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?

Incidentally, sieglinde (final thought re toughness of Oxbridge entry this year) - were there a lot more applicants than normal for the popular subjects, because of tuition fees going up next year?

The children did the washing up [faints into armchair]!

Oh blimey
Its so hard to get a DC into Oxbridge.
None of our 2 made it and their dad went to Cambridge.
We were never rich enough for private education by any means whatsover, and our DS's (2) wnt to the local very (bog) standard local comp.
DS1 had Cambridge interview for engineering and didn't get in, and went to Nottm to do engineering M Eng and got a First this year.
DS2 got invited to Oxford interview last year and was not offered a place for E & M and is now at Nottm doing BSc Economics.,
He's very happy as they both were but I'm not sure what on earth Oxbridge are hoping for if they are trying to get state school pupils in, and they are turning away pupils 4 years earlier who go on to get a First.
Do Oxbridge really want mostly private school kids or are they really trying to open up their admisions to pupils who are not getting the coaching for interview that private pupils obviously get.

Bearcat: Nottingham is a nice place to be an undergraduate, we went up there to have a look round as DS had an offer from them. You must be very proud of your two sons.

I dont think private schools coach for interviews and if they did it wouldn't do any good. It is more subtle than that.

For example (and this is just one small very concrete example) to print off the syllabus, mark scheme and twenty past papers and put them in a folder for each pupil and then mark the papers when done over the holidays, is a luxury which a private school can afford, which a state school cant. If a state school parent or student chose to do the same, the layout might be at least £30 for a printer cartridge, paper, folder etc and per module, so very significant spend for a not very wealthy family and even then the teachers might not mark the work.

Getting the Times every day, even at the student rate, costs money.

At the end of the day the average income in the country is approx £21,000 pa and no parent on an average income can send their children to private school without a lot of help. This is what is worrying me: Since the second world war education-including Oxbridge- has been relatively inclusive though we may not think so. To remain inclusive will take a lot of effort as parents will be saving up for university fees and those who scraped together the money for a private secondary education may no longer be able to do so.

A friend of mines son went to private school and went on to do medicine.
Every tuesday afternoon the Oxbridge and medicine applicants had an hours coaching, interview preparation etc in that first term of Year 13 in the lead up to interview times.
Mine who went to different 6th form colleges got one practice interview each that maybe lasted for 20 to 30 minutes.
Both had tough Oxbridge interviews and I'm not sure they were prepared for them after their one practice interview at college

Bearcat do you think it was interview coaching or extension classes where the students discussed aspects of the subject beyond the syllabus. There is a slightly different emphasis if you see what I mean. The latter is interesting and helpful whatever university the students go on to.

Discussions of aspects of the subject beyond the syllabus are offered by the Sutton trust/ Unique/ debatechambers/ NAGTY(this last has now ended)/ the Royal colleges/ Royal institutions/museums/ British libraries etc. I avoid commercial companies like the plague.

To access these requires not just commitment on the part of the student to find out about these initiatives and register to attend but also the family and school to get funding/study leave permissions etc.

I dont know how helpful it all is- as a family we went through a phase of ferrying DS up and down the country to the NAGTY and Oxford outreach stuff- in the end I'm not sure it made a blind bit of difference, as he didn't get in, except to detract from school work and family life. But I am just being tired and cynical here as he did enjoy it. The extra stuff helped DD- not because she was asked questions on it, but because it helped her think outside the box and so answer the questions asked. Or so she says, bless her.

Poor nephew is on tenterhooks awaiting Cambridge decisions. This is a very strange phase of parenting. To a certain extent one can shelter younger children facing the outside world, but not so much university entrants.

Would be medics need to know a lot about what is on their personal statement, a lot about science and a sensible approach to ethics, communication, team working and coping with stress. They should have spent some time helping the disadvantaged and some time in a healthcare setting. This does not need expensive private schooling.

oxbridge are NOT inclusive and ARE biased in favour of private schools - they take nearly 60% of all privately educated kids, and less than 4% of all state educated kids.

Mostly, would-be medics underestimate the knowledge needed - any medical conditions mentioned in the personal statement should be read and understood at the level of the intelligent undergraduate- easily done on wiki, to say the least.

Alternatively one gets an 'I have done this I have done that therefore I should get into medical school' approach without any reflection on what those activities might mean in terms of being a doctor for real people.

In medicine, of course, admissions stats have clearly shown over the years, that it helps to not be from an ethnic minority in terms not just of admission, but of career progression. Horrible but true. The most horrible interview panel attitude I have come across is 'so and so is only applying because his/her pushy Asian parents want him/her to do medicine'.
This immediately discounts so and so's keen attitude, enthusiasm, knowledge and hard work.

I don't think it's as simple as that, Heroine. I don't have any stats to quote but I've seen reports before that if you look at offer rates both Oxford and Cambridge (and other Russell Group universities) offer a similar percentage of places to state school and independent school applicants. The problem is further back - state school students are a lot less likely to apply, even when they are on target to get top grade A levels. Of course, the percentage of state school students getting top grade A levels is also lower, simply because most state schools are not academically selective and most independent schools are, to some extent at least.

betelgeuse how was the sushi? Did you make it yourself?

I'm not sure where this thread is going anymore. It seems to have turned into an independent vs state school thread which isn't really the point of it.

It might be better if people could say 'such and such a process seemed to be helpful or useless' rather than state school vs independent. Just a thought. The thread is really about support for parents going through the Oxbridge interview/ admission process so the type of school will already have been decided.

Hi funny person
I think it was coaching, how can the private schools in an hour offer extension coaching in an individual subject for one hour a week.
I'm not bitter at all that my boys didn't get into Oxbridge, but it's all a very interesting discussion.
I have a DH who did and have realised that it is not a ticket for a gold plated life.
I think actually that DS1 will be the person who is extremely driven who may be the one with high monetary rewards in his career.
Afraid he's already signed up in investment banking ( and already on MN been shot down as one of our bright engineering prospects going into IB).

I'm sorry london mum but that part is that simple - oxbridge offer about 54% of their places to UK private school kids and around 40% of their places to UK state school/other UK - the rest is overseas. (These figures aren't exact). Because only 6% of kids applying to Universities come from private schools this is a MASSIVE bias in favour of private schools, even taking into account differences in numbers of kids getting straight As - about 15 - 20% of state school kids get good As or straight As and they represent 40% or so of those state school kids who apply to uni
if we use 70% of private school kids getting straight As...

This means that of every 1000 kids applying to Uni, 120 of them go to private schools, of which 84 are straight A achievers. From state school, about 350 get straight As.

If 10% of all children applying to uni go to oxbridge at all, this means that oxbridge intake in the 1000 above represents 100 applicants. 54 (out of 84) from private school and 40 (out of 352) from state schools. You have a 60% chance of getting in from private school, and an 11% chance of getting in if you are from state school.
this is BEFORE the biases that come from application bias, i.e if ALL APPLICATION PROCESSES are unbiased and the application selection is perfect, with 3 As you have one SIXTH of the chance a private school pupil does of attending oxbridge.

(oh and note that oxbridge quote this as 'We only offer 54% to private schools ( so that we assume that 46% of places are state schools...!)

Heroine and London mum you might like to read the full reports by the Sutton trust (google) which break down the chances of Oxbridge entry for those who achieve 3 A grades by type of school and indeed names the schools with most pupils going. The report served as a trigger for very real efforts to engage state school pupils.

Betelguese do you put fillings in the sushi?
I have no artistic talent so would never be able to do most things on your list even after being taught! but
1.montessori teacher,
2.astronomer
3.japanese flower arranger
4.jazz pianist
5.violinist in an antique music quartet
6.photographer
7.children's book writer
8.member of parliament in a remote tribal region (really!!!!!)
would be on my list if doctor wasn't
You couldn't even do clinical medicine at Cambridge years ago: students had to come to London, but it is very good now because of the genetics dept and human genome project-really really interesting.
Oxford medicine is better for vaccinology.
Children have gone to my ex mum in law which is very lonely actually but before they went we had a really really nice time with three generations round the table and lots of happy talk over very good food (though I say it myself). Some of it was about the right to protest and human rights act and kettling....
DS now wants to be a human rights lawyer. (I was hoping for an investment banker for obvious reasons) . Any advice anyone? Does anyone know if postgrad education fees are going up?

There is a lot of anger on TSR because the weather has delayed the post for Oxford candidates.
I feel really sorry for both sides- the Oxford staff who will only be mums most likely doing some clerical work struggling to get in in the snow and working overtime just before Christmas, and the candidates who have been left waiting. We were so lucky our post came quickly otherwise I would have gone potty too. ( I mean even more potty than I am).

It reminds me of the fiasco over junior medical jobs - terrible computer admin breakdowns-recently. Everyone has to be so patient. Cambridge medicine graduates were allocated posts in less prestigious hospitals by the computer and did not like it. No selection process is perfect. Perhaps human error is preferable to computer error?

Betelguese/Bearcat I think there is a point you are making which I may have missed....sorry.

Heroine, your figures aren't quite accurate. By sixth form in the UK we have approx 12% students in independent schools (not 6%). These students are much more likely to apply to Oxbridge than state school children, so the problem is mainly that state school children aren't applying for some reason (which is only partly explained by lower grade achievements from state students).

Your figures for oxbridge admissions seem adrift too - in 2009 for Oxford of those accepting places from the UK 46.1% were independent and 53.9% from state schools (I believe Cambridge has a very slightly higher state take up). So you got your state and private figures the wrong way around, though they are still a long way from the 12%:88% you might expect on pure numbers.

But you do need to consider application rations too. For Oxford in 2009 these were 39.2% independent and 60.8% state (for UK students) instead of 12% vs 88% that you might expect.

So independently educated children are much more likely to apply than you might expect (although, if they have been paying for top flight education thus far, perhaps it's not so surprising) and also of those that do apply they are a little more likely to be accepted by Oxford (who knows why, but it's not impossible that the independent applicants have better grades). To improve the ratios, three things need to happen:

1. Ensure all well enough qualified state educated children consider applying and are not put off by real or perceived class barriers or school ethos.
2. Ensure state schools educate all able enough children to the standards needed for entry.
3. Ensure there is no bias in the selection process. I don't think there is evidence that there is much to be honest, but top universities must always work to eradicate any that remains and monitor to ensure it doesn't resurface.

Source for stats: 2009 oxford admission statistics