considered the "genius" end of his cohort at school but will still apply as he is one of the better ones at humanities (and wants to study History). The school has a very large Maths/Science uptake at A level (probably at least 75% of cohort) with Economics being the next largest.

However they will not block anyone who wants to apply but they do offer support and suggestions for super curricular reading, volunteering etc. which possibly some state schools either can't or don't offer. BUT Cambridge/Oxford do know that schools like DS's does have this in place and I suspect it is the case of them having to outperform others in that position to get their place.

I think the main thing is that an application to Oxbridge is more normalised in that setting than a state school except if one of the well known high performers such as Peter symonds, Farnborough, Hills Road etc.

Just out of interest I know it has been mentioned that when applying to Oxbridge your results are looked at in comparison to your peers at your school, is this actually the case do they really look this information up or is your school supposed to put it on your reference?

Also the fact that no-one from your school has gone to Oxbridge in a number of years 7+ would this really have a bearing?

And I agree - a large number of staff at DS's school were either Oxbridge or other Top 10 educated.

Bluebelle yes I am keen to know the answer to that too.

DD too at a superselective with very high average grades. Not sure of what the Oxbridge process will be at the School though even though a high proportion go there every year. Our school tends to leave everything last minute which is quite frustrating. I imagine we will know something by next year.

BlueBelle I think the school results info is available. (My friend works in admissions at one of the Cambridge colleges). They would look at results in the context of how they performed against the school.

So as my son's cohort got 95% 9-7 they probably would mark a student from his school down if they did have some 6s! However if the school as a whole say got 55% 9-4 (as most state schools report) if the pupil got 6 x 9/8 then they have clearly outperformed the school. I would assume that they have their own stats about which schools have received offers in the past so if it is clearly unusual for a child with great results to come from a school that doesn't have great results that would show that the candidate is likely to be exceptional.

The other thing that people don't realise is that some parents think they are "working" the system to move their child to a good state 6th Form after having been a selective indie up to year 11. They do actually look at where they were educated pre-16 too. So although there is the benefit of no fees for 6th Form there is no "state application" benefit if you get my drift.

Eaglefly our Higher Education Evening at superselective indie is at the end of January so I suspect they will start sending out the "routes" they should follow at that point.

year 12 mocks are either side of Feb half term, so the Higher Ed is just before that.

Goodbye- yes it's an Inde.

When I say 'backing' I don't mean they will actively block an application.
What they mean is that they wouldn't put them in the extra coaching group. They will do a reference but it will say something like 'Bpisok Jnr is in the top 20% of her academic year' and won't say things like 'she will flourish in her subject and is ideally suited to Oxbridge tutorial teaching'. They won't write a supplementary letter endorsing the application (reference yes, additional endorsement letter, no).

What you say about the 9 A star GCSEs putting the 5 A star GCSEs into the shade is absolutely true. However if you are not too brilliant at Maths but are an outstanding English candidate with national prizes for English, have been writing for a magazine for 3 years, have A stars in all your written subjects, have a real demonstrable passion and are applying for English you will probably have 'the edge' despite As in maths and sciences. At least that's what the school claims.
Or if you are a brilliant but dyslexic mathematician.
.....the above profiles aren't my daughter's by the way, just examples of where the weighting might be skewed.
Despite the school being 'rigid' in their approach they are def looking at it holistically hence the 4 or 5 A stars as being an absolute cut off for a viable application. I also agree that DDs school may be unique in this approach!!!

bpisok thanks for the full reply. A lot of that makes very good sense, but in response to the backing thing I'd say it's possible to damn - or in effect 'block' - with faint praise.

Also, what the heck is an 'additional endorsement letter' . That sounds incredibly illegitimate! None of my DC - or their friends, as far as I know, and kids chatter - have had that sort of letter written about them ever - the word limited UCAS reference and that's it. I'm seriously dubious about 'additional endorsements'; that breaks the UCAS rules for word limits on school references, surely? But perhaps it explains why some colleges specifically say NO OTHER INFO AT ALL in big letters on their admissions advice. Very interesting though - a different world! I wonder if these letters from fee paying schools actually piss the tutors off? I love the idea though, perversely, especially if they do irritate tutors

I do think to a certain extent that you can never know quite what Oxford & Cambridge are looking for.

I know of a boy who was turned down despite a fantastic set of GCSE results and predicted A level grades. He took part in sport and performing arts to a good level and whilst he was in Year 10 on work experience made a scientific discovery that put him on the National news. (And on a personal basis he was a great role model and mentor to my ds)

He ended up at Harvard instead.

AH that sounds like Oxford/ Cambridge's loss.

There certainly wasn’t anything in addition to the usual UCAS reference sent from DD’s school and I’ve never heard it mentioned by DC we know at other schools (in case anyone’s worried that it’s being used extensively.) I can’t think what further info would be useful really.

Likewise never heard of any additional letters. Sounds highly dodgy.

Interesting......perhaps I have the wrong end of the stick but am sure they said something like they can submit 'Cambridge specific comments which don't form part of the UCAS app'? Apparently there's also a supplementary statement that the student can write which is also outside of the UCAS app.

I know the school said they won't do this unless they could 100% endorse the application since it impacts on their reputation?
It also may not make a blind bit of difference. However I am pretty sure the school wouldn't be dumb enough to do something that wasn't legit.....it's fee paying so they wouldn't take the reputation risk.
Like I say, I may have this completely wrong!!!

There’s an additional statement for Cambridge that the applicant can submit (the SAQ) which can be useful if they’re applying for a slightly different course there than elsewhere. Wasn’t aware that there was the equivalent for the school but I could be wrong.

I stand corrected! Just found this online and it does say that teachers can address any Cambridge-specific comments to the admissions tutor at the college applied for. It does say that this isn’t needed but the info is there (on Pg 18)

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/teachers_guide_-_final.pdf

I stand corrected too. You learn something new every day.

@AlexanderHamilton - that's Oxbridge's loss and Harvard's gain. It makes no sense. That's why I've tried to explain to my DC that it really is a lottery once you are at a level where you meet the criteria.

It's extremely limited though and what Cambridge says wouldn't stretch to an 'additional endorsement' I don't think. Oxford seems to go further and say it won't accept any additional references, only evidence of mitigation where no special allowances were made at the time of exams.

Phew - glad I didn't misunderstand (not that DD wants to go to Cambridge anyway!!!) Another purely theoretical scenario could be that the 'Cambridge specific' reference is written by a teacher at DCs school who just happens to have been an ex professor at Cambridge. Or an ex admissions person, or a retired expert on whatever DC want to study. I would have thought that their letter/endorsement would carry some weight? ........again, not DDs scenario.

That should say 'says'.

Anyhow, with the caveat that I know very little about Cambridge applications, if you read further down in the guidance to applicants about the SAQ, it specifically says any 'Cambridge specific comments' that the applicant wishes to make mustn't repeat anything already said in their UCAS personal statement, so I reckon the implication is that that would be mirrored by a similar restriction on what teachers can say as 'extra'.

My last post crossed with yours bpisok. Honestly, I think this thing is very limited in scope. Any idea of an extra reference being written by an ex academic, or expert in the field, to buoy up an application goes so wholly against the grain of widening participation that it couldn't be the case. The clue is in the guidance for applicants, where applicants are given an example of a Cambridge specific comment: 'to highlight particular features of the Cambridge course that attracted them'. Then told not to repeat anything already on their UCAS application. So I'm guessing a teacher might highlight the same thing - but only the same sort of thing - where an idiosyncratic feature of the Cambridge course would be especially attractive to the student because of their individual talents.

Oxford seems to be even narrower and actually exclude any additional information except for mitigation not already accounted for by extra time etc.

I'm conscious I'm getting a bit detailed here bpisok - apologies - it just really interested me, the idea of an additional endorsement!