Oxbridge thoughts too early?

[mids2019]

I just noticed this thread and was wondering if gifted and talented children could have Oxbridge expectations out anthem too early in their academic careers? If a child insidiously talented in say maths or physics do family members/friends/teachers start dropping Oxford or Cambridge into conversations when discussing the child's potential?

I was just thinking of situations in my school career where gifted and talented students with pristine grade profiles and generally accepted as very intelligent by their peers did not succeed in getting into Oxford (much to the community's amazement). It took a long time for the students to accept rejection as they had been lauded for their intelligence for some time and they couldn't understand how if you are advanced for such a long time how could you not be accepted?

@AuntieObnoxious

exactly the sort of situation I was wondering about. On the primary school leavers day one child was hailed as being destined for Oxford (like his parents). I think though meant benignly puts a lot of pressure on kids 🤷

Ahhhhhhhhhh! Ok that makes sense

My nephew started getting it discussed with him in year 11 and he’s exceptionally bright. Maths olympics etc. passed his gcse in year 8 and has been doing maths with the sixth formers since year 7.

I don’t think my sister would have wanted to discuss it earlier

DD was labelled as gifted at primary school. She’s now a teen who is much more interested in boys and make-up than studying! Puberty can change a child a lot. It’s just worth bearing in mind if your child is still young. We do encourage DD to study hard and do her best but ultimately she knows we still love her to bits regardless of her results.

I saw on a forum someone asking which degrees at Oxbridge are easier to get a place on. Now some are a lot tougher than others, maths 1 in 10 gets a place, some languages 1 in 2. But surely you apply for the degree you want to study, not just to get to Oxbridge. DS2 applied, didn’t even get an interview, he got 3 x A% and average of 95% across all the papers. He was quite gutted, not from any family pressure as although his dad and I have a degree, they are from old polytechnic uni’s not red brick. He’s at Warwick and really loves it. I don’t think the short terms where you’re cramming a lot in would suit him, he’s loving the sports and running some teams, and is about to become president of one club. Not saying he couldn’t do that at Oxford but I think he’s absolutely fine where he is. Got an internship sorted for this summer in the city and hopefully a graduate job from it.

DD is also thinking of Oxbridge, again no pressure from us. I don’t think it will be a good fit for her either, but for different reasons. But she works so hard, all she does is study (sitting GCSE’s this summer) but again it’s such a lottery to get a place and there’s so many other great uni’s. Least she knows that as she came on the tours of uni’s for her brother so already has her eye on some others.

That’s bonkers. My DD hated school until year 10, all of sudden it’s like it came from nowhere and she was in bed early, up early and studying all the time. From year 7-9 she had under 70% attendance due to illness so it was a real surprise. No-one would have said at primary she would be thinking of applying to Oxbridge. So much can change in a few short ways.

Its always been a lottery though. I went to a school that sent 3 or 4 girls each year. I was approached in Year 9 by the hod of my best/favourite subject and told I should consider it - the conversation was mainly to ensure I would be selecting O level options that would enable me to sit the language paper in the history entrance exam. About 10 girls applied when I did and only 4 got in and not necessarily the 4 you'd expect. The girl who got a maths scholarship to Balliol we had expected but the 2 other girls who won all the prizes every year didn't. Nor did the girl who was apparently the best at English that anyone had taught in 30 years.... What most of us who got in had in common was that we had done a lot of things out of school that were relevant to the subjects we wanted to study - so I spent most of my holidays and one free afternoon a week in various museums (not necessarily to the schools pleasure but I loved it). We also did quite a bit of extra curricular - I think that combination indicated that we could cope with the relentless pressure of researching and writing 3 essays a fortnight whilst also contributing to college life.

DS is gifted at physics (also very able at maths but not such a statistical outlier). His secondary school was targeted for outreach / widening access by Imperial. DS was invited to mobile labs and workshops at school, and asked us to take him to the Imperial Festival so he could attend some lectures. By the time he was in Y10, he was set on going there and was working hard to achieve this.

He ended up going to Cambridge and didn't even apply to Imperial in the end, but I think learning about Imperial's research gave him something to aim for and motivated him more.

It also meant that if any well-meaning relatives made comments about him being a shoo-in for Oxbridge, we could deflect with "Actually, he really likes Imperial."

We took him to a couple of science fairs where he saw poster presentations and demos from a range of research groups, and by Y11 he was very keen to apply to Warwick too.

We are having early discussions about universities as that is of interest to one of our children... but these discussions (with the DC) are about looking beyond the idea of Oxbridge (where I went) and instead looking more objectively at which is the best course for whatever they want to do... and this could be somewhere very different, abroad etc. I want them to have the confidence and understanding to centre their needs and knowledge, not other people's ideas of where the 'best' place is to go.