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?

BTW with a relatively weak grade profile if somebody did want to apply then they might want to think strategically and avoid over-subscribed colleges.

I don't think that works any longer, from what I've heard. Colleges are now obliged to pool all unsuccessful candidates who meet certain requirements, which means that colleges with a weak field of applicants can (and do) reject all of them and take their students entirely from the pool. This may just apply to the subjects I know people in, though.

spinoa and SGADM there is no pre-test for biological sciences, which is why I said whatever I said.

Not true, SheGot. If you wore the gown but had a northern accent, people would see you very, very differently.

And isn't is deprivation you suffered? Or were you depraved?

I agree that the less subscribed Cambridge colleges draw heavily from the pool (in my own subject they make around 50% of their offers to pool candidates).

But I think it is still on average slightly more likely for a borderline student to get an interview from a less subscribed college as the pooling at Cambridge takes place after the interviews so colleges are never sure how good the pool candidates will be. I would definitely point borderline female mathematicians/scientists towards Murray Edwards etc rather than Trinity etc.

I thought for Cambridge Nat Sci, you had to take the TSA, no?

Bit of both imperial .

You were talking about Oxford though SGADM. Anyhow, not very important, except that the DD would be judged on her grades, with no possibility of redemption through a pre-test.

Obviously varies by subject then, spinoa (not suprisingly). In that case, yes, New Hall New Hall New Hall Murray Edwards would be a better bet.

I thought Op's DD didn't like the Oxford course? Perfered Nat Sci at Cambridge? .

I think not all colleges use the TSA. You need to check college by college e.g. Trinity uses its own test, Pembroke doesn't use any test. However it's a very good point: choosing a college which does use TSA or another written test could well be a good idea when AS grades are not stellar.

Yes SDADM, she doesn't rate the Oxford course, but there was some discussion about her GCSE grades being marginal for Oxford but that a pre-test could pull her up. Except it can't, because there isn't one. The thread is ever more theoretical .

Imperial Isn't the current political argument that deprivation originates from some inherent depravity - so if you stamp out the deprived the world will be perfect?

Sorry, SGADM. I'm still getting used to it :)

Oh God. I don't think I'm up to it today .

Lingering D&V bug + a cold + jet lag + GCSE results = brain fog.

I'm so fed up of all the anti-Oxbridge 'snob' prejudice around. I went to Cambridge ten years ago, it was NOTHING like the OP's DC expects it to be. I self-catered, some of the colleges (Kings, St Johns) are massive, never went back to college for lunch, only went to formal hall occasionally when I felt like it, completely failed to see any 'hordes' of tourists, and had a tutor who was at the forefront of his field.

To be clear, no Cambridge or Oxford course would allocate a senior tutor who wasn't at the forefront of his or her field, even to teach ignorant undergraduates.

I was state school-educated all the way, and never once felt out of place.

However, having the right grades is only the very beginning - everyone who gets an interview will have the right grades, and only a small percentage of them will be offered a place. So even if your DC did decide to apply, chances are they wouldn't be offered a place anyway, particularly if she let slip any of the prejudices she appears to have.

If you wore the gown but had a northern accent, people would see you very, very differently.

Yes - they would assume you were some fairly junior outsider and would likely talk over your head to your posher-sounding first year PhD student assuming he was the Dr Northern in question.

And then they'd wonder why Dr Northern came across so oddly, and why that strange woman had a funny look on her face, and they'd conclude Oxbridge is full of nasty snobs.

Hi OP,

Did your dd look at Churchill College www.chu.cam.ac.uk? It's my old college (I was there 20 years ago!), and I loved it. It's extremely strong for subjects such as science, engineering and maths. When I was there, it had approximately a 75% technical subjects bias and a 75% state school intake (around 75% male as well).

It has 485 undergraduates, just shy of your desired 500.

There is no kitchen fixed charge, and you pay for the meals that you buy. I hardly ate at all in hall after the first term, because I didn't like the food. We had a kitchen per staircase with a 4-ring electric cooker with grill and oven. Excellent library and tutors, particularly in the technical subjects. We had the most computers at that stage as well . My department was at the other end of town, so I often used to sit on the wall at King's at lunchtime and people-watch. Some of my classmates were from Caius and had meal tickets to use up, so they used to treat me to lunch as well.

We are all in our normal clothes at matriculation photo, the porters told me that we had done nothing to deserve to wear a gown at that point. I only wore a gown on graduation day. I don't think we ever had tourists as it was off the tourist trail. We had conference guests as the college has a conference centre, but we didn't really see them. The Master (Sir John Boyd) was absolutely lovely, and invited us to his lodge to have dinner with Yehudi Menuhin when he came to speak (that's one of my most treasured memories). I kept in touch with him after I left, as I still had some connections with the college through work.

I have a handful of friends from college, mainly those with whom I studied a subject, and those of us who came from the same part of the country. Most of my other friends are from my subject and the societies which I used to be part of.

I can understand your dd's concerns. It is tough and intense, and people do drop out from stress. One of my friends dropped out in the first term and completed his studies at Birmingham, where he thrived. I think that if she would struggle with the thought not being one of the top achievers in her cohort, she might find it difficult. I always said that Oxbridge was very good at taking me down a peg or two, because I went from top of year to distinctly mediocre very quickly!

My younger sister got the grades for Oxbridge, and had straight As and As at GCSE, and straight As at A-Level (I don't think they had A grades at that time). She chose not to apply after visiting, and my parents were very disappointed. I am sure she made the right decision for herself though.

I do feel very lucky and privileged to have been able to study at Cambridge. A pp said that if you look for a certain type of person then you will find them - I agree with her!

All sounds good UniTalkName except that Churchill tutor who came to give our state school its 'access' talk three or four years ago said that Churchill expected an average of 94ums across three ASs, preferably four. She didn't inspire confidence amongst those who were contemplating slapping in an application on the grounds of 'why not?'.

A friend of my Ds applied to Southampton for Engineering rather than Cambridge because it apparently has a very reputation in industry. I don't know enough to know if his reasoning is sound but it was a positive reason.

very good reputation

It probably is sound, esp if he didn't want to do general eng.

Talkin's DD from other posts seems to have real sustained enthusiasm for her subject which bodes well for her degree studies and beyond.
I think many teenagers become entrenched in their superficial first impressions and are difficult to persuade otherwise.

I do think though it is important to encourage a bit of honest objective insight rather than trying to build up evidence to back her negative view so that she does n't close future options by irrational views even if Oxbridge is n't right for her now.

FWIW She'd have loved to do Oceanography here at Southampton, but as her dad and I are rather well known around the campus, that was ruled out at an early stage!

summer
Yes, she loves her subject and has put a lot of work this summer into her EPQ which is directly related to the areas in which she would like to specialise.

When she returns from her current jaunt I'll - gently - try to correct some of her misconceptions based on the evidence in this thread so that her application decisions are based on more solid foundations.

Presumably both Oceanography and Meteorology are subjects that you wouldn't be able to do at Oxbridge, so if either of those are your passion, you have to go elsewhere.

BTW with a relatively weak grade profile if somebody did want to apply then they might want to think strategically and avoid over-subscribed colleges.

I have two suggestions with college selection (that are based on my own limited experience rather than anything "proper"):-

1. Go for a college with a low "offers per place" ratio. Far better to be rejected in January than August. The only exception is if you are very very confident of your A level results and you suspect you may not come over particularly well at interview.

1. Go for a low subscribed college. Not because it will necessarily make you any more likely to get in (although I suspect that there is a marginal difference) but because it means that you will get a "yes" or "no" and that will be the end of it. From the experience of a boyfriend from the time I can tell you that the pool is hell. You are basically waiting for a letter or phone call to say if you have another interview. Whilst watching the days ticking away and your odds going down. And then you get an interview and have to get to Cambridge at very short notice (often during an exam period at school), have another set of interviews and then (because they are quicker at accepting than rejecting) again wait for an acceptance letter that may or may not come whilst again watching the days go ticking by and your odds going down. it was horrible.