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?

We were told (2 years back) that Oxford interview a much smaller percentage than Cambridge, so you have a better chance after an Oxford Interview.

Cambridge interviewed a very high percentage of those with the correct predicted grades - to stop all those Headlines of "rejected without good cause" but then a smaller percentage of those interviewed actually got offers.

Swings & roundabouts I suppose (and may well have changed again now), but hope this is some comfort to those not given an Oxford Interview.

mumoverseas was your dinner ok and did you resist the stocking chocs? Are you ok?

Oh dear we still have no news. No rejection on UCAS track though. I am also beginning to worry about the budget for three days in Oxford -getting there and back and pocket money and interview clothes and stuff. Its displaced worry perhaps but there seem to be so many calls on my pocket. DD took the moment to ask me for a ticket for a pop concert in february costing £21.00. I paid but now I feel silly. I have absolutely no idea how a normal family will fund university education in the future.

oh funny person, I'm sorry you haven't heard yet. has her college updated their website with details of what offers they have and haven't sent out? I think it's mainly the subjects where interviews are taking place at start of next week which have sent out emails.

Have to say £21 for a pop concert seems a bargain at the moment to me...we've just been asked by DD1 who is at Oxford for £150 for the Christchurch summer ball next year. She says she had budgeted on assumption that tickets would only be bought next year...have to say I can't remember ever having budgeted for that sort of sum for one evening....DH says we'll get the advance back but I'm not so sure...

Thank the lord that DS, should he get over the next hurdle, is a stay in type, I reckon he'll get by on half the money that DD1 demands...

Neither of them had/will have new interview outfits. DD1 said it would look as if she was trying too hard and set off on the Oxford tube with a ladder in her tights. I'm pretty sure that was just to wind up the parents and she'd have stashed a new pair in her bag, but hey her tights have been laddered every day since she's been there.

Fingers crossed for you and DD funny person...

DS had interview last year at Pembroke College Oxford for E & M.
He was 1 of 32 for 8 places. I believe 1 out of 12 applicants get a place.
He wore a smart pair of black trousers (that he used to wear for his P/T waiter job) a shirt and jumper.
He stayed in the college for 2 nights and there was a lot of waiting around. He arrived for lunch in hall on the Wednesday and had interviews at about 3 and 6 pm on the Thursday. He played some pool with other candidates in JCR, but otherwise he was pretty bored(!) with all the waiting around. On the Thursday evening about 20 of the candidates decided to go to a restaurant in Oxford rather than eat in hall.He didn't get offered a place, but really seemed to take it all in his stride. He also felt at the time the interviews didn't go that well, so he wasn't too surprised at his rejection.
His teachers at 6th form college wanted him to try again this year but he managed to secure a place at Nottingham University where he is having a great time and working hard. It would have been very hard to turn down that offer as that was an extremely competitive course to get into and take your chances again a year later
He went on to get 1A and 3As at Alevel, and an A in his extended project qualification (a hell of a lot of reading around your subject) and on which he wasn,t questioned at all in his Oxford interview!

The college website has updated and DD 's subject letters haven't been sent out yet, I suppose because her subject is one of the last to be interviewed. I must say it is impressive that the admin people are clearly working all through Saturday. Bearcat it is nice that your son is working hard at Nottingham. My DS is loving Bloomsbury and praises his tutors to the skies and is getting the essays in by the deadlines and attending some inspiring talks by guest speakers but tbh the intercollegiate London social scene appears to be figuring highly on his agenda. He is lucky to be in a fabulous cosy and reasonably priced art deco period intercollegiate catered hall of residence in W1. I hope that doesn't sound boastful it was just such a relief when he fell on his feet. DD is a very different person.
Fififi are you serious about the £150? Does that include the dress and shoes or is it just the ball ticket? Will it include drinks? Will you pay? How many events as expensive as that are there in a year? Christchurch looks amazing though.

The whole 'which college' thing is a very seductive part of the Oxbridge application process. Being somewhat unworldly, DD went for the tutor (according to subject interest) and then the liberality and then the feel and ethos of the college. She liked Wadham, New and Corpus Christi as she fell in love with the pelican but chose Wadham because of the drama- she loves drama. Sometimes I think the whole college thing is like a very beautiful woman- falling in love with her is to risk serious heartbreak. Dr Seuss I must re-read your post and stay grounded. Lots of students appear to have been re-allocated to other colleges this year anyway. Thank God I am old.

Glad to hear you don't need to start hyperventilating yet, funnyperson

Which college is your DS at? & please tell more about the intercollegiate accommodation/ social scene!

Funnyperson: This summarises most of last years Cambridge Ball prices.

DD went to a £15 Garden Party, a £55 event and joined loads of others sitting in punts watching the Trinity Firework display for free from the Backs :) (She hopes to do one of the "big" balls once in her 3 years, but not every year.)

@ funnyperson

I would have thought the £150 tickets will either be for a pair of tickets or be for a single include "dining" too (in hall) - the sort of thing older members of the college/alumni with more spare cash might go for, (eg I'm hoping to take DH this year if I can blag a ticket and we would love to do the dining too!) But in my time as a student the undergraduates very much all stuck with £75 non-dining tickets.

At Trinity Ball (which was my college) there was more food and booze than you could ever hope to get through, without needing a dining ticket. As well as people dressed like old fashioned cinema ice cream ladies, handing out not iceream but packets of Gauloises ... cough. I wonder if that is allowed nowadays?!

Best of luck to your DD.

i shall ask DD1. last year she went to new college ball on a drinks alone ticket but she paid for that herself so I have no idea how much it cost. i think this being her own college ( at oxford it seems that one college each year has THE big ball)she is particularly keen to go (and maybe wants the full dining package). whatever she seems not to have the money available herself to buy a ticket for an event in May one week from the end of the winter term, which is maybe not surprising.Think of the interest the college will get if they sell out at that price over 6 months before the event.

i did laugh to myself a little bit last time because the new college ball was shrouded in secrecy as to the entertainment and rumour had it that a FANTASTIC live performer would appear. ( I think other coleges had had a big name like Coldplay who singularly failed to set the dance floor alight). DD1 spent many an hour daydreaming as to who it might be with lady gaga or the black eyed peas being favoured ( both on tour in UK at the time i think). It ended up being....

Answers on a postcard...

sorry gone off topic here, do the moderators delete the post from the thread?

Hello Betelgeuse and everyone- DD has not heard but then her college hasn't sent out the invites for her subject yet. We haven't bought an interview outfit- just nice warm clothes for winter. I agree Oxford is looking for excellence but I am not sure what you mean by the overseas competition- international students are just intelligent (one hopes) motivated young people from abroad as opposed to intelligent motivated young people from the UK. They are possibly more likely to have a 'have a go' approach as most UK school head-teachers are selective about which students they will support for Oxbridge. International does not equate to genius or even excellence. It may, however, equate to wealth and variety which can be attractive for admissions tutors. Even then not all international students will get accepted. However you raise an important issue because it is clear that the number of places at the Russell group universities available to home candidates appears to have decreased in the last few years, which does make it a lot harder for the UK candidate. Whether Oxbridge operate any quota system for home vs overseas candidates, and what that system might be I do not know.
Ponders- DS is in an intercollegiate hall of residence in a safe central area of London which I thoroughly recommend as there is a nice mix of students from UCL/LSE/RADA/RAM/Imperial etc from all disciplines; UK and international students. Its a small hall so a close knit and friendly group. This means he gets to hear about and invited to social events at the other colleges not just his- clubs/balls/boat party/lectures/films/hill walking /chilling out in unions/concerts/plays etc. There is the facility to do modules at any of the other London colleges for history in the second and third years which is fantastic and also the use of the British library/Senate House library/and reciprocal arrangements with other university specialist libraries. He loves his own college though and has already developed a rather touching loyalty.

oh thanks for that inf, funnyperson - it does sound very attractive. If DS gets an offer from LSE it'll be something to think about.

Still keeping fingers crossed for your DD here

Fewer overseas applicants are successful then UK ones. There is a long & complicated pdf document on the ox website with admissions statistics from 2009 (I assume 2010's haven't been worked out yet) - \link{http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/how_to_apply/admissions_statistics/\link on this page}

p7 gives annual figures for "all domiciles" averaged over 2007-2009:

state schools: 6405 applied, 1502 accepted - 23.4%
independent schools: 4671 applied, 1361 accepted - 29.1%
others (not just overseas but including them): 3025 applied, 315 accepted - 10.4%

The same page gives those stats by course too.

p6 breaks the figures down by course & gender, 2009 only
p8 shows percentage interviewed by course, average of 2007-2009 again

(I've been poring again, can you tell? )

The breakdown of acceptance rates by subject/type of school is v interesting - there's a huge variation, eg

Economics & Management 12.6% state, 12.7% independent
English & Modern Languages 15.4% state, 26.0% independent
History & English 11.3% state, 9.5% independent
European & Mid Eastern Languages 45.5% state, 16.2% independent!

(total numbers mostly pretty small but still...)

oh goodness, I missed fififi's post about her DS - what an amazing coincidence! I think they must be bound to meet, mustn't they? what is the etiquette indeed...? Good luck anyway

More advice from the other side of the interview desk, this time about Oxbridge interviews (I posted last night on the other general admissions thread about reasons for not getting an Oxbridge interview -- I've done admissions in several humanities subjects at Cambridge, and my husband was first at Oxford, then Admissions and finally Senior Tutor at one of the Cambridge colleges.)

1. For Cambridge: Regarding what to wear, it's best not to smell or actually have dirt on your clothes, but as long as your DS/D looks reasonably pulled together, we don't mind what they wear. It's far better that they are comfortable in what they're wearing. Interviewers will be wearing anything from old jeans to an L K Bennett dress (yes, there are female dons!)

For Oxford: Regarding what to wear, they tend to be a bit smarter and more formal, but there are no rules -- and nobody will make a decision based on what you look like. Purple hair and piercings are fine.

2. Vitally important make sure your DS/D has read their personal statement, knows what's in it, and is prepared to talk about something they claim to have a burning interest in at length and in considerable detail. At Cambridge, we base many of our questions on academic things or school projects raised in the personal statement. So if your DS/D claims to have read Les Miserables in French, they had better be prepared to talk about it in French.

By the way, this is why it's a really crap idea to write your child's personal statement for them. They will be found out.

3. We don't give two hoots about anything other than academic ability and potential. The questions we ask are designed very open-endedly so we can see how your DS/D thinks their way around a problem or issue they may never have encountered before. If your son is a top rugby player and is as thick as shit, they are very unlikely to get in.

4. There is NO SHAME AT ALL in being placed in the pool for Cambridge, or being passed to another college in Oxford. This evens out any imbalance in numbers of applications to particular colleges, and it is the universities' way of making sure that everyone who really should get in, gets in (just perhaps not at their first-choice college). Remember that the quality of the education your DS/D will get is identical at every college. It just might feel different socially being at a large as opposed to a small college.

5. To sum up, at interview we're looking for commitment, enthusiasm and subject knowledge.

Thats interesting Ponders so in fact overseas students are less likely to be offered a place and also the numbers accepted are small- perhaps there is a bit of consolation for mumoverseas there. The independent vs state school thing is interesting- there appear to be quite a few A star candidates not shortlisted for history interviews this year and others with terrible gcse grades who have an interview-presumably from disadvantaged backgrounds. But they go by the HAT and also run very useful workshops which only state school pupils can attend and also weight the decision by the ACORN status of the home postcode.

Oh those (Acorn etc) figures also appear in the pdf document, funnyperson - table 8a, bottom of p8

\link{http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/finding_out_more/contextual_data.html\contextual data}

The numbers are pretty small again - 500 applicants (out of the total 12000+) who have 1 or more flags, inc their school's performance nationally

Hi...I've just noticed this thread and wanted to say congrats ponders on your son's interview. We talked on a previous thread about taking the dreaded TSA, but that thread seems to have died. My son has also got an interview to study PPE at Christ Church - we are amazed!!Regarding what to wear I'm hoping smart jeans, shoes (rather than holey plimsolls which is his personal favourite) and a plain jumper will be OK. What do you all think??
My DS is also pretty much self-raised(!), we only read his PS as we were paying his UCAS fee so I think I can only suggest.....

oooh, hello, optimisticmumma!!!

Congrats to your DS too his black eye didn't hold him back then?

I had no real input into DS2's PS either. I did suggest he alter "I self-taught myself guitar" but I don't know if he did...

Haven't yet discussed what he plans to wear. His normal college clothes are jeans with (usually) some holes, a t-shirt with short-sleeved check shirt over, & currently non-holey trainers. As I won't be there to intervene I imagine that's what he'll wear for interview - I'll suggest the least holey jeans but he'll take no notice and he does have some smartish shoes which would look OK with jeans but doubt he'll wear those either

He does actually wear a suit sometimes; he & his friends think it's funny to invade the local Con Club en masse in suits & ties to irritate the hell out of the Cons (it works). I don't think he plans to take it to Oxford though.

betelguese, you aren't British, are you?