How can these students go to Oxbridge?

[Fiona2011231]

To protect the privacy of the students, I do not include their names and their school here.

I read the article in our local newspaper about some students at the local state school, which is not exactly famous for their academic performance.

These are their grades:

"Student, 18, achieved 4 A*s and will be studying Politics at Cambridge University.

Joining him at Cambridge will be A, who achieved 2 As and 2 A grades, and C, who gained 2 A a B and a C grade.

D will go to Oxford to study Classics after achieving 4 straight A grades and another E is USA-bound after securing a place at the Ivy League University, Princeton, to study Liberal Arts. E achieved 3 A grades in English Literature, French and Maths.

It seems that some of the cases here did not achieve excellent grades.

If this observation is correct, why were they accepted by these most prestigious universities? In the case of Oxbridge, do you think it may be because the universities considered their background, perhaps being poor, and that they come from a state school. So by accepting these students, the universities can fulfill their quota imposed by the government?

Thanks,

apologies, my auto mistake seems to have decided you are a Philosopher

spinoa Poison is obviously thinking about your comment; I'm thinking about a different 30% comment, or possibly a comment about your comment. Nevertheless, any suggestion that 30% of those at Oxford or Cambridge shouldn't be there is absurd. Perhaps it isn't for your own department at Cambridge, I wouldn't know, but it would be a crazy figure spread across all the departments in both universities.

wow this thread is an eye opener
working class, went to a crappy school (not my fault no other schools around)
went to Cambridge
listened to snide remarks from my posh classmates that I should not be there, should never have been let in blah blah twaaaaaaaaaats
anyway
Graduated 1st in year
highest result ever rewarded on my course

silly narrow minded people
love proving them wrong

6 weeks away from becoming a doctor now

In what way has it opened your eyes dublingirl? Also, was the school really that crappy if it had poshos there too? (they tend to run for the hills/ boarding school in the absence of decent provision). Lets hope you don't think all posh kids are twaaaaaaaaaats because you might have to treat them one day - if you don't mind the observation, you seem a bit narrow yourself.

Oxbridge looks for passion and excellence in or related to the subject kids propose to study. If you've got a pair of A s in the key stuff and done some beyond-curriculum things in the right area that counts for more than a whole raft of A or A including things that are not relevant. They really do not care about sports, music, drama etc., but candidates for med and vet will be subject to wider scrutiny.

Oops sorry dublingirl you probably meant the posho medics at Cambridge. I'm still surprised a bit though - academic excellence of the sort you must have displayed is usually a great leveller (not that levelling should be required, but if some snobs/ inverted snobs deem it is).

roguedad that idealistic statement is rather undermined by one of DDs friends who missed her offer by 1UMS getting a B in her third A level whilst easily getting 100% of the UMS in her subject and second A level. She had lots of exceptional extra curricular recognition of her talents, relevant to her subject as well, at City and national level. She is not only clever but seriously talented and quirky and original and would thrive at Oxford (and indeed is elsewhere). Her interviews were obviously from the feedback stimulating for all. They presumably just didn't have the room, or had exceeded some quota or other (obviously not a government one because contrary to OP opinion there aren't any) . The pragmatic and subjective comes into it too.

But she is thriving elsewhere at a uni that is rated more highly for research in the subject than Oxford so she is if anything glad it worked out the way it did.

Hell's teeth...so a 2:2 from Oxbridge or otherwise is 'not making the most of (a 17 or 18 year-old's) potential'?! What a negative and discouraging message to send/assume - to anyone, whether state school or public school or whatever.

If I think of the person I was at 18 and then at 22 when I graduated, there is a world of difference. If I meet anyone who thinks they are fully-formed at 18, I think I would find them completely deluded and very annoying.

I now work in a postgrad only institution. It feels like a fairly different kettle of fish from Oxford, where I was, but there is still an element of 'elitism' in terms of competitiveness and excellence connected to it (again due to lots of students chasing not enough places). I have occasionally known people be turned down because the interviewers ask 'Well, what more can we do for them? They appear to think that our influence and what we can offer would be minimal - so they do not really need us'. Whether this is genuinely the case or not is questionable, but that is how the person has come over - so again, think from the interviewer's point of view - there may well be an element of: how could this type of education, course, etc really benefit the applicant if they took it up? Oxbridge isn't for everyone, for whatever reason, just as any other uni might not be.

To clarify: I don't mean the last sentence to be based on values of 'because they're not worthy/rich/talented/posh enough', but mainly because of how the course content, stress or intensivity(? invented word), way that the teaching is done, cost or prospects can be weighed up alongside the experience that the student is looking for.

If you were studying, say, music, wouldn't the important thing be that you got an A* in music? If you also got a B in English and an A in History, it does diminish your brilliance at music or make you any less worthy than a candidate who did.

And I certainly would trade my 2:1 from not one of the best Russell Group Universities for a 2:2 from Cambridge. Like a shot. (I didn't apply...too much Anglo Saxon Literature)

sorry "does not diminish your brilliance"

'Too much Anglo Saxon Literature' - exactly mellicauli. I was looking at language degrees when I was applying, and I was really torn because there was another course somewhere else, with a lot of European politics and an offering that was utterly different from the (very literary) Oxbridge ones, and may have really floated someone's boat if they wanted a career in that kind of field. Certainly the English/Languages courses at Oxbridge look as if they rarely change, or only minimally, and students may want tuition and development in quite different areas - but all university courses will have their own specialisms.

Perhaps what is strange is that you think you should aspire to the stereotypical Oxbridge model/lifestyle if you are truly to achieve excellence, and that anything else is somehow just falling short of excellent. Hopefully schools with more of a history of an Oxbridge relationship may have realised that the stereotype is only one of a lot of different possible ways of getting stuck into a degree there - it exists but it is not the whole truth. Did you know, for example, that allegedly that Cambridge is currently doing much better at the scientific and medical aspects because it is possible locally to develop and build up more innovative industry that needs those subjects in an employment sense? Oxford does have this, but it has been claimed that the denser area of the country and green belt protection makes it much more difficult for newer 'graduate attracting' industries to start up and gain momentum.

Poison that applicant wasn't accepted despite her very narrow miss and is happy and thriving elsewhere so that's fine. Other applicants who've missed their grades by a larger margin have been accepted and are also thriving, in house. Given that Oxford barely over offers it's evident that the tutors do re-examine near misses very closely indeed.