Cambridge - Son regrets applying.

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Our 17-year-old is doing A-levels at College, and has now applied for universities. He didn't originally consider appling for Oxbridge, but his teachers advised him to do it. He even went on a school trip to Oxbridge to have a look around. Anyway, he has applied, so is now waiting if he'll be invited for an interview.
The problem is that he now regrets applying. He considers it a lot of effort, especialy compared to the other universities he applied for. He especially hated writing his personal statement.
He doesn't really want to go to an interview, and I can understand that. He'd have to travel a very long time (between 6 and 7 hours if there are no train disruptions), he'll miss college and he'll have to spend at least one night, possibly two, in Cambridge, and after all that effort and spending quite a lot of money which we've actually been saving for something else, he might still get a rejection. His predicted grades are A and A* level, but he may not achieve those.
He has two offers from two of his other choice universities, which have lower entry requirements, so he's sure of a place to study anyway. He likes those two at least as much as Cambridge. He's not sure he'll fit in at Cambridge and he's afraid that the work pressure will be too much.

From what I've read I think he should be fine there, study-wise. Socially I don't know; he's not a very social person, so I suppose that'll be an issue everywhere. He is worried about the usual: that it'll be too posh for him. None of his (step) parents has gone to any university, so it's all a bit alien to us.

My son is normally very confident and relaxed, but this entire Oxbridge application stresses him more that his exams -or anything else for that matter- ever have.

Should I push him to keep applying or would it be better for him to withdraw his application?

BeckAndCall The HEFCE spreadsheet I've managed to find www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2014/201427/name,95780,en.html lists funding for National Research Libraries under QR funding (i.e. research funding not teaching). And doesn't have a specific column for the Institution Specific teaching funding (I'm guessing it's subsumed within 'Other recurrent teaching grants'?).

Could you point me in the direction of the specific spreadsheet you're thinking of? Thanks.

Hi dapoxen - if you're really interested in the minute detail you need to go to Hefce's home page: then funding and investment: then annual funding allocations; then the institution A to Z tables: then load the excel file for Cambridge and there are maybe 10 or 12 individual tables showing the make up of both the T and R allocations for the year.

By institution they then all reconcile back to the totals reported to the Hefce board (and i believe those papers are also public domain)

BeckAndCall Thanks. I'll have a look when I've got more time later.

It's not 'minute detail' I'm interested in as much as an answer, from a HEFCE source, to the question: `Is the 'Instutition Specific' teaching funding that Cambridge & Oxford receive related to the tutorial system?' (And if not 'What is it for?').

And apologies to the OP for the derail. It looks like you've received lots of useful info/advice further up the thread. The question of whether or not Oxbridge receive additional funding for the tutorial system is (tangentially) relevant though, and one there seems to be fairly widespread confusion about.

BeckAndCall Do you mean the Institution grant tables here: www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/invest/institns/annallocns/1415hei/?
If so they don't answer the question of what Cambridge & Oxford receive Institution Specific teaching funding for.

The institutions listed as receiving Institution Specific teaching funding (www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/lt/howfund/institution-specificfunding/), i.e. Oxbridge, University of London + various specialist institutions, have non-zero 'institution-specific high-cost distinctive provision' allocations in 'Table C: Summary of targeted allocations and other recurrent teaching grants' under 'Other targeted allocations' (2.7M£ for Cambridge and 4.2M£ for Oxford). And those that aren't don't.

However the Institution grant tables don't contain any further information about what the 'institution-specific high-cost distinctive provision' is for. (And FWIW the National Research Libraries mentioned above fall under Research funding and Museums, Galleries & Collections funding is a separate category). In the absence of such information it's probably not surprising that people assume that it's for the tutorial system.

Im not sure why the detail matters so much for you dapoxen but i've come to the end of my engagement with this one! I'm sure a bit more digging around the tables will get you there - the whole point of public accountability over the funding allocaitons is that it is all there to be found - perhaps not as easily as might first appear. good luck!

BeckAndCall thanks for your help. However I'm now 90+% convinced that what you said upthread about Oxbridge not receiving extra support related to the tutorial system is incorrect, and what UptheChimney and others said is correct.

My understanding of the situation (based on these 2012 THE and Telegraph articles) is that when tuition fees were introduced in 1998, Local Education Authorities stopped paying the 'College Fees'. At this point HEFCE provided funding for a proportion of these costs. This was originally supposed to be phased out after 10 years, but has in fact continued. Although from 2013-14 it has to be applied for rather than being automatically allocated. The Telegraph article contains the following quotes.

From a HEFCE spokesperson: "[the funding] recognise[s] the additional costs at these two universities of particular features including small-scale teaching, the tutorial system and individual interviews”.

And from an Oxford spokeswoman: "“[the university] intends to make a case for the continuation of this funding, which in part contributes to the cost of the tutorial system”.

It's possible that these quotes could be out-of-date or misleading, however according to the information published by HEFCE, Oxford and Cambridge receive extra Institution Specific teaching funding for their 'Institution-specific high-cost distinctive provision'. Which covers one-to-one teaching (as well as other things which aren't relevant to Oxbridge, such as 'professional-standard performance spaces such as theatres or dance studios, or dedicated practice spaces') but not research libraries or collections.

Despite those comments from press offices I somehow doubt the funding is entirely for the tutorial system.

The funding is for a specific cost unique to the institution AND has to be in the public interest to be funded.

If I was writing a bid for HEFCE funds, and I've written quite a few, I would be mentioning the historic buildings (this funding stream went some years ago) the collections and the institutes. I don't know enough about either institution to suggest what else, but I wouldn't risk relying on the tutorial system passing the criteria for funding.

You won't find institutional bids on HEFCEs website, and institutions are free to spend their grant as they wish so you won't be able to see what this specific funding stream is spent on, but if you're determined to know you could make an FoI request to them both.

Personally, i groan when somewhen makes an FOI request.....they take a huge amount of time to comply with for both of the organisations i work for..... but that is a possibility of course. But please don't do that before you've gone through all of the HEFCE board papers on their website. That also lists all of the papers that are already exempt from publication, so shows you the things you wouldn't be able to get under an FOI request.

This is such a massive derail i feel i should apologise to the Op for my part in keeping it going....

My daughters did not apply and said it was too much extra work. It sounds like this son is finding it similar. If people cannot be bothered like that then it's best they don't bother (although of course I would have been very happy had my daughters bothered to apply and to be fair they probably thought they might not get in anyway).

I think now he's started he should see it through. Lots of us work with companies where lots of people particularly those paid the most went to Oxbridge. If he can do it it will be worth doing.

OP - did your DS go to his interview in the end?

Not sure the OP said if he even got an interview?

The tutorial/supervision system at Cambridge, where I'm familiar with several colleges' accounts, is paid for directly by the colleges out of their education budgets.

Departmental provision (university teaching such as lectures, practicals etc.) is funded by the university. Fees are paid to the university. How much the colleges receive back from the university fee funds is quite complex - at Cambridge there is also a mechanism for redistributing funds from colleges with high endowments to colleges with low endowments via the colleges fund, for example. But the amount received directly from the university can be not actually very much at all - the colleges effectively fund the supervision element of the system from their own budgets, endowments, income from invested funds and conferencing businesses, etc.

The situation at Oxford must be different because of their joint-funded appointments system (where colleges and the university share the cost of supervision teaching), but I'm afraid I don't know enough about Oxford funding to comment further.

Georgette - does that mean there is a difference in the quality and quantity of supervisions between the colleges?

Historically yes - richer colleges could give more supervisions (though not always); however the university in more recent years has been intervening to make sure that students are getting a more standardised provision. (It can't be completely standardised as different colleges accept different numbers of students, and also the virtue of the supervision system means that those who are struggling, or who arrive from disadvantaged backgrounds can be given some extra help by their college - we wouldn't want to lose that possibility completely). But, broadly, the system of Directors of Studies, who are members of the faculty and organise teaching, and senior tutors setting and monitoring budgets, ensures that students are getting the same kind and quality of teaching in each college. Some faculties also organise or monitor supervision teaching amounts directly to ensure parity.

(Plus, teaching is divided between college teaching - supervisions - and university teaching - lectures and departmental seminars, practicals etc. In some subjects it may be almost all done through the department, or organised through the department; in other subjects there will be more college teaching, but students will still attend some teaching at their faculty/department as well).

The difference between college provision and faculty provision is sometimes not very clear to outsiders (or to the students themselves) though. Take for example a paper taught in a subject with a small department (for the sake of argument, Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic). A lecturer might give a series of eight weekly lecture-classes on, say, medieval Welsh; then also offer the students attending this a series of four individual 1-1 or 1-2 supervisions. The lecture-classes are part of the lecturer's departmental stint (paid for by the university who are paying his/her salary). But the lecturer will submit a supervision report on the 1-1/1-2 supervisions, which will be paid by the student's college directly to the lecturer (taxed at source), or, in some cases, paid to the lecturer's own college. So the teaching for that paper is paid for partly by the university and partly by the student's college out of that college's education budget.

The teaching might have been arranged either by the faculty or the college - the difference is in his it's paid for. Normally both the lecturer offering the supervisions and/or the college commissioning them is working to the Faculty's agreed number of normal supervisions for a particular paper, thus ensuring parity for students. But if a student is struggling or has additional needs the college has some flexibility to ask for additional supervision provision (though in my experience this doesn't often happen).

In Oxford the colleges and the university often share the costs of the lecturer's salary directly (though not always); but I don't know enough about Oxford college funding to know how this works.

Thank you Georgette - that is very interesting. I know DD actually goes to some different college as for supervisions anyway - as in her subject it's split by subject and also because of numbers attending. She's not in one of the big rich colleges but she's blown away by the teaching she has received so far.

Yes, you can be taught by people from all over the university / at different colleges, even different departments - they will just submit a supervision claim through a centralised system, which will then be paid by the student's college. Supervisions are paid at standard rates agreed by all the colleges (no matter who is doing the teaching - professors and graduate students get paid at the same hourly rate).

All the payment data on the central supervision claim programme is available to senior tutors and others in the university to monitor how much teaching each group of students in each college in each subject are getting, and tables of this data are regularly scrutinised at college/faculty/university committee level - for example, the senior tutors' committee can ask a particular senior tutor for an explanation if they students appear to be getting more supervision hours than others in the system (and this certainly diss happen).

Equally, at the college level, tables of the supervision data per subject will be scrutinised each year by the whole governing body to see how much each subject is costing the college, and the senior tutor and Bursar will also be ensuring throughout the year that each Director of Studies is commissioning the right amount if teaching. Plus then this will be discussed at the Faculty level as well.

This is all lots of very boring detail but I hope it helps make the system clearer! The colleges all have an intense interest in this data precisely because they pay for the supervision/tutorial system out of their own funds; and because they are all separate autonomous entities (charities), they not only want to ensure they are doing what everyone else is doing, but the charity trustees (who are mostly fellows of that college) are legally responsible for making sure that the college is running everything properly and is able to fund its education account properly according to agreed accounting standards. Bursars spend a lot of their time looking at intercollegiate accounting data to see how their college compares with others, particularly on the education budget! And you can bet that as soon as a Bursar spots a way of standardising some aspect of the college's accounts, s/he will be on that like a rat up a drainpipe

Sorry for typos - on phone! :)

(When I say this does happen I mean that senior tutors can be asked for an explanation, not that students regularly get more or less teaching :))