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?

Well yes Ponders I think it could well be a reason. Also wondering the same as you.

Evening All. Been off getting some research done and avoiding MN. I'm sorry to hear some of your DCs didn't get in. Good luck to them elsewhere - they may be back to Oxbridge as professors some day.

I think RRocks is right about philosophy interviews. And there is a good tradition of philosophy teaching in Scotland from primary onwards, although it's not available to all. The European candidates have often done the Bac. which involves compulsory philosophy but that doesn't always mean they come out better. Nor do private school students: you can teach them how to answer the questions, but that doesn't mean that they'll follow an argument when it's presented to them. The same for politics and economics.

Congratulations to those who did get in as well.

Aside from being the right sort of thinker and enjoying philosophical discussion perhaps having experience in debating and therefore in formulating arguments and delivering them on the run would help. That might be debates in the history class or in a formal debating society. Unfortunately, not all teachers use that style of teaching and not all schools have debating societies. (The only teacher I knew who used debates as teaching tool was an Oxford-educated history teacher who later moved to a private school.)

My son has commented many times that when he goes to debating competitions 80 - 90% of the people there are from private schools (same as English public schools, which I'm guessing is the same as independent). The private schools have a tutor for debating, but that's not an option, or perhaps a priority, for the comprehensives even when they manage to have a debating society.

Again, it's a skill that comes more naturally to some than others, and I know that I was too self-conscious to take part in debating when I was at school , but I'm sure that most children would benefit from some training in speaking in public and taking part in reasoned discussions. Useful for Oxford interviews perhaps, but also for jobs and life in general.

RRocks

Hi, Don - hope your family is glad to have you back amongst them

I was astonished (& impressed) to find out recently how important philosophy is in French education; apparently the date of the philosophy Bac exam is national news!

afaik Philosophy is not taught in English state schools at all (or maybe, very rarely, just at A level). I often think wistfully of Miss Jean Brodie's definition of education, compared with what the majority get now (ie being force-fed exam-passing information ).

They need to be taught to think!!!

Ponders - critical thinking is offered at ds school albeit without lessons...ds also took RS (philosophy and ethics) alongside his science a-levels and I will recommend this to all my dc as it just opened up his mind - broadened his mind and helped him 'think'

I also agree with poster who said about debating - DS debated but with a massive log chip on his shoulder about private schools and how they were 'better' than state schools in this field

He won a debating thing from the ESU and it was dominated by the private sector but despite this- when he went to university - was reticent and almost did not join the debating society due to feeling he was not worthy!

Good luck all - I was stricken with nerves this time last year and empathise x

Private schools have their limitations. At my son's school the debating team of 3 was chosen in the first week (mafioso mothers all ...but I suppose I was jealous) and so for the other 147 boys that was that for the next seven years until MUN. I was furious, but my fury did me/my son no good.
Ponders and Betelguese it is very interesting indeed that philosophy is compulsory in France. I know nothing about Descartes.
Donindisguise Welcome return, have a lovely Christmas with your family .
Good night from here.
Good luck to the Cambridge people waiting.

Oh true, FH; Critical Thinking is available in most places now, but I'm not sure how useful it is in this context. As you say it's offered, but not always with instruction.

RS could help, but I think it depends hugely on the teacher. Debating has started at DS2's college this year, but it's a bit hit & miss whether it actually takes place or not - I think in the first term there have only been about 3 debates & he was only involved in 1.

Betelguese - your statistics are misleading. Independent schools occupy more than half of the places in Oxford, while they represent only about 5-10% of school pupils (forgive me, I can't face looking up the exact numbers at this time of night). That makes them more than disproportionately successful at Oxford entry (although obviously some of their applicants are rejected).

One problem is lack of enough good applicants from state schools. Many good people do not apply (and PPE aside we are often desperate for good candidates).

I heard the other day that the lack of classics education is partially due to the lack of classics teachers.

It is nice to be back with the family, thanks!

Betelguese - Classic civ is taught at at least 3 state schools I can think of in my area along with latin. I don't think any generalising can be done along the lines of state/independent...My son fwiw is at a state school and set up his own debating society because he realised he needed all the help he could get. He had no interview practice and no extra lessons in the lead up to TSA and interview. The only thing he did was to read what was recommended by the Oxford PPE website and the TSA practice paper. On the other hand a boy we know of who had HUGE amounts of help from his prestigious Independent didn't get an offer. Take from that what you will...

DoninDisguise - "One problem is lack of enough good applicants from state schools. Many good people do not apply (and PPE aside we are often desperate for good candidates)."

I have been helping a few French teens with UCAS applications this autumn - one of whom applied for PPE at Oxford, fully aware of the competition.

French teens have the impression, on the whole, that Oxford is almost impossible to get into with the French bac. I would be very interested for opinion on that, and in particular where you think there might be a good match between clever French teens and Oxbridge subject areas where there are fewer applicants.

Hi, DoninDisguise. A fellow Fellow here.. .

Yes, we are really desperate to encourage state applicants, but it's hard work because many are actively discouraged - by family, by the schools themselves, by what they read in the press. Don's stats are right, but the problem might lie in the period before admissions; we aren't getting the best applicants, I suspect. (PS I turned down any number of kids from top indy schools this year...)

I understood there was a revival in Latin in the state sector? Cambridge JACT have done some great outreach work.

funny, congratu;lations to your son's friends, esp. the one who got a place at deerpark in English... odds are hugely against that (roughly 1/10. Do you mind if I ask for the purposes of this discussion if both your son and his friends are from the independent sector, as your posts implied?

sieglinde - do you have any thoughts on my question to DoninDisguise below? Thanks.

Hi Betelgeuse,

not based just on reasoning, or critical thinking or debating but on very complex and composite arguments

I'm not clear what the distinction is between reasoning/critical thinking and working through 'complex and composite arguments'?

RRocks

Bonsoir, we often take people with the French bac. I love it, personaly, and have had two students with it go on to apply to the Grands Ecoles. Neither got a place, so the converse is also a problem... Not sure what the standard offer is for French Bac and PPE, but there will be one, and for the Arbitur (etc) too.

The notoriously undersubscribed course is Classics, including Classics from Scratch. PPE is just about the toughest, really. If they are Polytechnique kind of Fr, maybe Engineering or Physics or Comp Sci. But these aren't my subjects and the suggestion is based on lunchtime chatter, nothing more.

sieglinde - I am aware that it is very difficult for students with a British undergraduate degree, even an Oxbridge 1st, to return to the French grande école system. My DP does annual jury service for admissions to one of the French grandes écoles and knows how difficult it is for students who haven't been through prépa. No reflection on ability, merely on what has been learned, and how.

Interesting. I get the whole prepa system, in a basic sense, but do the French worry that it's elitist? I mean, if you can't get your dcs into Ecole Henri Quatre or similar, and they then haven't a hope... because doesn't that cast some doubt on French universality/same-size-fits-all? On nthe face ofit, and do please correct me if I'm wrong, don't the prepas operate like selective schools? Sorry about the painful lack of accents etc.

Hi Sieglinde,

Earlier you said that you always advise against open applications and then "the system is dependent more on number of applicants than number of places" [Is it not the ratio of one to the other that would be the problem?], and also it tends to mean you have no chance to ask any questions about the college in advance. But by this I only mean the so-called first-choice Open Application".

Can you explain further, please? Sorry, if I appear to be picky, but I'm still not clear why it's best not to put in an open application (other than that you might end up in a college that's not as nice as one you might have chosen).

We went through this process knowing very little about it (I only discovered Mumsnet on the evening of the interviews) and I'd like to understand more. Not sure why, really, as it's in the past as far as my son's concerned and my daughter seems unlikely to want to go to Oxford as she wants to be a vet.

Thanks

RRocks

sieglinde - the French have a dual higher education system: an almost-free university system, in which you can enrol in first year with your bac with almost no selection procedure (basically a pass in your bac), but is then fearsomely unnurturing and ruthlessly competitive, with many students repeating years and not making it to the finishing line/graduating; and an expensive, private grande école system that operates rigorous selection procedures.

There are lots of anomalies in the system: for example, in the first year of medicine, a free university course, you haven't got a hope in hell of passing the year unless you also enrol in, and pay serious euros for, a parallel prépa.

Rrocks, I've messaged you on this but my view is not that the only drawback is that you are less likely to get somewhere cute or medieval....my view is that you are simply less likely to get somewhere full stop. But this is a subject-specific view, as said in previous posts, and it may not be disadvantageous always.

Betel, thanks for that link. Yes, that would be truly cheering.

On grands ecoles, all I really wonder is if the french have the same kinds of anxieties about them and about perepas that we have about our ancient universities. The only one I've ever had any dealings with is the Ecole Normale Superieure (sp?), which was at one time an interesting hotbed of a particular kind of poststructuralism, though poststructuralism was originally a movement against rhe grands ecoles. There's not much poststructuralism at Oxford... and also Oxford doesn't guarantee a well-paid job, though it makes that more likely.