Oxford/Cambridge and the RG Universities that give out A* offers

[busymummy3]

High achieving DD - all A at GCSE (12 ) predicted grades at A level A A A did not want to try for Oxbridge and similarly after 3 visits to Durham (Summer School, Open Day and Offer ) does not really like the academic slightly public school type atmosphere there. She has 5 offers ,all from RG Universites : AAA, AAA, AAB, AAB( from Unis who offer range AAA-AAB) and AAB.She wants to go to the RG university with an AAA offer loved the course , loved the Open Day and Offer Day loved the city felt comfortable from first walking in on the Open Day and felt it even more when went for Offer Day.
We just sometimes feel that there is an expectation that with the grades that she and others have already and predicted grades, they should only consider Oxbridge or Durham , Bristol , Exeter et al which offer A A A in her subject (History).
Does it make sense to have Firm as AAA and insurance as A*AA when really she preferred one of the AAB unis to Durham , again for the same reasons she prefers the AAA uni.
What would she be potentially missing out on?
Is it so wrong not to consider them or is this just a Mumsnet thing?

Industry speakers at school always say they have not much of a clue preference which university is better than another.

She must do what makes her happy: keeps her academically focussed and socially comfortable.

@Alice: I am letting her make up own mind, honest, and she full well knows she chose her high school & what GCSEs to do. But I have huge reservations, like:

There was an awful thread on here about rampant mental health problems among Oxbridge students (posts written by past students). You aim for the top, you expect to be pushed to your very limits. Who would want that pressure for their offspring?

DD wants to do medicine & medicine @ Oxbridge is about as tough a course as there is to get into. I've told her that if she wants Oxbridge then aim for a less demanded course or accept that she probably has to choose Oxbridge or medicine; very unlikely to get both.

Professionally (I work in a University) I have a few prejudices about how Oxbridge seem to do things. Because of many stories I hear.

I know DD, she excels when she's a big fish in little pond. She'll have to be braced for very different position if she aims for envt with many high achievers. Can probably do it, but she may not like it best or achieve her best in that environment.

It's such a shame when applicants get too hung up on rankings and reputations - they are not unimportant but they shouldn't be the be all and end all. Too many schools and parents push DC towards the 'prestige' Uni's and the 'prestige' degree courses. Kudos to the DC that work out what they want for themselves. Any course with an AAA entry requirement still suggests an excellent course.

Sometimes I don't think the Mumsnet higher education threads are not representative of real life. Its as though there are only about 5 unis in the country . In reality Unis such as Sheffield Hallum (as a random example) have more UG students than the whole of Oxford and Cambridge combined and yet you wouldn't think it from looking at MN.

ragged DS1 is doing medicine at Oxbridge and is very well balanced and healthy, doing more than adequate partying and extra curricular things including official positions in the uni, although admittedly he does have to work hard too. No need to put those who prefer to be little fishes in big ponds off. There is pressure, but the vast majority handle it ok. Some can't, but the support available is good, often excellent. Underachieving for very clever kids can bring pressures too, just different ones.

Ragged, I had similar reservations about my dd. She did a summer school & loved it. We always felt that Oxford would be a long shot as her grades didn't seem stellar enough. She decided that she really wanted to do medicine so wasn't interested in applying for a different course. In the end she did apply for Oxford, with the view that she would always wonder how it would have gone if she didn't.
After all the various hurdles she got an offer. Whether she makes the grades/likes it as much if she goes there is another story.
But she is really glad she used one of her UCAS choices to apply there.
And in some ways the stats are a bit more favourable - they don't get as many applicants as other medical schools so although the intake is smaller the chances of success are around the same.
The main reason I hope my dd gets her place is because I think the course structure will really suit her & the college system will hopefully mean that she is not just with medics all the time.

There was an interesting chart of how many applicants there were for each course & how many actually accepted to each course at Cambridge, does anyone have a link to that?

I've seen that sort of data for Oxford. Maybe try googling Cambridge Admission Statistics? Personally, I think Cambridge is harder to get into btw

My daughter only accepted one of her offers which happened to be her lowest offer because she really really wanted to go on that particular course in that particular city. She had a ball, got a good 2:1 and then a Masters at an even more prestigious uni and a grad traineeship she wanted after that.

I have to say I made a huge error when I was selecting my university.

I chose UCL because it was ranked higher than Oxbridge that year and I was blinded by it's apparent reputation and status. This despite HATING city life and feeling uncomfortable and disconnected due to it's lack of any sort of campus (the university is spread across Bloomsbury).

I left after a miserable year and a half. I don't have a degree and I have all the debts accrued over that time. Also I now can't attend university again without paying for my first year upfront (£9000 NOT including maintenance etc) because Student Finance are tricky like that.

Moral? there are lots of things to consider when choosing a uni. League tables should not be one of them.

My DC have never considered league tables. Unis at or near the top of the league tables often have a huge amount going for them besides the mere fact of being at the top of the table, and it's those things which clinch the deal. There seems to be some muddled thinking about this. As a parent I also couldn't give a hoot about league tables - apart from generally not caring, these tables are so often flawed.

okay, so I know some similar stats for another med school (not Oxford, not even RG!). And the point is they have just under 6 applicants per place in medicine compared to 9.9 applicants per place for Oxford. The Cambridge ratio is almost 7 applicants for every place.

So I humbly submit that Oxbridge looks harder to get into :).

Oxford is harder to get into than Cambridge for the course your DD has got into Oxford for Decorhate - same number of applicants of the same sort of calibre for far fewer places.

Cross post!

I chose the university I loved over the ones that had a more prestigious reputation at the time. I took a gap year. By the end of my first year, my department was ranked in the top five in the country, and within five years the university as a whole was very much considered one that the most ambitious students would want to attend. I chose it because I enjoyed the interview, and the conversations I'd had with staff, students and prospective students on the day of my interview, and I fell in love with the city. The atmosphere suited me so well that I graduated with a first and still live in the city.

Really? She wouldn't have applied to Cambridge for several reasons, including that she would have a lesser chance of success as they assess by AS levels.
Re number of applicants per place, I think Cardiff have 300 places & had over 3000 applicants this year

And when I said I thought Cambridge might be harder to get into than Oxford, I meant in terms of the grades they require, rather than the number of applicants per place

I think your dd sounds as though she knows what she wants and, as going away to uni is something you do once and it's 3 years of your life, then it needs to be what works for her at this point in her life.

Can you tell us the uni? Eg for some subjects Oxbridge is not the best. When I was at school my friend who was going to read vet medicine got an offer from Cambrjdge and one from Imperial (or another sciency uni in London) and went for the London one. I'd say with medicine Nottingham is one of the best med schools and a great place to be a student (from personal experience)

My DS didn't want to try for Oxbridge (he saw the amount of work DD had to do ) and he too firmed an offer that was not his highest offer from a "better ranked" uni.

He is having a blast at the Huge city Uni he chose, got a 1st in Yr 1 and has a solid 1st so far in all 2nd year exams. If he manages a 1st or 2.1 he will be extremely employable, and already has a 10w summer placement with a top city firm lined up, so I am firmly with your DD on her choices.

Oh no, my dd's university is on that list.

I'm not sure how much one should read into these lists, though.

As Wendy Platt says in the article, the biggest issues for broadening access are still that many students don't have the right subject choices or the right grades (even allowing slightly lower grades for those from disadvantaged backgrounds), and those who don't apply can't be offered places.

For example, it is almost impossible to get into maths, physics or engineering at the very top universities without 4 A2s, including further maths, but this is not what many state schools are telling pupils, despite continually being given information.

It is also not obvious how much the changes in percentages are down to the universities outreach work and policies versus perception and biases about the universities. The courses and grades required by many of these universities are similar - e.g. Exeter, Nottingham, York and Southampton are roughly comparable for many subjects - and most people believe that in such cases the differences in percentages are mostly caused by how the universities are perceived.

My year 11 has just been told she doesn't need Further Maths for taking Maths at university. I'm currently jumping up and down saying 'yes you do, yes you do!'

She doesn't need Further Maths to get into maths at many good RG universities, although she would be at a disadvantage in the first year by not having it.

However, she really does need FM for the very top ones: Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Warwick... In principle they do take students without FM but in practice this is very, very rare at Oxbridge and rare at the rest.

So if she is happy to exclude these universities and go to Southampton, Nottingham, York etc that's fine. If she's not set on maths and she'd rather leave her options open, then she might prefer to take a wider range of subjects rather than doing FM. But if she really thinks she wants to do maths (or physics or engineering) at university then doing FM is a good idea. Note that sometimes it is possible to pick up a FM AS in year 13; doing this helps with the Maths A2 modules and it helps with first year maths at university.