Oxbridge 2015 #2

[Molio]

Continuing Roisin's thread.

I've even succumbed to TSR, having sworn I wouldn't. Still no news here and haven't heard of news from any other source in the same subject at the same college but being very uncool tbh as the reality is that rejection after an interview would be much kinder for DS than a no ab initio. Massively cheered by a late afternoon offer from Bristol though. I thought I was chilled, I'm clearly not .

Fingers crossed for everyone still waiting and hoping. It's very hard to see them disappointed, is the problem :(

My DD firmed Cambridge today and has put Leicester as her insurance. While Leicester is the not the highest ranked Uni she has had offers from, she loves the look of the course and the dept. have been so welcoming compared to the others there was never much doubt which one she would chose.
At the end of the day our DC's need to decide for themselves what they want in life and learn to listen to others but make the final decision themselves.

Yes, that's very true wp.

I think my daughter has - in some ways - inherited her mother's eccentricity/nonconformity and bloody mindedness!

My DS will be firming Cambridge but is still debating about his second choice, mostly because in his eyes nothing lives up to the Cambridge course- dangerous territory. The fear of not making his offer is very real for him. He has been so fixed on getting to Cambridge for several years; it worries me how much he wants this - how he will cope with the disappointment if he doesn't make the grades, and whether it will live up to his expectations if he does.

Gosh, that does sound rather scary Fellfan. What are your son's other offers.

He has Manchester, King's London and Bangor. He pulled out of Leeds as they wanted him to go for a 20 minute interview bang in the middle of the day on his busiest school day, and it was his least favourite choice. I think if he doesn't make his offer it will probably be best for him to take a gap year and reapply with a new set of choices rather than taking something that will always seem to him like second best. He is an August birthday so I think can take his time. Am already dreading results day!

I do wonder why Cambridge tends to give much higher offers than most Oxford offers. You'd have thought that having spent so long on the application process, marking aptitude papers and interviewing and sorting out the pool that they'd want to have the students they offered to, and an offer of 3 As ought to be enough. Many (most?) offerees would probably exceed this but the stress of hitting that elusive 90UMS in the A2 papers only would be removed. I suppose in sciences, with mainly short answer questions an A* is more achievable, but it's surely more difficult to be sure of reaching in humanity essay based papers?

I hope that all DCs on here achieve their grades and can take up their offers. I am sure they will, you all seem such great and supportive mums.

Fellfan - your ds sounds like my dd. She has had her heart set on it since Y10 and in her eyes nothing else compares (despite me trying to persuade her otherwise). She will be firming Cambridge but it is very difficult to even have a conversation with her about insurance places as I don't think she can contemplate going anywhere else. Aaargh!

Td but Cambridge doesn't do aptitude tests in the same way as Oxford. Also, it's standard offer is still A*AA in the humanities, so no higher than universities such as Bristol, Durham and UCL.

DS has almost uniformly useless insurance offers from Durham, Bristol and York. Perhaps his last choice will wing in with a low one, but really it's AAA or bust.

"but really it's AAA or bust."

Molio , same here just with different "insurance" .

(throws another log on the bothy fire)

My daughter has one lower offer - I think it's AAB from Sheffield. (They also are happy to include Critical Thinking which my daughter is taking as a 4th subject.) But I imagine it could feel like 'playing safe' to put them as an insurance offer, though my daughter liked the place very much. The other three possible 'insurance' universities (AAA, not including Critical Thinking) are all probably regarded more prestigious.

Glad the bothy fire burns brightly. It's cold out!

Hocus the thing is my DC have all filled out their UCAS applications on the basis that they'd rather play for high stakes and spread the net at the top, on the basis that they only needed one offer. But with increasingly rocky marking in the humanities that's now looking an even higher risk game. Still, I prefer that approach too, just not the potential fall out....

Anyone for golf? That's definitely what I'll be doing on results day. I can whack the ball really hard if things go wrong, not too bothered about the direction .

Is there any evidence that the top Universities would look unfavourably on a gap year applicant who had turned down a place with them the previous year?
DD will be applying to Oxford this autumn and is already thinking that if she doesn't get an offer first time she'd take a gap year and apply again (results permitting). She has the strong backing of her school and very high predictions but knows it's a bit of a lottery. And she's young for her year so a gap year would be no bad thing anyway. But how would any universities that she turned down first time round view her application a second time?

That's always a really hard one Marni. If she's absolutely dead set on Oxford then how about applying solely to Oxford first time round?

There is evidence that some universities don't like being turned down, after having been firmed, once results are in. It is fairly apparent that having achieved the offer and then withdrawing it is likely to be for an application to Oxbridge, or some other preferred university. If a student just wanted to take a gap year they could simply ask the uni to defer their place for a year. I don't think universities would mind, or even notice, if a student turned them down before firming/making them an insurance. Certainly that was the situation when my DS reapplied.

As Molio says, one route would be to apply only to Oxford first time round. The only risk with that would be, as happened to one of DDs friends, if your DD didn't make the grades she would have to take a gap year anyway, even if an Oxford application was ruled out by those lower than expected grades.

Molio, re an earlier post, I know that Cambridge don't do aptitude tests in quite the same way as Oxford, but they do still go through a process of the additional questions, submission of work, interviewing, pooling - I'd expect them to make humanities offers of AAA after all that and drop any A requirement...Durham etc who put in A requirements are doing so without the benefit of the additional assessments

At DDs school two students in the last two years have missed their Cambridge offers because of the A requirement ( both where the subject for the A had been specified), whereas everyone (thank goodness) achieved their AAA Oxford offers

Thanks for the responses Molio and Tantalisingduck. I did wonder about an Oxford-only application this time round. She is dead set on Oxford at this stage-it's the tutorial system and the course in her particular subject that she loves the sound of rather than the prestige, so I think it's for all the right reasons. But she's realistic and I think would just like to have 2 bites at the cherry if necessary before giving it up.

Tantalisingduck you make a good point about her potentially not making the grades (she's doing humanities subjects, so anything can happen) but she'd be happy to take a gap year anyway so wouldn't really lose anything if she adopted an Oxford-only strategy.

I'll suggest she talks to her Head of Sixth Form about it. Just wanted to check it wasn't a totally mad idea before I mention it!

it's a high stakes approach Marni, but might be right for some students. ds1 had such an incredibly positive 3 days at Oxford (except for the second interview!) to the extent that dh and I had discussed suggesting to him the possibility of a gap year and reapplying if he didn't get an offer. dh did a postgrad degree at Oxford and has for some time asserted that it would be a good fit for ds1. I wasn't so utterly convinced, until I saw his reaction to spending some time there.

Fortunately he got an offer, so we didn't have to consider these options.

I am gatecrashing this thread as a potential 2016 Oxbridge parent.The part that has made me feel quite dizzy with fear is the 3/4 day stay.
Do they have to pay for accommodation.
Also are any of you poor-ish? Will that subconciously turn off interviewers?

It's Oxford which seems to do the longer stays. At Cambridge, as far as I know, there's just interviews at one college. (There it's possible that candidates may be invited back for a subsequent interview at a later date. I don't know of anybody who actually got such an invitation this year.)

At my daughter's college the early start meant an overnight stay at the college. The college bears the cost of this and also provided meal vouchers.

My daughter traveled there by coach and the fares were not expensive.

So I suppose that it wasn't a big deal in the context of paying a fee to UCAS and travel to open days.

I think interviewers will be looking for candidates who are interested and knowledgeable and curious and can (try to_ think on their feet. There haven't been anecdotes here that suggested candidates were made to feel uncomfortable because they came from a particular (less privileged) social background. I think it is possible that if interviewers had seen a succession of candidates from Home Counties independent schools who were all mini-clones of one another, they'd be inclined to look favourably on anyone who did not appear to have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

TooHasty - ds1 didn't think the interviewers were in any way prejudiced towards/away from poor-ish candidates. He said he was relatively scruffily dressed compared to the "posh boys", but he was offered a place, so that obviously didn't feature in the decision-making process.

There are lots of schemes for widening access, which seem to be having an impact. ds1 did some masterclasses at Cambridge and an Open Day at Oxford; if they have time and you can get a place there are also Sutton Trust summer schools - www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/access/year12summerschool/, Oxford do UNIQ summer schools www.uniq.ox.ac.uk/2015information

All of these can give potential applicants a bit more belief in themselves and confident that they will be a good fit for Oxford. ds1 absolutely loved his residential interview stay (3 days), despite the fact that the second interview was very tough. The only cost to us/him was transport to/from the interview.

Toohasty, my dd only met one person who was privately educated at her interviews & he was quite embarrassed by it (and apparently didn't come from a posh background).

I would really recommend applying to a summer school but closing dates will be soon. My dd went on a uniq one last summer, it is totally free including travel costs to get there.

Think they have about a month to apply. Dd2 has just sent off her Sutton Trust application, but the Uniq one is a bit more demanding and she's only just started on her PS! She's going to one of the Cambridge masterclasses too, which look good - admissions info plus taster lectures.

We need a Y12 thread :-)

DD1 is going to a Cambridge masterclass/open day thing in March. She's not sure whether it's worth applying for a Sutton trust course as she doesn't meet any of the priority criteria - both DH and I went to university (and have masters degrees), she goes to a school that sends virtually everyone to university, and we live in an area with high university participation. So the only way she'd get on is if the course was under-applied - which it might be...so, umming aaahing about that. The real problem is, that for what she wants to do, she is disadvantaged - hugely so - by geography. She doesn't have access to the sorts of things that kids living in other parts of the country have. She also goes to a school that hardly ever sends anyone to study what she wants to study at uni (and doesn't even run the relevant subject every year). But Sutton Trust doesn't seem to consider that relevant. Which is annoying.

The Oxford Uniq summer school takes a wider range of people GB. Do they offer the course your dd wants to study?