Parent of oxbridge candidate-peersupportneeded

[funnyperson]

OK so my DD is applying to Oxford for entry in 2011 and has a 75% chance of getting rejected so I am told by the Oxford website so I reckon a new thread would be helpful for us parents who may end up with joy or grief but in any event need to keep sane enough to support our loved ones. Any tips on maximising chances of success at this stage?

Oh ignore me people. I am a grumpy mare this am. All dcs at hone which is lovely but a little tiring.

I didn't mean to start an Etonian bunfight ( that actually sounds like something they may do), but intellectual snobbery - indeed most sorts of snobbery- annoy me.

All of our dcs are hugely lucky to have been given decent brains but good brains and oppertunity are luck. We shouldn't be sneery about it.

Dss school tries to make the boys aware of their many layered good fortune and encourage them to recognise that callously confident is a short hop and a skip from arrogant wanker.

I am still here and will continue to absorb helpful ' make them take an alarm clock ' tips

mobile phone (fully charged obv), with multiple alarms set, under pillow, is a brilliant wake-up method IME

(pref set to vibrate as well as ring. It almost propels you out of bed )

My interview was actually quite good fun. Just be willing to have an opinion on whatever they throw at you and have a go even if your not 100% correct. The style of interview is actually very similar to the supervisions/tutorials you will have as an undergraduate, so if you enjoy the interview you will probably enjoy that part of the teaching.

I think genuine enthusiasm for your subject is actually the most important bit.

btw I went to a comprehensive and blush a bit now about how little i knew at the interview and how poorly i answered some of the questions but i still got in.

The consultation on measurement of happiness and wellbeing as an alternative economic measure is out -based on the amusing Stiglitz/Sen report below. Especially amusing is the graph for how much time French and US women spend on sex etc.

www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/documents/rapport_anglais.pdf

I didn't think that sounded like you, Pag.

Go and start some snowball fights instead of bunfights.

betelguese - you are realy sweet to be so encouraging to everyone, thank you.

I do have to laugh though at your suggestion that some parents go at the same time with D/S to study at the same university.

My DS/DD would have a blue fit if either I or DH turned up at their uni...and I think they do quite love us...

xx

Sorry holly didn't mean to be prickly! . I've only just realised who you are!!!
Pagwatch - well said earlier on!! I feel exactly the same as you.As far as I'm concerned I'm sooo proud of my DS for getting this far. It's way beyond my reach and he will in the end, just be himself! They all have enough nouse to get themselves to where they want to be and if they are going to get there they will. I'm a fatalist as I said and would hate my DS to be other than his marvellous self!
Am repeating myself - it has been a trying day in more ways than one. We now have 16 inches of snow and I am getting more and more concerned about how DS is even going to get to Oxford. (There are no trains to London and the roads are impassible)

Hello Fennel and Comix (re: one of many thread sub-plots) - dh has done:

(1) run away abroad to get over university excess, stand on own feet, learn other language, find out about running a business
(2) mgemt consultancy w/ an organisational psychology bent (is still a formal Chartered Psychologist) + LOTS of statistics - that seems to be a theme!
(3) business school (more maths & statistics)
(4) civil service (in the Treasury, more numbers)
(5) professional services management (but guess what, actuaries => statistics AND formulae)
(6) mid-life crisis of immersion in arts organisations, sponsorships & charities (for fun, not work)

I think it is the very variousness of it (plus the regular undertow of numbers and what you can do to some extent imaginatively with them that might define a PPPer. And limitless curiosity.

Betelgeuse I loved your post about studying there
PPP sounds fun. Limitless curiosity in some ways defines the best of anyone who loves to learn

Not totally relevant but my sister and brother in law -parents of he who has physics interview at Cambridge-got stranded at Gatwick on their way to Morocco for their 25th wedding anniversary week long holiday, the first together without children in years. How sad is that

I hope the snow melts soon and everyone can get to their interviews on time. I feel like I know you all a bit and want all the young ones to do well.

Think the alarm clock advice is good but ds barely slept the night before his.... and he was cold...

He had two interviews - one at 9 am one at 10.30 and then an intelligence test thing at one. It was all VERY draining and I really felt for him. he then got the train home and went he walked in the door at 8.30 that night i felt VERY sorry for him. Totally washed out and all wide pupilled IYKWIM. Needed feeding and cake ( t'was his Daddies birthday)

I'm sure you all know already but Oxford website says if you truly cannot get there for interview, tell them and they will do their best to see if they can interview online/over the phone or postpone.

I will send special sympathy to any interview candidates stranded at Didcot railway station in the snow waiting for non-arriving trains. It's an abiding memory of my Oxford years, shivering in bleak snowy conditions at Didcot. Which in those days didn't even have an indoor waiting room. It remains my least favourite place in the UK.

I think courses like PPP are for those who can't commit to one discipline or specialism. Who spend their lives wiffling around between different camps.

Fennel what about medicine then- a real mishmash of subjects and specialisms. Except I suppose there is one key focus emerging at the end of all those hours of training and practice- the patient.
DD has chosen experimental psychology rather than PPP because she wants to focus. I am quite impressed by that - at her age I wanted to keep my options open.
Years down the line those who committed and made one subject their life's work have been the ones most successful in academia. Perhaps it indicates a willingness to go into depth and detail. Others, like me, who remained 'generalists' are more vulnerable oddly. Oh well, now we have the next generation on the threshold. Didcot always makes me think of Christmas- I dont know why . We are making loads of soup at home.

DD has got to the stage where she has called me a Vogon. Although physically possibly not far off , I am still hurt. After initial happiness at her interview I am dreading possible arrogance if she gets in. Any one else with experience of this and how to cope?

I haven't read the whole thread so this may have been debunked but it is not necessarily the most outgoing/sociable/popular students who get offers. Interviewers are looking for people they can teach and talk to for three years - obviously the ability to hold your own in an academic conversation is vital, but that isn't the same thing as being the centre of attention in the student bar.

I was at Oxford quite recently (graduated in 2007), and many of my fellow students were, on the face of it, awkward, reclusive 'geeks'. They were good at their subjects, though -just because they weren't good at or interested in banter didn't mean they couldn't talk in tutorials!

Introverts have just as much chance as extroverts as long as their love of their subject shines through.

Betelgeuse your document seems to suggest that universities are not comparable. "Q 200 Graham Stringer: Is a 2:1 from Oxford Brookes the equivalent to a 2:1 from Oxford University ? say in the same subject, history ? and how would you know?
Professor Beer: In the general run of things there is very little equivalence between Brookes and Oxford, there is not that much overlap...? (House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, 2009: Ev. 121)
?It cannot be assumed that students graduating with the same classified degree from different institutions having studied different subjects, will have achieved similar academic standards.."
The document has no section on degree courses which have to comply with recommendations from professional bodies e g architecture,medicine,law etc. There have always been differences in character if not performance between the medical schools. Oxford medical students are a pleasure to teach, being self directed with outstanding attention to detail, Imperial students I think retain the old St Mary's rugby ethos and are arrogant and sloppy, UCL students are the best in terms of intelligence with communication skills (needless to say), St Georges students are a socially mixed and very pleasant group. Are their degrees comparable? The GMC ensures that they are.

I am feeling lonely actually- you can tell because thats when I talk about medicine. Its this slump after knowing DD hasn't been rejected yet but realising that the day she leaves home is not far off and also feeling there is nothing I can really usefully do at this stage. .....There is a gritter in the cul de sac...phenomenal...goes to watch.....its not actually spreading any grit....was just turning around. Gloom sets in.

funnyperson, I'm not sure of the significance of Vogon but I had a brief chat about his interview with DS2 tonight & he was fairly monosyllabic (& then when I called him uncommunicative he said that isn't a word!!! )

Anyway - I think they're wanting us to back off & leave them to it. Nothing we can say or do will help them, & going on about it just gets on their nerves.

Thanks Ponders DD is living with her dad at the moment so I dont see her much especially with the ice and snow and all. I saw/spoke with her a lot when she was waiting to hear. But now -like your DS2 she hardly says anything.