Support thread for anyone applying through UCAS this year

[Lorelai]

Following on from a thread in chat I thought I would start this so that we can hold each others' hands through the UCAS process with all its challenges.

Who's with me?

Yellow, we're on the same page :) I too am defending us, and it's good to hear some praise form funnyperson!

Regarding funding. Student finance is available for all years of an undergraduate course, this can be up to 5 years if you thnk of subjects such as medicine or pharmacy. If the course is an undergraduate masters such as MSci, MChem, MPharm, MEng that is it is 4 years straight through with no Batchelors level graduation then it is funded. An MSc is usually a postgraduate add on to a BSc so that wouldn't be funded. Most courses are now undergraduate Masters although that may change now the fees are so much!

sieglinde when you're recruiting for an elite and from students who are used to having high grades you must expect some angst. Not sure why ire should be directed at ucas, was there a delay in receiving information from them? Other universities do things differently and as the students will be receiving offers from other places with different recruitment processes it's natural they will make comparisons. Most of it is normal teenage grumbling .

Some colleges put helpful information on their webpages for applicants, other don't - any good reason why they don't all do that or why Oxford doesn't have a general applicants webpage to update? Even a page with the dates on which things were done last year could remove a little of the stress for applicants.

There are good and bad things about the Oxford system for selecting candidates, there is an ongoing consultation on the whole ucas process if people want to comment on the ucas process generally. For international students comparisons will inevitably be made with places like Harvard (who arrange interviews in the UK for British applicants, I suspect they do the same for some other countries).

Even as the one angsting earlier I agree they do a very good job. But some improvements as Ellis suggests would still help overall and be fairly easy to implement. I felt much happier having used Ellis's tsr link from last year and found that last year the maths invites for ds's college went out on the Thursday (ie today, thanks Ellis ). Their website updated yesterday to say the responses would go out today, but I had that info at the weekend and it helped. The college websites that show which subjects invites have been sent for are better for general sanity than those that say nothing and presumably the college benefits from fewer phone enquiries too. Predicted decision dates would be ideal, but I can see that colleges might feel that is almost making a commitment that they may later find they are unable to meet.

ellisbell Oxford applicants have no reason to be any more stressed than any applicant to any other university; competition is relevant. Do you not think that attitude could be a little offensive to non Oxbridge students? They are all equally deserving of as much consideration as the various university selection processes can give; Oxford applicants are no more worthy however.

Tutors timetables have to be brought together; life gets in the way; the process of shortlisting has elements of art in it as well as science. The dates are very similar each year but it's more important that the tutors get the decisions right than that they're straitjacketed to produce results by a particular day.

The college websites that notify the dispatch of decisions are certainly helpful to candidates but the fact remains that all candidates know they'll receive a decision roughly a week before their subject interview date, which is published months in advance.

Oxford is a pressurized place, a few days of early pressure can get them into the mood :) I wonder whether you can tell us which aspects of the Oxford selection process you consider particularly bad? There are no doubt insufficient places for all those who could benefit from one, but that's not a selection defect per se.

Very much hope it's good news gelatinous:)

thanks for the flowers gelatinous. I assumed sieglunde was referring mainly to the angst on TSR (and maybe the Facebook group?). As you might expect that's rather differently expressed to mumsnet angst . Hope your child has an interview but if they have a rejection they will get offers elsewhere and perhaps have a happier time than they would at Oxford. If they are really keen they can always take a gap year and reapply.

ds does have an interview Ellis . We also visited another department (post offer) on Wednesday which he liked a lot and he's sitting on another offer from a very well regarded maths department so whatever the interview result he will be sorted (except for having to actually choose between them and get the grades of course).

Regarding funding. Is it right that they will only let you have tuition fee/student loans for up to 4 years?

How would that work for graduate entry into medicine. Presume you would need to find 15k plus upfront for 2 years that's 30K. 3 year degree, 1 extra year funded 1 NHS funded as that route would be 7 years in total.

Cannot see many people being able to afford this on top of the debt incurred for a 3 year degree.

What will happen about post graduate study?

Glad to hear that gelatinous.

DS got his too, it came on Wednesday, earlier than expected. His relief is tempered by the fact that some good friends haven't got an invite; that dampens the mood.

ellis I think the responses were to your comment that 'a week's notice is dreadful', which it really isn't, in context.

luckily all 3 oxford applicants from ds's school did get interviews, but I can see that if they hadn't things would have been more sombre yellowstone but congrats to your ds in any case. Ds went happily to school this morning ready to sit a tough 3 hour maths exam - ideal to bring him back to earth!

Good luck to both your DC's, are all the interviews next week? I am hoping DD's friend gets an offer after the interview next week.

roughly speaking the arts subjects interview next week and the science ones the week after adamschick. Maths counts as a science so ds's will be the week after next. I've a feeling medicine may be a little different, possibly spread across both weeks - not sure.

Medicine is either Sunday and Monday or Monday and Tuesday, the Medicine Admissions computer decides which. The same computer also randomly assigns each student to a second college for a second set of interviews on top of the interviews at the student's college of preference. Very different from the hurly burly of Arts interviews with their comings and goings and calls to other colleges etc.

adamschic the colleges wait until all interviews are out of the way, science included, before making any offers, though the decisions for Arts will be made within hours of the interview in question being over, because the Oxford pooling system depends on very swift decisions. Your DD's friend could hear anytime from the 16th this year I'd have thought. Is she from your DD's school?

Yes, the only one who applied. It's an arts subject.

As far as I was told by the student finance people there is 4 years funding available - this will cover a 3 years Batchelors degree , or a 4 year degree that runs Batchelors into Masters in 1 four year course. Medicine is treated as a separate entity.
There is no student finance to cover separate Masters after having completed a 3 year Batchelors degree from the student loans company.
Masters funding may be available from other sources, NHS, Employers, Bursary etc. This info was current a month ago when I enquired about Masters funding.

Ds had one offer over a week ago ,form went in about 3 weeks ago ,deathly silence since then would be nice to hear something but I suppose no news is good news.

Well done to all those with Oxford interviews

that's good, gelatinous. It's nice for them to have the "free" stay in Oxford, whatever happens afterwards . Mine will be there too, I hope it will be an opportunity to explore further if they would like it if offered a place.

I don't know how the loans work for graduate entry to medicine.
And I've yet to navigate my way through the NHS bursary system which seems to kick in for the last two years of a medical course. If anyone knows how this works then please tell me!
The existance of the NHS bursaries seems to imply that student loans are only available for a maximum of 4 years.

Congratulations on those Oxford interviews.

Take that back he has just checked and in the last 30 mins he had two more offers.All for AAB though,would have been good to get one lower but almost everywhere seems to offer AAB for his course

wanted to share this (post 1069) with anyone whose child has an interview coming up www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1833387&highlight=oxford+applicants+2011+stalking+page&page=54

congratulations to all those with offers, from any university

Well done to your DD ellis, I assume she's Medicine too :) (Perhaps our two will meet :)).

I wouldn't base a judgment of Oxford on the atmosphere at interview time though, it's heightened, ultra tense and very artificial. You're such a staunch advocate of Open Days though, surely she's been to those? And surely she knows lots of people there already, from what you say of her school. I thought you also said somewhere that she was going to reapply if unsuccessful this year? Perhaps I misunderstood.

If she is going to consider rejecting an offer, the tutors do ask to be notified absolutely as soon as possible. That's incredibly important to the candidate next on the list, I don't think it can be emphasized strongly enough. But her offer letter will stress it in any event.

Thanks very much adamschic, mrswoodentop and unitarian. Any offer at all from any one of DS's four would be great. Oxford would be brilliant. But nothing so far.

How many offers is that in total now mrswoodentop? It sounds very good going to me!

3 so far yellowstone both others have said he won't hear until after Xmas so he can stop checking for a bit .No communication other than the UCAS one though ,not sure if thats normal,will he get separate invitations to post offer days etc?

yellowstone
He hasn't had a rejection from the first interview and he has an interview in hand. That's good at this stage.
Imperial waits until the Oxbridge flurry is over so you'll hear from there in the new year. If his BMAT assured him an Oxford interview then I'm sure he'll be making an appearance at Imperial before too long.
I never got a grip on how his fourth one does things.

If/when he is in the very happy position of having to choose then he should take a good hard look at how the course is taught at each. There is a lot of difference.

That's good Mrs W. He will get follow up emails with invitation to offer days next.

I was wondering about communication for post offer days too. One of ds's choices hasn't sent anything. Track updated almost 3 weeks ago with the offer but zilch from the uni itself.

Good luck to all Oxford interviewees