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?

But Boris was at Oxford in the early eighties when Classics would have been much more competitive. Also, even if it had been less competitive, I very much doubt that Boris would have needed to go for a tactical option....

May well be although it was certainly always the case and still is that some subjects you can get into Oxbridge and other good universities with slightly lower grades and less competition than some other subjects so teenagers need to choose with care unless they are so good they will win through whatever the competition which some are.

I'm not sure Classics was very competitive by the time Boris went to university. Which doesn't mean that some very clever and passionate students, who could also have got a place for a more competitive subject, didn't want to read Classics. Obviously nowadays we have a lot more data and Janet is obviously quite right that some subjects are far easier than others as a means to access a place at a well-reputed university.

Actually Molio I think it is a pretty safe bet that at least the same number of students are applying for Oxbridge classics now compared to Boris's year. In fact from the above information. removing the need to have studied Classics at school and the much higher number of pupils taking A levels now than in 1980s would suggest admissions for Classics is now more competitive than in 1980s.

I certanily wasn't suggesting it was a doss subject (although one of my children who read it had 3 hours lectures a week which suited her very well) and if you do it anywhere good you need As but it is slightly less competitive for university entry than some other subjects. Children who know what career they are after need to think about where they want to end up and work backwards from that as to the best route. Those who will excel in exam grades whatever they do need not worry. Most aren't in that position.

Those who don't know what they want to do probably should just go for a general degree which leaves lots of options open. My siblings and I all read career specific subjects at university and still practise them 30 years on so that worked out very well but that is no use for someone who doesn't know what career they want.

When I applied for a Classics degree in the late 70s it was a requirement to have either Latin or Greek A level but not both. Most my fellow students turned up with Latin A level and a little Greek - O level standard-ish - but several had done no Greek at all before starting their degree. Latin and especially Greek in schools went into steep decline during the 70s and by the 80s that was also the case in independent schools. Nowadays Greek A level is almost exclusively the preserve of the most academically selective independent schools.

Gasp which is probably why Classics departments admit students with neither Greek not Latin.

Where do all the classic graduates go if it is true that there is a shortage of classics teachers. I always assumed that state schools chose not to teach Classics due to cuts so Talkin's example of a shortage of classics teachers surprises me.

Summerends there's a difference between a course being competitive in the eighties and a course having been much more competitive then it is now. Given the collapse of classics teaching in so many state schools and the vogue for so many vocational subjects, I can't believe it wasn't significantly more competitive.

That apart, doing classics without having done it at school must be a killer. Given how horrendous the exams are for those who have done classics at school, it doesn't bear thinking about for those who haven't. And obviously kids aren't flocking in to take up the offer (although one of DS's best friends is about to start on the Oxford course, but he's self taught for two years - he's properly exceptional). Our state school dropped Latin after attempting to re-introduce it because there wasn't the take up. In fact DS1 was the only student in the year putting it down as his first choice option for GCSE. The course was run for that cohort with after school classes via a video link to a Cambridge tutor, but then died - very disappointing

Anyhow my point was really that I'm sure Boris didn't need to game the system - he could probably have sauntered in for any number of subjects.

Also, it must be significantly more possible to get into a university for a subject you're only mildly interested in, rather than an interviewing one. I think even Janet's DC might have had difficulties trying to blag it face to face with an interviewing tutor.... getting in purely with an over enthusiastic ps is something else!

Two of mine read it and genuinely liked it! As for what they are now doing it is no secret - one is a city lawyer and the other a postman so it's a bit hard to generalise from that. In fact one won a cruise down the Nile aged 10 and had the time of her life as the only child on the cruise. we have a lovely video of it all. She loved that subject from then probably. So I don't think she was picking it as a doss subject that was easier to get into but without doubt the entry requirements were a bit easier than law.

The proper teaching of Latin in state schools collapsed with the abolition of most grammar schools.

Classics graduates are well regarded, or so I like to believe, given three out of four of our household fall into that category! To get a traditional Classics degree you need to be a good linguist, to have a logical mind (because of the grammar) and also to have all the attributes you'd hope anyone with a good Humanities degree subject would have - skilled at writing clearly and concisely, analysis, synthesis and so on and so forth.

summerends, yes, I meant to add that. Even in the late 70s many Classics departments were introducing variants on the traditional degree programme aimed at people arriving with no Latin or Greek at all. I am full of admiration for those who can go from zero to degree standard in three or four years. I benefited enormously from having excellent teaching at school, which meant (a) I had longer to get to grips with the basics and (b) I think my memory was better in the early teens than it was in my 20s. I'm 54 now and the basic grammar and vocabulary is still there. The same can't be said of a good many other things I learned to the same standard, but when I was older.

Absolutely it did Bobo. But if take up at a superselective is virtually nil, despite an excellent sell, what does that say?

Superselectives around London such as Henrietta Barnett, Latymer etc have reasonable numbers doing latin GCSE so I am not sure that a Devon grammar is necessarily representative in this case.

1. Always harder to get take up for a new subject than one that's well established. Particularly hard to get pupils and parents to support a subject that's taught wholly or partly outside the school day.
2. The curriculum is a lot more crowded these days.
3. Pupils, parents and teachers might all feel an easier subject might be a better bet - would a B in Latin be as well regarded as an A* in another subject?
4. Some people see it as elitist or worthless because it's a dead language.

My old comp still offers Latin GCSE (and A level if there are the numbers wanting to take it, I don't think the course runs every year though). The GCSE is still popular. I think it's a shame that Latin isn't offered at any of my kids' schools but I can understand why it isn't - the curriculum, and teaching time, is so skewed towards STEM nationally that something has to give. It's all very sad.

disquisitions fair, but it's a superselective like any other so not entirely to be dismissed as irrelevant.

I don't know about Latymer's numbers but I know that HB does well, although numbers there are hugely weighted towards maths and sciences with far fewer taking history and English etc than at my kids' school. Actually, the different spread of subject take up across the superselectives is an interesting subject in its own right - the differing parental bodies must have a huge influence on that; I can't think of any other reason for the stark discrepancies.

Anyhow, the Latin thing is a shame. Self teaching is very, very hard.

Yes I get all those reasons Gaspode although the one which would deter the most - the after school thing - wasn't relevant until there was minimal take up. That's when the after school classes were proposed, and those who wanted to took it as a twelfth GCSE rather than one of their standard eleven.

I was having a look at Oxbridge statistics and the private school skew is in a large part due to their domination of certain subjects, Classics being one of them, and also Modern Languages. State schools largely don't teach the former (and really, although it is possible to start Classics from scratch at university, one has to demonstrate extreme linguistic ability) and Modern Language A Levels are scary. Private schools also funnel pupils into doing Land Economy, Norse & Celtic (know two people who did this) and Theology. The Norse & Celtic person I know freely admits he did it just to get in and had no interest in the subject before, during nor afterwards.

So are we saying those subjects are harder (languages are hard - I did German A level at a private school - definitely my hardest A level)? If so I don't see why state pupils cannot do hard subjects at A level.

I think huge efforts have been made to widen access to Oxbridge. Huge.
And those efforts have borne fruit.

Obviously, some departments struggle more than others, as rhoda points out.

But mostly, I think widening access at Oxbridge has been a success (though still a work in progress of course). Which is why it's galling that the focus is always on these two universities.

I also think that state schools need to take far greater responsibility for their role in the continuing under representation.

SheGot when I consider some of the places to which my DD1 will be applying, and then I consider Cambridge, it's clear that there are far more issues with access for state school/un-monied kids to the other places than there are with access to Cambridge. It baffles me that the focus is always on Oxford and Cambridge and no finger of accusation is ever pointed anywhere else.

Apologies for the missed words in my above posts. I clearly can't multi task :) I meant that HB generally leans far more to maths and science and that feigning enthusiasm for a subject will be far easier if you're operating purely through the medium of a ps than if you're face to face with a tutor (who also obviously has the opportunity to cross examine you on any inflated claims in your ps).

What would you like state schools to do by way of 'taking responsibility' SGADM, in practical terms? As you yourself know only too well, there's more to it than grades.

Following advice on subject choices would be a good start at "taking responsibility".

Janet - it's not that your average state-school pupil can't do languages, but to achieve a top grade at A Level one needs that bit extra. Many pupils are (and often they conceal it) mother tongue (ds's friend's mother is German and he is doing German A Level: his surname is very English!) or they have opportunities way above a bog-standard exchange. Of course you can do it yourself, but in my day (1980s) there was less emphasis on speaking and more on language and literature which was helpful to those - like me - who had never set foot in a foreign country.

uhtred I think part of it is due to the focus on some of the more traditional aspects of Oxbridge.

Other universities, particularly the London ones, don't have this aspect, so seem perhaps more accessible, and yet their stats show they have problems with access too...

molio I have, as you can imagine, given this far too much a bit of thought. I have to pop out to take DS to footie but will post my musings for you later .