Despite having the right grades, my child is not applying to Oxbridge because ....

[TalkinPeace]

• she wants to live in self catered accommodation
• she does not like the small sizes of the colleges / social units
• having to go back to college for lunch while doing a lab based degree does not make sense
• the whole gown and formal dinner stuff smacks of coat tails rather than standing on own feet
• she does not fancy fighting through hordes of tourists while moving between buildings
• having a tutor picked by which college they are based in rather than their research specialism seems very odd to her

Also, for what she wants to do, the course at Oxford is not that well balanced
and Cambridge, despite having a fab course was not a place that felt like home when she visited for 2 days.

So she will be putting other Universities on her form and taking a great deal of stress out of this house.

For what its worth, those of her friends I've chatted to are also ruling out Oxbridge in favour of other Unis because of the first four points.

What are other people's reasons for ruling out Oxbridge, despite having the grades?

Gaspode - yes, you're right! I can't even imagine what it's like to grow up with the web now. I first encountered it at uni. It must be very, very different these days.

teacher - that's so interesting that you felt the opposite! I suspect that what your post reveals is that I need to divide money and class up in a more nuanced way than I have done when talking about my own experience!

DH and I have musing sessions about this. He went to a selective grammar which he swears 'wasn't posh' and he maintains that there isn't a big difference between our upbringings. But it absolutely was in comparison with my comp (he's from a posh area of Kent, so it was doubly selective by postcode and then by the 11+). He hated it and was badly bullied by a rich set, yet there are huge chunks of my experience that he doesn't have. Now I'm not for one second denying how utterly, utterly miserable he was, but he still has absolutely no experience of working class culture. He has never actually been a mate of someone working class, let alone someone underclass - he has no idea how to act round my old schoolfriends friends or when they're kidding or serious.

(Going off topic, hence parentheses, but: I think a lot of the assumptions people make are very class-based. When I've talked about 'painters and decorators I know hating Farrow and Ball', middle class friends always assume I'm talking about people I've employed, not longterm friends. ).

"I was raised to be tentative in the extreme about my opinions because 'as a woman' it wasn't considered acceptable for me to speak out loudly about anything"

That made me smile. My mum - grammar school and Oxbridge - fought that battle for me, as my maternal grandmother / grandfather have EXACTLY the views that you describe.

Crossed posts with Gasp0de.

Molio - you're absolutely right. My experience is very much just my own and I think speaks volumes about my own failures. I am sure other, more socially brilliant kids would have coped much better! However, without wishing to make excuses for myself, I do think that there are some issues within it that are more structural and do create a gap in experience. Had I been more confident, perhaps I would have dealt with that rather better, though.

Oh, and high fives for teacher and all the other women who were told that they could only talk prettily about kittens!! (Love that Harry Enfield sketch).

For those which DC doing/having completed a 3 year sixth form, can I ask how things are managed?

For good measure!

My son looked at it for engineering but decided against it. He went to the experience Cambridge day and enjoyed the lectures. He was the only Scot there though and he decided against it for several reasons including
General engineering when he was definite about mech eng
The course seemed more theoretical than the uni he went to (Strathclyde)
It's a bit flat and he's a keen kayaker (that should probably be number 1!)
Tuition fees
It all seemed very foreign in a posh English way.
He enjoyed his first year at Strathclyde.
I had a great time trundling round the city whilst he was at lectures.

shegot can I ask how things are managed

Can you be more specific about what you want to know? Maybe, though, it will be covered by the following...which only applies under the system that is about to end (or maybe has ended?). I don't know what will happen under the new system. I would like to know (it will affect DD2) but I don't know yet...
selection of AS Really, I have very little idea about this - DD1 knew which subjects she'd be doing at AS when she was in Y7, basically. Her plans never wavered. This may possibly not have been the best thing, she wonders now whether she might have liked to do politics but she didn't even consider it at the opportune moment. I understand that other kids may have had more difficult choices (because of being super good at lots of things, maybe) or in some cases not even got their choice either due to timetable constraints or the course simply not being run in the end. I don't think that anyone was prevented from doing what they wanted to do because of a poor grade at GCSE in her year but I could easily be wrong.
number of AS At our school they do 4 or 5 subject ASs plus CT and GS
timing of the exams CT and GS get done in Y11, the 4 or 5 subject ASs get done in Y12 plus GS A2. In Y13 they do 3 4 or 5 A2s (most kids do 4 but it is not wildly unusual to be doing 3 or 5 depending on your subject mix and perhaps a little on what you want to do next) plus the EPQ. In English History Music and Geography, for sure, they do enrichment stuff in Y11 and Y12 that is beyond or complimentary to the curriculum. I don't know if they do that in other subjects too.

No that sums it up perfectly thank you uhtred. Interesting.

Yes basically exams in Y12 and 13 as usual, apart from AS CT and GS. The original rationale was that GCSEs weren't particularly challenging for these kids, so their time was better spent doing post GCSE stuff in the sixth form - enrichment rather than curriculum related. Mine have all been very keen because they regard Y11 as a year off, certainly from the drag of exams. It was endless when the three year sixth form was introduced: eleven or twelve GCSEs in Y11, Y12 January modules, Y12 June modules, Y13 January modules, Y13 June modules. Now of course the exam timetable looks very different - much better in the sense of giving space to students without an exam always on the horizon.

The national exam timetable I mean. The school had already created the space.

I think it sounds quite innovative actually.

It has its supporters and it has its detractors. I suppose you can't please all the people all the time. I think, having a DC about to enter Y13 now, that I would have preferred it had she done the EPQ in Y12. But that's because of her specific timetable of other stuff. From our perspective also, Y11 being a non stressful year worked out well because she had significant health challenges in that year and had she been taking important exams it could have ended badly. I think she has had a more rounded education than she might have done as a result of the 3 year 6th and the enrichment opportunities have been greater than they would have been had she done a 3 year KS3 (it's there that the time is saved). Some schools do a 3 year KS4 and the people I know whose kids do that like it but for my own DDs that would be less useful I think because they aren't interested in pursuing science and the opportunities for enrichment in humanities and arts subjects post GCSE are I think greater than pre GCSE. But I might be wrong.

Well one has to recognise pros and cons. Nothing is likely to be black and white. I'm almost certain that a couple of mine would have done better at GCSE had they had the extra year, especially the one with a birthday right at the end of the academic year, but both are nevertheless adamant they prefer the three year sixth, and were bored rigid by the GCSE syllabuses by the end of Y10. So on balance I guess it's been right for them, despite less good grades, at least in the broader educational sense. Unfortunately I don't get any sense that the universities take into account the fact that the GCSEs are taken a year early, but then in a sense why should they?

gosh spinoa I find it rather depressing that you feel 5 AS all in the low 90s is not good enough! my D's made a single careless mistake in one of his science empas. there was no consequential marking which meant he ended up losing 4 out of 60 marks . when this was translated to ums it equated to 14 ums ie almost 5% of the subject mark overall! somebody else who had lost 8 marks on another unit could have still got full ums. Their overall mark would be 5% higher despite having fewer raw marks! I guess what I am trying to say is that it is ridiculous to draw conclusions that 96% shows more talent than say 93%

Sadly, spinoa seems to think that only the extremely well funded curriculum extension that can be provided in selective schools can produce the right stuff for Oxbridge.

Kids who get really good grades in schools with budgets of under £5,000 per student per year
are clearly not as good as those who get stellar grades in schools with budgets of £20,000

TP the disparity in funding per pupil between state and private schools is often lost in discussions about attainment. Even where a school is selective, as my DCs' is, the fact that each pupil has a fraction of the funding of a pupil at Westminster say, or Eton or Winchester gets forgotten in the 'oh well it's selective so the kids are bound to do well'. The levels of attainment aren't markedly different; the difference in funding is vast. You make a very good point.

I don't know about other selective schools but the school my girls attend is one of the lowest funded schools (partly its own fault obviously due to less PP money than other schools) in one of the lowest funded LAs (not its own fault at all) in the country. Curriculum extension (which takes place during normal lesson time not as add ons) is possible because of speeding through KS3 not because of additional funding. In fact, our school offers less courses than other schools and has cut courses which I personally think should not be cut. So arty kids, for example, are at something of a disadvantage compared to science-y kids (no drama A level offered in DD's year, no music offered in the year below).

This is interesting - is the spread of "good schools" too wide a band? Sorry if this is too simple a question.

Selective schools have miserable funding Uhtred, by dint of being selective. Of course not all dip out additionally by being in a low funded LA, that's just a double whammy. Private and state selectives really shouldn't be regarded in the same bracket at university selection level but they are, because of attainment. It's pretty harsh but there you go. It is possible to deploy other arguments to say those kids have a relatively easy ride, but the funding factor never seems to enter in, by comparison with indies.

Apologies TP, I've sidetracked onto selectives which wasn't your point, just linked.

when they say GCSE results are viewed I'm the context of the schools average achievement, do they take account that the school only takes a small percentage of the ability range?

There's an obvious advantage to what an excellent selective private school can offer compared to the best comprehensives or grammar school (despite previous arguments to the contrary by certain posters here ). However I would say that difference in funding does n't affect so much or give an advantage for exam grades in core subjects. It relates to the extras, the academic enrichment and acceleration beyond the exam syllabus. If you are simply comparing exam grades in core subjects then pupils from private and good state selective schools should be equivalent.
As an aside I think state schools are driven by the need to collect points for their enrichment, hence requiring pupils to take exams in GS or CT rather than just teaching non examined academic enrichment.

Differences in funding between state and private schools are reflected in class size as much as in extra curriculars. The impact of small class size as a driver of pupil achievement is quite strongly debated and not at all clear cut - useful for debate, perhaps, but not all learning is best imparted by debate style classes.

I think small sized classes make little impact on core exam grades for motivated confident bright pupils apart perhaps for practice in MFL, articulating views and science practicals.