Oxford interviews and overnight stay

[bevelino]

DD has applied to Oxford university and if she is lucky enough to be offered an interview is worried she may have to stay at the college for up to 3 days by herself. Please could someone let me know how this works? DD has suggested that I travel with her and stay in a b&b so that she can meet me when she has finished her interview(s). Any advice would be gratefully received.

In the US prospective students just stay with current students, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. My son had an amazing time with his host, staying up late arguing about philosophy.

He didn't have a terrible time at Oxford; it just didn't give him a feeling of a vibrant community full of exciting and dedicated scholars, which I am sure it is.

Atia it sounds like your daughter's college is doing a great job! (T-shirts are dirt cheap- though I agree it is unnecessary.)

In the US prospective students just stay with current students, sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

But there is a very different culture in the UK. In the US it is normal for undergraduates to share rooms. In the UK this almost never happens: students expect privacy.

I genuinely cannot think of anything worse on a university visit than having to share a room with a complete stranger. I would have hated it and so would my own DC.

yeah, my dad & I find it really pathetic that my (English) children are so pathetic about sharing bedrooms with other people. Drives us a bit batty!!

My son is English, and had a really great time getting to know his US host.

I have some idea how things tend to be done in the UK (having brought up 3 children here over the course of the last 17 years). I was just suggesting a possible alternative which works elsewhere, and responding to Atia's comment about where visiting students could stay.

Don't 18 year olds go to Youth Hostels and such places any more?

clara how much capacity do you think the Oxford hostels might have?! There are several thousand applicants being interviewed over the course of two weeks.

It's not feasible out of term time unless interviews are staggered, which would have problems of its own. Your DS could have visited Oxford during term time you know - all the colleges have boards outside saying 'Prospective applicants always welcome'. Mine quite liked their interview days and all their colleges looked after them very well - no complaints anyhow, except for an excess of heating.

My English kids shared three to a room and are very adaptable ragged - the problem isn't likely to be nationality, it's likely to be the modern norm of one child one room.

Thinking back I found the interview stay a really good dummy run for life at Oxford. It was intense, at times brilliant and inspiring and hilarious, at other times lonely and intimidating and confusing. Pretty much like the first 8 week term in other words.

I recall I had a set room in an old quad whereas most of the other interviewees were in a new build block, and I couldn't work out how to get to them and I was too shy to ask anyone. That feeling came back again and again over my time at Oxford.

But my set partner was a lovely, normal and funny girl who turned out to be a near neighbour in my first year, and 15 years on we're still best friends and godparents to each others children. So I also came away with one of the best things in my life.

I'm sure things are different with email and text, but in those days there was a lot of hanging about, which was quite stressful. I remember my parents picked me up quite late on the day I was 'released', as I really just wanted to get home by then.

I'm not really sure sleeping on a mattress on a stranger's floor would be the ideal interview preparation environment, tbh! Dd1 was also working on some coursework in the free time when she was up for her interview. And the students only have 8 week terms - losing half a week or more to looking after a visitor wouldn't work, I don't think.

None of my kids seem at all fazed at sharing a room generally though (dd1 was home at the weekend and shared with dd2 rather than put a sheet on her own bed, lol).

Going for a relaxed visit after you've got an offer of place is so different to going for interview. If my dd had been offered a weekend at a uni post-acceptance, with the condition being she had to share a room, then she might well have happily said yes.

I'm sorry your Ds had a disappointing time Clara. I do think those interview days are quite intense, though, and I think DS appreciated having a place he could retreat to and not have to smile or be chatty once in a while. I know I would.

(I've just made the Hocus family sound like real charmers haven't I? )

Going for a relaxed visit after you've got an offer of place is so different to going for interview. If my dd had been offered a weekend at a uni post-acceptance, with the condition being she had to share a room, then she might well have happily said yes.

Missed this before I posted but I agree

Really sorry I seem to have annoyed people...

My son was fine on his interview days. The hostel comment was not suggesting that Oxford interviewees stay in one- just pointing out that lots of people don't mind sharing a room with strangers (though of course under un-stressful circumstances).

Someone asked me on page one what might have made my son's Oxford interview visit more rewarding, so I repeated what my son said about his experience. He was extremely excited to go for his interview, as he thought it would end up being a fascinating exchange of ideas with lots of impassioned academics. He was naive and the reality was less interesting.

I actually have no desire to change one single thing about Oxford, which I think is a wonderful amazing place, unlike anything else on the planet.

clara there must be more kids out there who are relieved and encouraged to find 'normal' fellow interviewees than disappointed ones, expecting possibly too much across the board. I think mine would have taken the view that 'fascinating exchanges of ideas' with other applicants would have been a bit over the top. I'd go further and say that they'd have thought anyone attempting that sort of stuff would have been pretentious to a degree, in the context. They were glad to just kick around doing pub quizzes in the JCR and do general chat - that makes for a good atmosphere when most people are already tense, no need to pile it on.

Clara - not the slightest bit annoyed, just interested. Another whose DS was happy with the pub quiz in the JCR . Hope your DS is doing well.

Hocus

( same Hocus just a different suffix and rather relieved that UCAS no longer has such a role in my life. )

claraschu not annoyed at all. If that's honestly what your son was expecting, then yes, I'd say that was naive

Comparing his Oxford interview experience with his US college visits seems a bit apples and oranges though.

Where did he end up going? (Nosy!)

Out of interest why is the interview spread over 3 days? Wouldn't it be more efficient to interview each prospective student on one day. The university wouldn't then have to accommodate anyone unless they had travelled from far away. I couldn't imagine being interviewed for a job over 3 days?

I expect an Oxford academic or administrator could answer that properly, but as far as I could make out as a parent the idea was that each Oxford college interviews each of its own candidates. As the interviews proceed, the academics make a judgement about whether the candidate was:

1. Very strong, they would want to make an offer
2. Strong enough for Oxford, but they aren't sure they want to offer a place at their college
3. Not strong enough for Oxford

Candidates in groups 1 and 3 would almost certainly not be offered a second interview at another college. Candidates in group 2 would. It's the second interviews that make the scheduling difficult.

At the end of all the interviews, there are then subject meetings where the academics go through all applicants and confirm who will get an offer and from which college. So it's all done and dusted by Christmas or shortly after, and the offers go out in early January.

At Cambridge it's a bit different because first interviews are in December. Some candidates get offers in early January and others get rejections. A small number are put into the winter pool (ie their applications are available for any college with unfilled places to consider) and either get an offer from another college without a second interview or they do get called back for another interview (which won't necessarily result in an offer, so sounds very tough).

Of course, at all other institutions they make offers either after one interview or (more and more likely these days) after no interview at all. This may seem easier, but Oxford and Cambridge have quite low drop out rates. The interview process does seem to help with finding students who are going to like it there (or maybe it just puts off those who wouldn't like it).

Some of the particularly strong candidates do get extra interviews at Oxford Gasp0de, then get an offer from their college of choice. Those are for standardization, not because the original college has doubts.

Oxford interviews significantly fewer applicants than Cambridge for most subjects but sets significantly more store by the interviews. Cambridge reverts to grades more, even after interviews. So the Oxford process is that much more thorough, and that requires time (that assessment comes from an academic I know who has taught and done interviews for a very competitive subject at one place and is now teaching and doing interviews at the other).

The extra interviews for especially strong candidates is only relevant for the subjects which interview more spontaneously, not the subjects with two colleges already specified eg medicine etc.

Atiao in the end my son turned down PPE at Oxford and went to Yale. I couldn't believe it, as my dream (as an American who loved England) was to go to Oxford. Also, he would have been near us if he had gone to Oxford.

My language in describing his expectations was a little tongue in cheek, Molio; he is very unpretentious actually, and I think found Oxford a little too pretentious, which was one of the reasons the US option appealed to him.

clara yes I'm sure and I wasn't in any way suggesting that your son might be pretentious. But your post did remind me of a poster on here a few years back during the interview cycle where the weighty intellectual discussions over college tea were referred to in awed tones. We all thought those sounded hugely pretentious - and needless to say, the protege (not her own child) didn't get in. I'd advise a child not to judge too much on the interview days - it's a very artificial atmosphere there with a lot of tension and some people trying too hard and a majority of people who won't actually end up there in any event.

In the light of a recent thread about Oxford interviews and proteges I should probably make it clear that the poster's nickname didn't begin with B.

I haven't looked at any of those threads, Molio. I started blabbing on this thread because I felt like maybe the interview experience could be better, though I don't really know much about it, and other people who are much better informed clearly disagree.

I think the whole idea of these interviews is pretty amazing- all those professors taking the time to talk to young people who haven't even been admitted to the university.

I do think that one of the great advantages of an Oxford interview - relative to say Durham or Cambridge - certainly in my DD's subject, which is English - is that yes it may take a couple of nights' stay, but in the end, not only do you have a sense that they have genuinely chosen you - but also that your offer is realisable - AAA - hooray! (although it didn't always feel like that last summer, as others will remember!)

Not quite the 2Es of my day, but contrast Cambridge, where for English, even after all the interviews, tests etc, your offer is still likely to be a stress-inducing AAA - while at Durham, you must achieve at least one A*, although bizarrely, they don't actually care in which subject you manage this, which I personally don't find very confidence-inducing, in terms of thinking about the skills of the individual candidate.

The other thing about Oxford is that as I understand it, they don't significantly "over-offer", because they assume that if you are prepared to put in all that front-loaded effort, you must want to accept their offer. This means that you (sort of) have the comfort of knowing that if you, say, miss a grade in an unrelated subject (which was my DD's big worry!), you can have a conversation about it with somebody who has actually met you, looked at your work, and has decided they would like to teach you. This, IMHO, makes the three day visit "worth it".