Looking for the helpful Cambridge admissions tutor who posted a while age..

[seeker]

......if you're around, could I ask a couple of questions, please?

Oxford and Cambridge firsts are almost universally acknowledged to be harder won

Nope. I'm an academic and I've never heard anyone say this. That is pure snobbery. There are plenty of people outside Oxbridge who are brighter than many people inside Oxbridge. That goes for both students and faculty.

It's not snobbery at all niminy. An Oxford or Cambridge degree is more highly valued in the outside world because of its rigour, not because it was achieved in a pretty Tudor quad. It's inverted snobbery to deny it. Expected obviously, but that's what it is.

yellow when I htink of certain students who arrived in October, having always been seen as very clever at school, some of them really did take a knock or three to their confidence.

Some young people have been built up rather high by their parents and schools!

One of the reasons I love selective education. You don't get an inflated sense of your abilities.

russians you're completely right about the world of performing arts. You would not believe how cocky som eof the parents and Dc were when they arrived for rehearsals. They quickly catch on though .

Well clearly mine have all had the confidence knocked out of them by me, so there was only one way to go :)

I'm sorry, but I have seen work by Cambridge undergraduates and I did not think it was better than work I have seen elsewhere. Oxbridge degrees are valued because of their exclusivity not because of their rigour -- or rather, because exclusivity is mistaken for rigour. I have interviewed people who have got first class degrees and PhDs from Oxbridge and been mightily unimpressed (though not in all cases).

nim I teach at Oxbridge and also elswhere.

I can assure you that there is a difference in rigour!

Harriet: when I worked at a new Uni we marked a lot harder than when I taught in the RG. In fact I was told never to give a third class grade when I arrived in the RG -- despite the fact that the work was no better than work I'd been giving thirds to in the new university.

Equivalency of degree classes is a big question, and one which I am quite vocal about whenever I get chance in meetings! Mind you, that is, after all, why we have external examiners and moderated samples of work I suppose.

Equivalent or not, I would say it's true that a desmond from Cambridge will help you out in some fields more than a first from almost anywhere else.

Also, my experience of marking at Oxbridge is that they mark within a very narrow band, with almost everyone achieving between 57 - 67 for everything. Elsewhere you probably have a wider range of achievement. But from what I have seen, I have seen more brilliant work outside Oxbridge. But then, I'm only an academic with twenty years teaching in universities, most of them in permanent positions, behind me.

Well I think a fair few senior academics would argue with you on that one niminy and a lot of people in the commercial and professional worlds too. All degrees are not equal. Where would you draw the line? Is a Cambridge 2.1 equal to a 2.1 in the same subject from, say, UWE? Or Oxford Brookes? Presumably any distinction is 'snobbery'? So all degrees are equally valid? What nonsense.

I think the marking varies notably between disciplines niminy.

The external examiner system is there to achieve equivalency. Whether it always does is another question (a difficult and complex one, in my view, because there is so much variation in the sector). But while I think there is variation, it isn't standard across all subjects and institutions. And in my view, it is wrong to regard Oxbridge degrees as automatically intellectually better across the board -- they're certainly not in my subject.

People in the commercial and professional worlds can be sheep just as much as anyone else, I fear. And they are certainly not qualified to judge the intellectual quality and integrity of first class degrees from different universities.

You see the reason I don't buy that nim is that the consistent quality of candidate is much higher at Oxbridge (or any other highly selective university) than it is at a new university.

Sure, you will always find some very very able ones in the later. Students who could easily have held their own somehwere more selective.

However, you will also find a good number of students who would never have got into a more selective university in a month of Sundays.

Now if they both send out about the same proportion of seconds and firsts, then they simply can't be equivalent!

It certainly is part of the Oxbridge myth that only the brightest and the best will hold their own there that's something I'm sick of hearing from people I know at Oxbridge. When I think of some of the students I have known say the single parent with 3 children living in inner London, living in a tower block where she was afraid every time she went out of her front door, who could only do her reading at night because she was working and looking after her children, and who'd overcome a lifetime of educational disadvantage and undiagnosed dyslexia to study, and who literally shook with excitement at being allowed to study -- well, I wonder how well the pampered poppets at Oxbridge would cope with that.

The consistent quality of candidate is also higher than at Durham, UCL, Bristol word and the workload is greater and the hoops through which students have to jump are greater because they don't get away with a couple of essays a term. Of course there are clever students elsewhere. Those two places aren't everyone's cup of tea and there aren't enough places for all those whose cup of tea it is. But this idea that all degrees are equal given a very clear pecking order of universities in terms of entry standards just doesn't stack up. It sounds nice and egalitarian but it doesn't stack up.

Wow you're very anti Oxbridge niminy. That's extremely rude and ignorant too, to label the generality of Oxbridge students 'pampered poppets'. It suggests you know very few current Oxbridge students, or at least not a decent cross representation.

nim I think you're talking out of your arse!

I was brought up somehwere not unlike you describe. I went to one of the worst schools in the country. And just for the LOLs I have dyslexia!!!

I am sure I am far less of a pampered poppet than you!!!!!

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Am I the only person who thinks this is all incredibly previous? No harm in sussing out options of course, but surely it's as wise to wait for AS results. Predictions != grades achieved. Especially this year."

Not if you want to book open days. Many are booked up already. Or if you want to amuse yourself by exploring all your options, and gathering all the information you possibly can.

Aye.

I think, the open days are in July. Which is before the results are out, no?