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.

The maths course is very difficult so they use STEP as a filter. It's a hard course even for those who do very well at STEP.

I don't think Maths is particularly harder than Nat Sci (Physical), Comp Sci or Engineering. Nor is it much harder than Maths in other top universities. Cambridge just have too many prospective students and A level Maths/FM are these days too easy to separate them.

If Maths students perceive the Cambridge course as hard, it is for the most part because they have never had to work at Maths before. The same applies to (Physical) Nat Sci and Comp Sci students.

It worries me that Maths at Cambridge somehow has this reputation of being terrifically difficult, because I think it puts people off applying. My school (20 years ago) didn't want to send me there because they though it would be too hard - yet I topped the Tripos. People who want to do Maths and who are predicted A*s should apply - if they get through interview and STEP they will be fine.

Uilen: how can you tell whether someone has the genuine maths aptitude for Cambridge. ds2 has always been maths obsessed - does weird things like memorising pi to 100 places, knows zillions of prime numbers, can do amazing calculations in his head, loves coding and programming, logic puzzles, etc. But I think setting his sights at Cambridge, is setting himself up for failure; He's just at a regular comp and the kind of maths he is exposed to is a pale reflection of that experienced by kids at Magdalen College School, or schools from Hong Kong and Singapore... Hmm... He's only in yr11, so has time to reflect further.

HMF1 he's almost certain to get an interview. Cambridge interviews far, far more applicants than Oxford, with the exception of a small number of subjects.

Needmoresleep I hope I'm not going to provoke the ire of the anti Oxford brigade because it's become quite a drag, but 'more quirky' isn't synonymous with 'less bright'. Oxford not only interviews considerably fewer applicants, it spends far more time on the interviews on the whole, and it isn't given to over offering to the same degree as Cambridge. Cambridge and Oxford also have a different spread of subjects. The Humanities subjects threw up a whole load of wacky A level results this year, far more so than the sciences which are always more predictable, so from the outside, the intake may well look more 'quirky' unless you're comparing like with like.

secretsquirrels it's always the teaching staff at my DCs' school who write the reference. I have to say I've never, ever thought to interfere with, or 'guide' what they say. If I were writing the reference that sort of parental interference would really piss me off.

That said, HMF1s DS's reference in terms of the lazy duplication does sound particularly bad.

Mind if I pop up? DD is pondering her 'extra' personal statement that Cambridge have asked for now that UCAS is in. She's applying to do Law, and has just sat LNAT. How should the statement for Cambridge be different from the original? What should/shouldn't go in it? And aaargh, just when we thought PS misery was over with!

Roisin Your DS sounds similar to mine. He went to a regular comp where he was never stretched at Maths. He was obsessed with it from an early age and set his sights on Cambridge because, in his words, "that was the best". He went to a 6th form college where they have not sent a student to Oxbridge to do Maths for many years although they get one or two in for Physics / Nat Sci.
Cambridge select using STEP.The exams are sat after A levels and results come out on A level results day. Most candidates will get a string of A* at A level. The A levels were never a problem but the STEP exam is different. There was no help or support at college for this, DS worked at it on his own, spending as much time on that as his A levels. To be fair, by the time the exams came he was quietly confidant. He was whizzing through past papers and getting the required grade comfortably. On the day however, nerves got the better of him and he missed the grade.
In hindsight? Well he wished he had applied to Oxford. He had spectacular AS grades and the Oxford entrance exam is sat before the offers are made so much less risky. Having said that, it seems many Cambridge maths offer holders put Warwick as their insurance choice and that is where 2/3 of them seem to end up so he's in good company!

Molio Sorry I don't know what you mean about parental interference? I commented about the quality of the reference on here, but I most certainly never spoke to the college about it. .

The comment wasn't directed at you at all secretsquirrels, nor at anyone in particular in fact, but I have seen a number of examples on MN where parents do try to tell the school what to say, which is not really how it should happen. My DC don't even see their reference themselves, and I certainly haven't - I'm surprised parents get to find out what's in the reference before it's sent off.

Molio Oh I see, I misunderstood. DS was sent a copy of his reference, that's how I knew what it was like. It wasn't dreadful but the person who wrote it didn't even know him and had just cut and pasted bits from his teachers. It was clearly not going to do a lot for him. However, reassuringly, it didn't matter as he got 5 good offers anyway.

That's incredibly slack secretsquirrels. Perhaps sloppy half-baked references are more common than I thought.

Molio when I said "more quirky" I did not mean less bright.

However the experience within DSs cohort seemed to reflect the experience of Squirrels DS. Most of my sons friends applied to read maths orientated subjects and most tried for Cambridge. Smallish sample but only the very very top mathematicians got through. Interest in your subject and achievements around your subject did not seem to carry as much weight as might have been expected.

The Oxford experience seemed different. Perhaps because Oxford seems to appeal more strongly to those wanting to read humanities. They picked up some interesting candidates, all bright but perhaps not as obviously all out bright as Cambridge seems to be looking for.

I don't understand your comment about anti-Oxford brigade.

There's maths bright and there's other types of bright Needmoresleep. I'm not sure what you mean by 'all out bright' unless you mean very high AS module marks in at least three subjects. I think there's a very real danger is generalising about Cambridge admissions from the experience of those applying for maths.

By anti-Oxford brigade I mean those who take every opportunity on these boards to assert the supremacy of Cambridge over Oxford, which is a pointless quest. It's also defeating the purpose here when the criticism is ill-informed and amounts to misinformation. People are looking for advice, not prejudice, so this shallow partisanship is a shame.

I'm looking for advice! Anyone any thoughts on post-personal-statement-statement?

We didn't see Ds's statement before the school sent it, he did, but we had researched what Cambridge wanted to see on the school reference, because we knew the school hadn't. They did get him a place on an open day in Edinburgh where there were sessions for school staff but no teachers from his school went ( that isn't a criticism, they only have 1 or 2 applicants at most a year, so it wouldn't have been a good use of staff time). Given that most of this came from the University website & the guidance teacher wasn't aware of it I don't think that was undue influence. They actually had a parent's night last week about applying to university aimed at the mainstream applications,a bit too late for all those applying to high tariff courses. The reference was sloppy work aside from duplicating a lot of the personal statement it missed out some things she had discussed with DS & agreed she would mention as he didn't have space & in one thing was actually wrong. I have considered complaining but I am not sure what good it would do. I am pleased they showed it to DS & that he was prepared to ask them to change it not an easy thing to do at 17.

Sorry Original, I've never even heard of a post personal statement. I certainly hope my dd doesn't get such a request.

Just when you thought it was all over!

Littleham, I don't think Oxford have one. Be prepared, though, when my son applied putting in the UCAS application was not the end of things. Apart from all the palaver of applying to Oxford (HAT, interview) he got a questionnaire from UCL which required quite a lot of work to complete. Fortunately, York, Warwick and Lancaster required nothing except the application.

Littleham tell me about it! They notified receipt of the UCAS application and then asked for this, and I'm trying to canvas any thoughts anyone has about it. She's got an appointment to discuss at school, but I know there's lots of expertise on these threads too, and frankly every little helps!

I just got the OK from the school to upload the two-hundreth draft of DDs personal statment.

I do hope there won't be another one to do!

How long is the "post-personal statement?". By the end, DD had close to 10,000 characters, because the guidance tutor kept asking her to write something different.

What wording did they use Original? Did they specify what they were looking for?

Am greatly relieved that Oxford don't have any such requirements. DD2's other choices probably won't want any more information AllMimsy (unless History departments are more demanding). She hasn't applied to any London Universities.

Do you think anyone in the whole process likes personal statements?

Original. The Cambridge Supplementary Questionnaire is them giving you an opportunity to say some "Cambridge-focused" things, rather than aimed at all 5 unis. So it's a chance to talk specifically about the Cambridge Course and about why Cambridge and why that College. It's also a thinly veiled excuse for them to ask you for your UMS scores for AS modules, which they are very interested in.

Cambridge do this. Oxford don't.

www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/saq.html

nit like roisin says, they want to know your DD's UMS scores .

Molio, I think we are agreeing. Most DC we knew who applied to Cambridge were doing so with double maths A levels and hoping to read maths heavy subjects: engineering; maths; economics etc. The successful ones had exceptionally high UMS which suggested for those subjects very strong academic performance was crucial. Humanities will be different. Anecdotal evidence then suggests that the type of interview differed between arts/humanities and quantitative subjects.

I have not spotted many "which is better, Oxford or Cambridge" threads or arguments. They would seem pretty pointless. As Squirrels suggests, Cambridge maths was perceived by her DS to be "the best". DS looked at Economics and was really not interested in PPE or E&M so for him Cambridge was also "the best". Others seemed to think the same about Engineering. However other friends preferred courses offered by Oxford. As far as I know most students seem to take the sensible approach of basing much of their decision on course content, rather than any perceptions of which University is better.

Having said that DS and several of his friends were equally attracted by courses offered by London Universities. However weighed against that was a desire to get away from home. At the end of the day, whether they get into Oxbridge or not, applicants with good A levels will get into good universities. It did not take long for DS to be perfectly happy he was not going to Cambridge. I assume Squirrels DS feels the same. There were advantages and disadvantages with all the Universities DS considered, and so difficult to proclaim one was better than another.

Original I am not looking forward to DS writing another personal statement he was bad enough with the UCAS one. He does have some specific Cambridge things that he wants to put in it but I think I may stand over him while he writes it!

TOSN the ucas ps word limit is crazily short. Aside from UMS is there anything she'd like to expand on from her ps which has a particular law focus? It gives an ideal opportunity to say the things she might have wanted to say in her ps but couldn't, because of the constraints. Work experience? Mooting competitions? Her EP? That kind of stuff. I don't think there's probably too much to say about the Cambridge law course which is especially unique, and she won't want to sound too much of a creep about Cambridge itself.

TheOriginal you don't necessarily have to put anything on the SAQ except ums grades. It's mainly an opportunity for those applying to a course specific to Cambridge to say things they couldn't say in a personal statement that needs to be relevant to different courses elsewhere. However you can add extra things about relevant reading and so on. I don't think mine bothered to flll it up.

With the exception of maths - where there are many more offers than places - Cambridge hasn't been in the habit of making vastly more offers than it has places. Most applicants who accept an offer get higher grades than they need and therefore there would be a severe problem if they did. That may change a bit this year because the standard science offer is being increased to AAA but as most applicants already get that it probably wont affect the number of offers as much as the numbers who apply.

My child is studying medicine, which is not noted for being an easy course, but my impression is that the intellectual demands of the maths course are greater. I'm not sure how you can tell if your child is up to the standard for the course apart from how they do in practise STEPS tests or the Maths Olympiad www.ukmt.org.uk/individual-competitions/british-mathematical-olympiad/. The competition for places on the course is already intense (and international) and encouraging more applicants is not necessarily in their interest. There are excellent courses at other universities like Warwick.