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?

Thank you, yellowtip. I was rather hoping that this thread had become a little broader than a discussion of my daughter! She and I are well aware that in this particlar context her many advantages will, perhaps ironically, not help her!

Oops! Don't know how that happened- sorry!

I suppose my thinking is, if you use my dd as an example- she had every opportunity to have "stellar" GCSE results- so it is entirely fair that, if GCSE results are a yardstick, she should find herself at a disadvantage. There are a lot of 16 year olds who would have had to battle much harder to do even as well as she did, never mind the 12 A*s we're talking about. So if they are going to be weeds out at the first sift it does seem a bit unfair.

Thank you everyone for your advice, by the way- I am passing it on! Dd has an interview with her head teacher later in the week- it will be interesting to see what emerges from that.

Quick question seeker if you and your DD had known then what you know now, would you/she have done anyhting different?

I'm coming around to the opinion that GCSE results are more important than I'd previously assumed too, but there are definitely still dc about that do get oxbridge offers in spite of poor ones and without mitigating circumstances, so it's not impossible. I think some words in the personal statement and/or school reference about increased maturity and newly discovered work ethic (or whatever the improved results are attributed to) would be a good idea. I reckon it's better to say something about it than try and brush the poor GCSEs under the carpet and hope no one notices.

Like what, word?

I've always heard they look at GCSE results, especially if everyone has 97 A*s

97A*s at A level I mean

Well hully IIRC, the young person in question was very busy with extra currics. Plus she had an active social life.

I wonder if she had her time again, if she'd knuckle down more. Do less EC stuff. Or did she think it was a fair trade off.

And as for applying post A level, it would probably be sensible to do both, since if the A2s aren't up to scratch and she decides not to try a second time then she doesn't waste a year, and if they are she's been through the process once already and hopefully learned from it. There's also the chance she gets in on the first attempt too.

hindsight....

Surely though, Seeker - you did know then what you know now - at least in terms of GCSEs. You must have known that especially coming from a decent Grammar school, under the old paradigm, kids were expected to get hatloads of A*s and As. There have been countless threads on oxbridge on MN in the last 4 years and you have been on many of them.

Do all the kids at your DD's school have interviews with the Head about uni applications? I have no idea what goes on at my DD1's school so maybe they do that there too (although to date DD1 has only spoken to the Head once in all her time at the school. It's possible the high fliers have had more contact). In my day, though, I don't remember ever speaking to the head nun about anything, ever. I think I was once told off for zooming down a corridor but I didn't say anything in that encounter. The hench nuns, yes I talked to them. But never the head. Uni application stuff was dealt with by the careers teacher and subject staff where relevant.

Kids these days seem to get so much input about everything. It does worry me, for my own kids, coming from a background of DIY, that's my instinctive response. But I fear that it may be placing them at a terrible disadvantage.

Oh I'm not saying she didn't work hard! I don't have a clue about that.

I just recall that she was very committed to lots of EC stuff. Which at the time of the results, both seeker and her DD thought were a fair trade off.

I just wondered if either had known that GCSEs were such a bit factor if she would have reigned them in at all.

Interestingly, I wonder if my DD's HT has read this thread . On Friday we got an email from her and the director of studies banging on about How Very Important GCSEs are and that next year (year 10) is Very Important. And that it is Very Important to balance EC stuff!

Seeker - the cousin who got all the A*s and had 'no life' - is she applying for Oxbridge?

I wouldn't have done, Word, contrary to popular belief, I am not a particularly pushy parent! I'm not sure whether she would. She was guaranteed a B for Art right from the beginning- a catastrophic first bit of course work made sure of that (partly her fault, partly the teachers). Her B for English was unexpected- she was predicted an A/A*, but it was obvious when she told me about it , and when her teacher got the exam scripts for her and several others back that she had completely screwed up one of her essays. My heart sank when she told me about it on the day!.

I think part of her "problem" is that she didn't think of herself as one of the A* gang- and so, predictably, wasn't. (She thinks of herself very differently now- 6th form suits her, and she is shining academically in a way we never would have believed possible.) She did loads of extra curricular stuff- the drama and the music exams and the like will be useful if she does decide to go down the theatre practice line, the riding exams means she will always be able to earn money as a riding teacher, but some activities were obviously less useful!

I don't know. Hindsight's a wonderful thing. But she is very happy, very grounded and very "sorted" for 17, and that's important, and may stand her in as good a stead in the future as 10 A*s. who knows?

Russian, the cousin doesn't want to-she wants to be an architect, and wants to try for the Bartlett, I think. Dad has other ideas.....

I'm glad you were the one to ask the question Russians . I hate to tell you this seeker but an application to the Bartlett doesn't preclude an application to Cambridge to read Architecture. She might just get offers from both :)

Absolutely she might. But she wants to go the the Bartlett. And I think so would I if I wanted to do architecture. I hope she does get offers from both- and from all her other choices too. And that she is allowed to choose the one she wants. Your point was?

Incidentally yes Russians everyone at our school gets a one to one interview with a member of the SLT which may or may not be the HT.

seeker DD2 certainly never thought of herself as an A gangster although a number of her friends very obviously were. And she got 11A (very surprising indeed, to the extent that when she came at me on results day with an uncomprehending look on her face and said she'd got 11A* I told her not to be daft and to tell me what she'd actually got.....). So I'm unconvinced about the predictability thing.

I think the point is a tease about sibling rivalry :)

Seeker - if you are not a particularly pushy parent I wonder what that makes me!

Ah. No, I let my brother do the sibling rivalry all on his own- he's quite capable of it! My niece is a fantastic girl and, frankly, is going to need all the support she can get if she wants to go against his plans for her....

Love it.

seeker I'm not convinced anyone is buying your 'I'm really relaxed, me' schtick......