Oxbridge question (sorry sorry sorry)

[yeOldeTrout]

DD is a high achieving all rounder.
She has many ideas what to study at Uni, but main thing is... she doesn't have a deep passion (& probably never will) for what to study. Nevertheless, she will excel at whatever she puts her mind to and finally settles on.

So, even if she gets wild A*s in everything, I think there would be no point in applying to Oxbridge, because they care about "passion" for the subject... is that right? She won't be able to sincerely say in an interview "I am deeply truly madly passionate about X"

The school have already put an Oxbridge flea in her ear, but I think it's rather misplaced. There are better Uni destinations for high achievers like her (I think?).

TIA.

Can anyone with the knowledge point me to other portfolio degrees like PPE but not actually PPE.

DD2 is very like the ops child and hasn't a scooby re degrees but would do what she does choose well. A2 are maths english music history, doesn't want to cont maths , could eaily do music but is scared to do so I think! She isn't the most self confident of my kids.

I've been looking at HSPS as a possible for her to research or archeology /anthropology but I don't really know IYSWIM! I do now she'd be better keep her options open ( again doesn't have to be oxbridge of course)

hahaha, at USA suggestion. I dare not say what I really think about all that.

But still, thanks for reassurance that DD can and should keep all UK options open.

Helen,
I think Manchester do a course called Politics and Social Anthropolgy, but I don't know anything about it I'm afraid - just know someone who did it.

YeOlde - I would agree with PPs about the passion thing, I think "passion for the subject" somehow became a shorthand for something a lot more subtle, including enthusiasm and a willingness and ability to think deeply as said variously upthread. I would say Ds (Oxford) is very interested in History. I might even say he was very very interested in History, and he is genuinely enthusiastic about it. What he doesn't do is walk around seeing History in a blade of grass or a puppy's eyes. (He is also very interested in interminable reruns of Top Gear and The Thick of It. ) Assuming you are not facing the Dark French Forces then good luck.

Why so oldtrout? Genuine question as we thought about it seriously for DS and the main attraction was the not specialising bit.

I'll pm if you don't mind Homebythesea, it's just my set of opinions.

You don't need to go to the US for a Liberal Arts degree - ideal interdisciplinary solution for those who do well at everything. Not an Oxbridge degree but Bristol, Exeter, Kings, UCL Birmingham, Durham all offer it for A*AA students, Leeds is AAA and Warwick AAB (but I suspect it will be higher next year - this is the first year). Ds is applying. You can specialise in different pathways according to your interests, which still qualifies you for subsequent MAs - eg in History. But alot of them encourage you to do the integrated Masters +/- a year abroad, which is what ds hopes to do - first choice Exeter.

Have replied!

Hello all - I've been away a while.

My DD had exactly this worry - oxford, English - in fact she worried not only that she wasn't "passionate" but even that she was a teeny bit "instrumental" in her approach, in the sense that had it been any other university, she wouldn't have opted for the language element at all, or the old English stuff.

Pleased to report that one month in, it is all "very interesting", with no reservations, and that she's positively enjoying the course a lot - including the language and the old stuff, and lots of extra curricular poetry etc. It's lovely to see. I'd hesitate to use the word passionate as it is so naff, but she certainly seems engaged by the subject. So I suppose the moral is that sometimes you don't know how it will be until you arrive, and as long as you are reasonably inquiring and hardworking, you should be ok.

My DS is quite good at, and reasonably interested in but certainly no more than that, the subject he is applying for at Uni. He is holding 4 RG offers. On that basis I suspect that the "passion" thing is somewhat overrated ;)

And the blasted hours spent crafting a personal statement trying to show how "passionate" you are about something you are not very passionate about without using the word passion itself...

"If I ruled the world ..." I'd ban the word "passion" on UCAS statements.

My problem with "passion" is that it's the start or the foundation, but it's only the start, and not relevant for what we teach at advanced levels (certainly in the humanities, anyway). I want students to want to learn, actively & enquiringly. I want to challenge them, and I want them to take up the challenge, and go further with it, rather than stick to some immature & emotional attachment to a subject because they luuuurve it. (I'm overstating, but I do come across this sort of sentimentalised thinking).

My other problem is they tell me they're "passionate" in interview, and then when some of them get here, they're not prepared to do what's necessary in terms of reading & other relevant study activities to take up the opportunities they're offered to learn. They won't give up smoking/clubbing/drinking to afford to buy their textbooks, and so on...

I suspect that - as someone says above - a lot of them are well-tutored in what to say, but that they are too well-protected from having to fight for their "passion."

OP - your DD's teachers are whispering Oxbridge. BUt what about Edinburgh or Glasgow? The Scottish system allows students to take several subjects in their first 2 years, and then specialise in the second 2 years of their degree. That might suit her. And Edinburgh is at least as ancient & eminent as Oxford or Cambridge.

Figment I like those words "engaged" and "enquiring" - much more precise and active than simply "passion." They suggest active intellectual actions on the part of your DD.

I did maths at Cambridge which is obviously a bit different (as maths is special IMO ) but I would say that most of us were somewhere between "passionate about" and "obsessed with" maths.

On good weeks Cambridge inspired that passion more than you could possibly imagine. On bad weeks it felt like it was attempting to beat (or maybe exhaust) it out of me.

I really wouldn't advise Cambridge maths unless you have that passion. It is too hard, too obsessive, too lonely.

Pease with respect it's up to you to make the distinction between applicants at interview. That's what the interviews are for....

I wouldn't call many Cambridge maths undergraduates passionate or obsessed with maths (if only....). Maybe half of them are just marking time until they can leave by their second year, which is remarkable when you consider the entrance barriers.

I would agree though that students really need to know what they are getting into with maths (at any university): many students think it is going to be like school, when it is nothing of the sort. Many Oxbridge maths students are really not mentally prepared for how challenging it is going to be. (Ditto physics, computer science.... )

But disquisitiones do you think that's a peculiarity of maths and very mathsy subjects, or are you reserving your comments to maths/ mathsy subjects because that's the area you know?

Why leave by their 2nd yr, do they get a qualification at that point?

I know maths/mathsy subjects best and I suspect the lack of interest/enthusiasm is more evident in such subjects. But I hear from colleagues across all subjects that significant fractions of (high entry grade) students are not that interested/passionate/engaged. Pease seems to be saying this too.

Rephrasing my comment above: by the time many maths (physics, comp sci...) students get into their second year, they are just trying to get through the course with a 2:i and they seem to be marking time until they can graduate.

Of course they cannot leave with a bachelors degree in their second year. (Although if you do leave before the end of your degree you get certificates of study.) The drop out rates for maths and related subjects are not bad - students who get to the second year will usually graduate - so it is more the lack of enthusiasm which is a worry.

disquis It's interesting you say that. I wonder if that is that things have changed in the 15ish years since I've graduated or whether I happened to know particularly geeky passionate people. Or maybe it is just the difference between being an undergrad and a supervisor - thinking about it during the hour a week my supervisors saw me I probably didn't seem very passionate - just keen to get the humiliation of discovering exactly how much I'd got wrong over with!

Having said that I don't think that Cambridge really encourages people to develop passion in maths. For example - we didn't have examples classes which meant that if no one else in your college was doing (eg) coding and cryptography (or the only person who was was the lad who tried and failed to pull you in fresher's week and had never forgiven you) then you just had to sit on your own and puzzle for hours about question 4. Had there been examples classes (preferably with a Ph.d student there who could give you a nudge in the right direction if you needed it) then I could have gone and discussed question 4 with a load of other who were also stuck and firstly felt better about being stuck and secondly with pooled knowledge we would have probably worked it out. As it was eventually a supervisor would tell me the answer and I'd realise I'd gone down the wrong track right at the beginning and all those hours I'd spent on it were a total waste of time!

Oooh - now that I'm passionate about!

When I was an undergraduate I didn't really notice that much of my cohort weren't engaged/doing well either, as my supervision partners were chosen to be similar to me. The big tail of lower achieving/less engaged students only became obvious when I started teaching them!

I think that there is currently far less culture of sitting on one's own and puzzling through problems. Nowadays students text each other, or email their supervisors for hints, rather than getting stuck for hours. On the one hand this is a good thing, as going in the wrong direction for hours is time "wasted". On the other hand students are increasingly less resilient as they expect immediate answers and collapse when they start research (where there is no easy answer, and one does has to try different avenues until one method works). The "old" approach was better for developing resilient thinkers who were willing to try, try and try again.

BTW I don't think that examples classes with PhD students would function better than supervisions. They are used for part III but in practice the PhD student usually gives out the solution and discusses it, rather than the students brainstorming about how to get to the answer with hints from the PhD student. Ditto examples classes elsewhere. It takes a very skilled teacher to draw the knowledge/understanding out of students without simply giving the answer, and most supervisors (of supervisions or examples classes) are early career and don't have such skills/experience.

I think my beef with the gap between the apparent "passion" that UCAS applicants tell us they have, and their actual enactment of that passion, is that students in my field (Humanities) don't realise how widely & deeply they have to read. If they tell me they are "passionate" about literature, why aren't they working their way through all of Dickens, and/or Woolf, and/or Achebe? Instead of moaning about being asked to read Middlemarch? Or Rasselas, or Paradise Lost'?

Lots of interesting and good comments with which I agree. My contribution is to say that my tutors in my subject in my college years ago might indeed have been passionate about their subject, research, personal aggrandisement and teaching the postgrads and overseas scholars who were clearly going to be movers and shakers but they sure weren't passionate when it came to teaching me. My children's primary school teachers put them to shame. I know that is not true of many university teachers and fellows so not making a generalisation. And damn it, I should have turned down the offer and gone to the place where the interviewer was so much more interested and interesting.

I certainly wasn't passionate about maths. And I changed subject for part II so I suppose that proves it (although, my situation was complicated by a near fatal car crash and a long spell in hospital. Who knows what I might have felt like about things had that not happened. But it did happen and once I was better I was - for a while - more prepared to take a risk and follow something I was truly interested in rather than take the risk averse path). Had I been at a different university there would have been no part I and part II and I'd have been stuck. Similarly, had I not had wider ranging interests and abilities than some of my fellow mathmos I wouldn't have been able to swap out and do a different part II (because, for example, I might not have had the writing skills or the background (from a diverse set of A levels and continuing interests) to switch to a fairly different subject for part II).

DD1 certainly hasn't used the word passion in her PS. But I think it might actually be appropriate for her. Having said that, she certainly doesn't have just the one passion. But the subject she is applying for is the only thing she has wanted to do since she was about 7. And that does sort of shine through, despite the fact that she isn't a monomaniac.