Oxbridge Entry 2015

[Roisin]

Do we have a thread already?
ds1 has decided to definitely apply to Oxford to do Biochemistry. He will probably apply to St John's.

After interview last year one of DS' sons got a really tough, though not completely unachievable, offer for a seriously competitive and technical course. In fairness it was probably better to have the door left open a bit than a straight rejection. In the event he did worse than expected on the most difficult A level. DS thinks it was the stress of knowing he had to ace it.

However this was a course the boy absolutely wanted to do. Given people have five choices, and there are plenty of other Universities with strong English or Economics departments giving A*AA offers, I can't see what Exeter hope to achieve.

I just rang Exeter admissions to ask why they have gone mad
- well done!

I can see completely see the point of it Tantalisingduck but it serves more purposes than the ostensible ones. Also, Oxford manages to get a reasonable mix in their colleges without recourse to a special statement, so why not Durham? I think the fact remains that Durham is using this to get behind the Oxbridge applicants, and pitch things accordingly. Cambridge royally messed things up for Durham when it introduced A* offers as so many applicants were then able to hold Durham as insurance. Cambridge has now upped half of its offers again, so Durham will have a new wave of insurance holders. But actually my main beef is that the thing is incredibly poorly explained and administered by people who don't seem to understand that students and teachers expect a slightly more sophisticated level of service. One question I'd ask (not the only one) is why do students have to tick a box saying what their reason is for submitting a substitute statement? Why do they have to declare their Oxbridge hand? It's all very gauche.

Littleham another one applauding you here :) Have I missed something though? Has your DD had a two A* offer for History - in other words has the History dept gone bonkers too? (also, is that now three offers? If so, very well done to your DD!).

No, the History Department have not made offers yet. However, the admissions lady said that the high offers are being matched to high predictions. As my dd has predictions of AAA (which are fairly impossible to actually get in Arts subjects), she may be a victim of the same scam. I also asked was it anything to do with private school versus state school and she said 'no'. If your teenager works hard, then Birmingham / Nottingham reward them with an unconditional, while Exeter just says 'jump higher'!!!

She does have an offer of AAA from York, which she likes better than Exeter, so i think it may be Hasta la Vista baby even if they do make her an offer.

Molio thank you for your sensible thoughts upthread. Up to that moment, I felt reluctant to "tempt fate" by booking. Your sensible words made me realise that any flight booking will have no impact on whether DD is invited for interview.

I am just waiting a bit until I see what written work DD is intending to submit.

Subsitute personal statement for Durham - we haven't done that yet, but intend to!

Littleham - you are doing a great job! Lol at the idea of the history dept also going bonkers
It does seem all so incredibly complicated with the second guessing about intentions etc - like you have to be a gaming expert to find your way thru.
And the fact that DC do well and are then effectively told to 'jump higher'
Just hoping DS school are up to all this - as a parent I feel quite bewildered.
DS will be applying next year, so I am here on false pretences not in the game yet, but already on the verge of a nervous breakdown...
(But I promise I will pay forward when next year's thread comes around...)

I'm wondering if Exeter is striking out against school over-predictions? Exeter History was in clearing last year, so they may have been stung by that factor. That makes more sense than the 'reach their potential' homily. Pure conjecture though.

Possibly, but predictions are only really a best guess and surely they know that? I even questioned the school whether it was a mistake to predict the best possible scenario. Obviously it was a mistake!!!

Exeter deserve to be in clearing with this kind of confidence trick. This really takes the . It isn't going down very well on student room....

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2921337&page=14&p=51238141#post51238141

I am a bit surprised to learn that Exeter History was in clearing last year. How can I find out which subjects in which universities come up in "Extra" or in clearing?

I was slightly surprised too RandomFriend, but it most certainly was: ever the optimist, I checked the Telegraph at the crack of dawn in case the 2014 DS needed to go into clearing :)

I would expect the Telegraph to still have the lists as they appeared on August 14th this year.

I have all the newspapers for last year with clearing places if you want to know about a particular course (happy to check for you), but things change every year anyway.

Go Littleham . Rightly so as it sounds as though Exeter are toying with young people's lives.
An AAA is very easy to miss even for the most able student, not least in English. No one n their right minds apart from DS1 last year would have an AAA offer for their insurance.
Exeter will end up filling these places in clearing.

Just a note to the Durham applicants. If you look at last year's UCAS thread a lot of DC were still waiting to hear from Durham in April .

No one in their right minds would have AAA offer for their insurance.

This may well be exactly why they're making these high offers: to avoid large numbers of students making them their insurance choice. Having an offer that is slightly lower than your competitors is not a good admissions strategy, since some applicants base their choices on the offer grades (i.e. if it's a lower offer it can't be their 1st choice) rather than genuine preference.

I'm not saying the high offers are reasonable, but there will be a reason behind it (beyond the stated 'encouraging applicants to aim high').

Except my dd would have been choosing between York and Exeter as her Firm (Oxford being highly unlikely). If Exeter play silly games it will be a no brainer!

And for those of us with DC applying next year - forget Exeter - wasted choice!

Thank you Molio for the date, I have now checked the Telegraph's website around that date. I found quite a bit of "useful" information was still there - which universities guarantee accommodation for students that come through clearing, for example. But there were no lists of which universities had places through clearing.

Littleham thank you for your kind offer to look at your cutted out information for me. DD is applying for music - were there any universities that had places in clearing for either a BA (or MA for Scotland) in music or BMus?

Mrs Ghoul "forget Exeter - wasted choice!"

I think it might be more of a message for schools though - presumably Exeter are not offering more than the schools are predicting - not saying it is very sensible though.

What would be interesting would be to see whether English applicants with AAA predictions are getting AAA offers.

I definitely saw a couple with just one A predicted offered AA*A

I will be interested to see what happens when the final offers are made and what happens in clearing.

Have sent you a PM Random Friend, as I have scanned the document you want (but can't seem to load them up on MN without revealing my full name!!) Happy to send it to anyone else that wants it, but you will have to send me a PM.

I have to say I'm currently very relieved by DS's AAA offer from York and the fact that he hasn't applied to Exeter!

As with so many policies, I'm sure it will have more than one end: no doubt a warning to schools not to over-predict as well as an attempt to avoid being left high and dry with too many offerees holding Exeter as insurance, but not needing it on results day. But whether the strategy will work is another thing.......

The Exeter thing has scared me - just seems so random that you could apply somewhere on the basis of their website and advice from careers depth and then suddenly they implement some 'bonkers' new regime...

It has scared me, too now that dd is on the receiving end of one of their bonkers offers. I am worried about what the other offers are going to be and hoping that Durham doesn't up the level of it's offers to keep ahead of Exeter.

The thinking in this family was that by avoiding Durham this year, all would be well! Why do my dc's seem to magnetically attract mean universities?