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?

So I'm on here now too - nice to see you all!

Heard from a friend today that her DS has an interview for history and a friend of DD's has a PPE interview (both Oxford). I had thought none of us would know until next Monday but I'm obviously wrong.

DD is applying for English btw.

We went through this 2 years ago for DS and physics and he was not successful, so we get the whole emotional rollercoaster thing....

On the scoring system for interviews, I dont know how systematic it is but the feedback we had for DS (to his shcool, on request) was that he 'scored' highly on the interview but only middling on the physics test so overall the 2 scores together were not enough.... so there is a scoring system for interviews of some sorts...

Hey, Riven -- how's your DD feeling about Cambridge now? Is she enjoying life at Emma a bit more? I hope it's all working out well for her!

Can't sleep. My nephew incidentally has applied to do physics at Cambridge and received his interview invite last week. This makes it slightly Millibandish (if you see what I mean) in the family. My elder DS went through this last year- didn't get into Oxford but is very happy in London and in fact London is probably the best thing for him. His feedback was that his second interview wasn't so great. He didn't really do enough work for the interview tbh as he found coping with A levels and the Oxford prep all at the same time as retaking two AS modules and socialising madly quite tough. I think the old system of an extra term after A levels doing Oxbridge entrance was much better and more fun but those days have well and truly gone. No one is having a gap year this year so I imagine applications must be well up. DD is a very different person and gets it all done but is quite tired and the anxiety levels at school are high. Should I be having erudite debates at breakfast? To help with discussion technique? I am not sure I am up to it but what did other parents do?

OH God! I shouldn't have looked in here....I'm going through Oxford stress for in effect the fourth time...

First time : DD applied for English in last year of school to a smaller college and got an interview but was not pooled or accepted. And she only got one offer from her other four unis despite prediction of 4As at A level. Great gloom and lots of flouncing.
Second time: She then got her A level results (3 As and a B ) so in effect worse than she had been predicted ( and an admissions tutor had visited the school and had opined strongly that 3 A levels was enough and that 3As were better than 3As and a B because with a B they had evidence that you hadn't achieved an A in that subject). However she applied again, apparently didn't do as well in the English asessment exam as she had in the first year of application, had this B grade but got an offer straight away from first choice ( and very major) college. And all the unis that had rejected her first time round offered her places.

And then along comes DS
Third Oxford experience : DS applies for PPE in final year at school. Teachers all very confident about his chances, in previous year school put forward 8 boys for PPE and all got offers. In DS's year 15 applied and "only" 6 got in. DS was not one of them and didn't even make interview ( 11 did from which the 6 offers came). Seems when feedback came from Oxford that he was one mark off the cut on the thinking skills paper and so his Personal statement/teachers ref weren't even considered. he did however get offers from all his four other unis.

Fourth attempt - so DS got 3A*s for A level;decided to apply again. Did some practice TSA papers after his disappointment last year, felt he was better prepared but came away not very impressed with his performance in the actual thing. We're still waiting to hear about whether he has done enough for an interview this time ( eek! at reading here that some colleges have already sent out interview invites) but he isn't confident. More worrying almost for him is fact that he's only had offer from one uni so far and not from his favourite after Oxford. He's worried( although school say he shouldn't be) that he accepted this uni last year, achieved their offer and then turned them down to apply again for Oxford. Presumably it is pretty obvious what he is doing and said uni may decline to play support act to Oxford?

there are so many fantastically talented children out there...and I know the Oxford exams are meant to differentiate between students all good results (actual or predicted) at A level but it seems slightly unfair to base the whole granting of an interview decision on results in a multiple choice style critical thinking type paper. Some of DS's friends did better in that test than him, got their interview but didn't have such strong predicted results/teachers references/ability in the interview and didn't get an offer. DS sadly didn't have the chance to demonstrate what he had to offer and may not again this year. I just hope to God he does get a reoffer from his second choice - they're really not so many unis offering PPE so he didn't have the option of applying to somewhere completely new...

Good luck to everyone.

Fab news, Riven! So glad she's enjoying it now.

I went to Cambridge and there were people with all types of dress sense there. Every year we would see the people coming for interviews and they were not all wearing suits. The important thing is to appear as though this is something you really want. This includes not dressing as though you don't care and showing that you have prepared for the interview. For clothes that means a smart version of whatever you normally wear (cardigan, skirt, ballet shoes etc is fine. I think I wore grey trousers and a black top and jumper). Much much more important is to do lots and lots of extra reading on your subject and show that you are enthusiastic and happy to be 'stretched' beyond the school syllabus.

Eeyore2 somehow what you say makes sense to me. What is worn reflects the thought and concern of the student. We are going shopping on Sunday. DD is trying to keep calm as she has not heard yet- she is applying to read psychology at Wadham. Practice interview today. Other girls and boys have interviews for classics/english/biomedsciences basically subjects where students did not have to do the TSA and from smaller colleges (such as Lincoln and Corpus)
Agree that the TSA is a bit of a worry though at the moment DD and I are both of the mind that all hoops are extra opportunities to shine (omg omg I hope), DD has a folder of reading journal articles she found interesting and alternates between being serious and nerdy and studying and wanting to watch a box set of 'friends' and playing her jazz trombone and chatting to the boys and.....well, sleeping actually. Fififi I found your account really interesting. Good luck.

Also- and here is an odd thing- with DS I was of the mind that I would be happy if he got an interview and the Oxbridge application process was a good experience for him whatever the result. But afterwards I was cross because people who did get offers were by and large in no way better than him and some got a lot less on their entrance test (he got 97%) and it all came down to interviewing well on the day which was unpredictable as everyone got asked not just different questions but a different range of questions. With DD I am thinking I really hope that she succeeds and gets an offer because she has put a lot in.

Its not that I am unsympathetic with admissions tutors - I suspect there have been record applications to Oxford this year, and that a lot of worthy students apply. I guess I want my daughter to be given the chance she deserves and am really nervous she wont be. I would really like to hear some success stories as there may be common thread to inspire.

As someone who got a place at Cambridge twenty years ago and rejected it in favour of Durham, please may I make a plea for a little sanity around the whole Oxbridge thing? They are good universities but so are many others. Look at the course content, not the name. Ask your child to consider whether that is really what the want to study when compared with other courses at other universities. A friend from Durham rejected Cambridge despite being offered a place as for his subject (electronic engineering), he would have had to do two years of general engineering to do the third year of electronics. As an undergraduate, I also encountered a fellow French student from Oxford who was fascinated to discover that I had weekly conversation and current affairs classes, as her course was mainly concerned with literature. Look at the course, not the name.

DrSeuss this is not the point. The point of this thread is peer support for those parents who are trying to support DC whilst they go through a stressful process to give them the luxury of the choice you had (and I had) and who probably would not do what you did 20 years ago tbh.[sceptical] 20 or even 30 years ago was education nirvana as far as I am concerned- sixth formers these days have a far tougher time of it before, during and after university.

For example the college options for women at Oxbridge were rather limited 30 years ago. Medicine was still a 10:1 ratio of male to female students. If you applied again this year DrSeuss you might not get your Cambridge offer. Now I realise I am being argumentative and take this as displaced stress. Being old and wise of course I realise there are plenty of excellent other options: anyway life can sometimes give you what you want and then you find it wasn't what you wanted after all etc etc etc. I know DD and I suspect she will be a fantastic Oxford student but the hoops are high to jump through and not that easy anymore and I want to catch her if she falls.

My point being that if you really look into course content instead of just going, Ooh Oxbridge, must have, you will support them better in making a choice that is right for them. The friend who chose a pure electronics degree at Durham over two years of general engineering at Cambridge was much better placed to find a job at the end of his degree. I could not do my current job without a good grounding in spoken French, which I doubt I would have received on a lit based course. Whilst I value education for education's sake, surely the point of a degree is at least in part to make yourself more employable?

Though I get what you are saying now....about the course content and teaching style....From what I gather this can be dependent on the college subject tutor but then students can go to other colleges for their options....DD researched all this and the course structure before she filled in the UCAS form and asked a lot of people and went to a lot of open days. Its a very big reason she applied to Oxford.

Ponders and others - my son is in second year at Balliol doing PPE - one of about 8 who got into Oxford and Cambridge from his school that year. We just left him to get on with it as we were so certain he would not get in - not all that socially adept, he was also very young looking for his age. He had read a couple of contentious modern popular economics books which he was very enthusiastic about, which I think helps and did go on a weekend course run by The Debate Chamber which he said was useful in advance - not cramming, it was just something that sounded interesting to him. No one else at his school applied for PPE and none of his teachers knew the first thing about what would go down well in interview - he just went in jeans and a hoodie.

He was so relieved after his interview that he missed the exit to the building and found himself in the basement - he then heard the interviewers coming down the stairs so had to hide in a store room until they had gone as he felt certain they would not offer him a place if they thought he was too stupid to find the way out!

I get very wary of prejudice amongst the educated. For example the notion that students who apply to Oxbridge and are keen on going there apply for superficial social reasons. How many students these days, given the grades and tests and so on needed will be 'just going Ooh Oxbridge'? Dr Seuss I am going to irritate you by saying I think that you regret turning down Cambridge and this is one of the sublime advantages of an internet chat as socially I wouldn't dream of saying such a thing.

oh higgle, that's such a fab story (the basement), thanks

Oh, my son didn't get an offer from Warwick - which was where he felt he really wanted to go ( though now he thinks Oxford is better)

Oh if you want awful Cambridge interview stories, I have one.

I passed the history exam (this was in the 80s by the way because I am Old) and was given an interview.

My sixth form college had no clue about Oxbridge or interviews or anything, so I just wandered down there with some advice from my history teacher about being interesting and different.

Went into a study where my interviewer was sitting. Old man.

Interview went on for a bit and then he asked me which textbooks we were using at the college. I named them and he asked what I thought of one of them - I will not give the real name of the author here, let's call him Browning. So I thought that this was my chance to show how 'different' I was.

*Appalling', I said, 'banal... rubbish... second-rate'.
'Interesting', he said.

After the interview was over I left the study and turned and closed the door, noting as I did that the name of the man I had just been interviewed by was on the door.

Yes, you have guessed it.

I maintain to this day that I did not get into Cambridge because I am stupid enough not to read doorplates.

(Went to York. Had fab time.)

Three very happy years at Durham, friends I'm still in touch with plus a husband? Yep, regretting all of those right this minute! all i'm saying is that too many think that Oxbridge is the ultimate goal, when actually the ultimate goal is a course that is a good fit for the individual, a happy experience of university, a decent degree and a job.

libra

Wasn't Elton by any chance Libra?

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