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.

I know several young people who got in after a gap year and found the extra year to be a great experience. The cleverest person I know didn't get into Oxford. Complete and utter genius and LSE was lucky enough to get him.

I always advise anyone who didn't get an interview or even failed after the interview in a Fourth term application to try again for Seventh term. Some people just are not ready on a Fourth term application and people change a lot by Seventh term.

Well I wasn't going to, but to add to what others have said....DD's best friend didn't get in the first time round and has just come top of his year across the whole university in his subject and in all associated schools, he's now Oxford's prize pet. He also had to re-take his ASs if that gives comfort to any re-takers out there. He's also very, very sociable and un-nerdy indeed, if that helps any very, very un-nerdy people out there.

How is he this morning mum? As far as you getting in I guess it's wise just to say to him it was a lot less competitive in our day. In terms of sheer numbers it clearly was. Anything which helps him I guess. If he's the boy on TSR who yesterday messaged that he'd not been invited to ChCh then with those grades clearly he should be encouraged to re-apply, but probably to a different college. If he wasn't that boy then clearly the competition this year at ChCH was horrendously fierce. That stuff's probably not for now though.

Yes, I wouldn't go into the what ifs, such as wrong college choice etc. I see from The horrid SR that lots of people have been reallocated anyway. And some have been sent to more popular colleges - go figure. I guess they make an effort to mix people up - sex/state/private/international etc, rather than having all the "rahs" swarming to a handful of colleges (which they seem to try to do...). But what do I know.

Doing a 7th term application is a good idea if a student is up for it, but ds's friends who didn't get interviews for whatever subject have adopted the "F Oxbridge" and are enthusiastic about their next choice. I keep bigging up other places to ds as I don't think he stands a terribly realistic chance.

Thanks for the kind messages. It wasn't him on TSR, though he did apply to ChCh!
He's better today, helped by the fact that his 18th birthday present, a new laptop arrived today and it is distracting him.
He has asked for feedback and has been told that will come, but not till February. A long wait, but by then hopefully he will have heard from all his other choices and depending on the feedback can decide what to do.

Dd is over the moon at being invited for interview but playing it down as others in her friendship group have not. The invite says to arrive by no later than 9:00 am and she is fretting about how she will get there from our house by 9. Can they arrive the evening before and stay at the college or will she need to stay in a b&b, in Oxford?

If she needs to stay over, she should ask college if she can stay.

And well done to her! (Sorry, bit braindead tonight!)

DS2 has an interview! Bloody hell, it's been a tense couple of days - he was fairly mellow while I was a wreck. And now if he doesn't get in at least he'll know he gave it his best shot and had the chance to show his potential; I think it was the prospect of not having that chance which was killing me. So commiserations to matey's DS - I do hope he bounces back quickly.

A question for admissions tutors... DD has an interview for a joint honours. The percentage of applicants interviewed is quite high (65% or thereabouts) and the percentage given an offer is dismayingly low (about 10%). I know that if you get an offer for a joint degree and then miss a grade in one of the subjects, Oxford may admit you for a single honours instead in the subject in which you did get your A. But does this also work for offers? I'm just wondering (rather optimistically!) if the offer rate is so low because if you are interviewed for joint and come up as good in one of your subjects but lacking in the other, an offer might be for a single honours in one of the subjects you applied for instead of both.

Probably not a very helpful reply Asterik, but this will vary subject by subject and case by case. In my experience, any candidate who misses their offer will be considered for a place given the full set of circumstances. I'm not aware of joint schools being any different and in the ones I deal with I would be surprised if that happened. These days in arts subjects at Oxford the standard offer is AAA and the vast majority get it - plus we have a pool in some subjects to replace those who don't. Given that, a candidates circumstances would have to be quite special to retain the place. In general, a large number of interviews per place just means it is a small subject in terms of places. So a) it is feasible and b) if you only have one place in a college subject it is quite risky to only see 3 as they may all be relatively weak. Whereas if you have 7 places then seeing 21 is plenty.

Sorry, I didn't read your post properly! I have occasionally seen this happen when tutors in a college couldn't agree. But it is rare and a few years ago. I think it would happen less now in the days of more second interviews across other colleges.

irregular I'm being more than usually dense this morning but isn't the question: will my DC be considered for (say) both history single honours and english single honours if she's interviewed for joint? Isn't that very standard, since I thought the guidance given was that an applicant needed to be that bit stronger in both subjects to be considered for joint? If that's the case, it would make no sense to adopt an all or nothing approach. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the question, or just surprised by your response.

My specific experience is only based on joint schools that involve Economics. And to a lesser extent Philosophy and Politics. History and English could be different. But I've not known a History tutor take a candidate that we rejected for History and Economics. I did once, years ago, offer an EM place to a candidate who applied for HE but the history tutors rejected her. That was what my answer was based on. I'm definitely not a History and English expert.

Is that official guidance Molio? Where? It wouldn't be true for History and Economics.

I can't imagine it's the norm - you would then be getting candidates hedging their bets and applying for joint schools in the hope that they'd have three chances of getting in.

Yes irregularegular I can see that economics is different because they couldn't go into PPE nor E&M. Which was why I deliberately avoided it as an example! Other subjects within joint schools have a similar problem. As you said at the outset, it depends!

Isn't it on the History faculty website?

Well not really Rhoda because a) an applicant would have to be prepared to sign up for a joint course if successful and that can be an acquired taste and b) the advice was/ is that they needed to be especially strong in both, which limits the field.

I can't find anything like that on the website.

It was there not long ago irregula, perhaps not now, I'll take your word for it.

I guess the history and economics interviewees that you've rejected for economics might not have come up to proof for history either, so maybe it's difficult to know whether that's a policy thing (that no joint applicant will be considered in the alternative for a single honours course) or simply because the other single honours applicants were better by comparison?

No, but it doesn't seem to be very common.

No I have to say I think it might be more theoretical than anything else.

I applied (years ago) for joint honours (History and Economics). Without the college letting me know what was happening, a politics tutor sat in on my economics interview. He rescued me from my own error (I was really no historian) and invited me to come and do PPE instead. At the same time, another woman was interviewed for History and English and was offered History only. I don't think my college really liked joint schools much. My guess is that this stuff changes all the time and that there's really no way to predict it or to game the system.

Ho hum. Thanks for all the informed speculation. I have a feeling that if DD is lucky enough to get an offer and then get the grades, she may well want to change to a single honours. The joint awards seem better organised at other universities (who ensure that timetable clashes are avoided, etc.) - we've heard it can be a bit chaotic hit-and-miss at Oxford. Good luck to everyone with DCs having interviews next week.

On the joint honours degrees: in the case of History/English + language, it very often seems to be the case that candidates are very good at one subject and problematically average at the other. e.g. a fabulous English interview and lousy French language tests, or vice versa. I'm afraid that it isn't very likely that someone will then be admitted to the single subject they excel at -- this is the risk taken in applying for the joint degree. (I've actually never seen this happen though it probably does somewhere.) On the other hand, if someone is as good in both subjects as the "regular" pool of candidates applying for those subjects they have an excellent chance of getting in. No need to be better. In recent years, at least in my small province, I've heard tutors in a number of subjects complain that the joint schools applicants aren't very strong. But we are definitely gunning for the ones who are and go to quite a bit of trouble to assess from all sides. So I think the statistic is a reflection on the types of students applying rather than the process. (Ten years ago was a very different story for reasons unknown to me: the joint schools candidates were often the best of the bunch.)

Morse died in my college quad. Surely the ultimate Oxford claim to fame!