Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 15 16

Original poster

Anyone whose DD or DS had a disastrous Oxbridge interview....

392 replies

Supermanspants · 07/12/2015 18:41

..... and managed to get an offer?
Hideous interview today. Grilled on a topic she hasn't even covered in her A level course and based purely on a 7 page academic article she only got half an hour before the interview.
She is so down about it all.

OP posts:

Molio · 10/12/2015 23:01

Thanks for that Rezolution I really hope it turns out well - let us know in January. Sounds positive for now :) And as I said before she seems to have lucked out with the pool.

horsemad that's bad luck re the girl. Not much to be done about the building (although I think you've id'd the college!) but alreadytaken is quite right that the other girl may not make it. I guess the best thing to do is to try to keep an open mind about the college itself until decisions are out, see if the other girl got in, and then say yes or no. Not a great situation though, I can quite see that

RhodaBull · 11/12/2015 17:48

poor ds has not had a very good experience. The first interview was "meh" and he said the interviewers didn't even look at him and just asked a series of pre-written questions. The second interview was horrendous: they picked on one book he had mentioned which they said they hated and went on and on at him about how awful the author and book was. Ds said he tried to stand his ground but in the face of two people arguing him down he felt a bit crushed. He said it wasn't a spirited discussion, more of an assault!

He has now been sent off for a third interview at another college, but he says he's had enough of it all and can't be bothered any more.

Before they'd even started the college told them that three-quarters of them would be unsuccessful and they hardly ever pooled a candidate.

MarianneSolong · 11/12/2015 18:16

What was the book? That's just me being nosy. (It does sound like two interviews which were difficult - though in different ways.) Hope your son feels that interview 3 is a better experience.

Jenijena · 11/12/2015 18:22

If it all goes wrong... I was talking to a senior prof at a RG university yesterday. He was gleeful having turned down being an external examiner for taught programmes at Cambridge.. 'Well, once they turned me down...'

JeffreysMummyIsCross · 11/12/2015 19:08

Good luck to everyone's DC, but for anyone who doesn't get in, here is my experience.

I had an awful interview at Oxford back in the day and didn't get in. At the time I was pretty disappointed but, in retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I ended up going somewhere that had a much better course and department for that particular subject, and I absolutely loved every single module I studied (whereas I'm pretty sure the course at Oxford would not have suited my interests - I had simply applied because of the "name" and the tradition and picturesqueness, but the course itself was virtually unchanged since the 1950s and I can see now how unstimulating it would have been). I did extremely well at the university I went to and got funding for masters and doctoral study, and am now a senior lecturer at a RG university. We have actually had students transfer to us from Oxbridge because they didn't like the course or the environment. For some subjects and people, Oxbridge is definitely the right fit. But it's not right for everyone, even when you are capable of meeting their entry requirements. There are lots of brilliant courses, lecturers and universities out there. We just had our end-of-term party yesterday and it was lovely to see that our students are very, very happy (some of whom didn't get into Oxbridge!).

MarianneSolong · 11/12/2015 19:27

In case this is of interest. My daughter had her interview/s a year back. For us a lot of the stress was simply that we felt it was important she did the journey on her own. The time of the interviews meant that it was sensible for her to go by public transport. Otherwise it would have been a 6am start with a nervy daughter in the car and fretting about traffic.

She found the whole business an ordeal, and felt it was very unlikely indeed that she'd be offered a place. (Spouse and I privately thought that her second interview by no means sounded like the 'car crash' which she described, but of course we had no idea what the outcome would be.)

In fact she was offered a place at her chosen college. The high grades she had to get probably added to the sense of pressure around exam time. I wouldn't like to live through that period again.

She's been there a term and is happy there. She likes the subject she is studying. She's made friends. But there are ways in which she finds it intense, and feels there are good - but different - things about the experiences friends studying elsewhere are having . She said that she thinks for them there's more of a separation between the people you know in halls of residence, and the people you hang out with when you go into lectures etc - and this can be a good/healthy thing. Also her sense is that while she does make time to unwind and do stuff, some of her mates at universities are probably having a slightly more relaxed/relaxing time of it than she is.

Brioche201 · 11/12/2015 19:51

The thing is you might think your own interview went well or badly, but you have no frame of reference.You don't know how the other candidates did

Molio · 11/12/2015 19:53

Well they thought he was good enough to pool Rhoda. Or if it's not a pooling interview perhaps he's their best candidate and he did exceptionally well in the face of the brutal assault.

Brioche201 · 11/12/2015 19:59

Rhoda-Surely if he has had a third interview that is a very good sign?

CactusAnnie · 11/12/2015 20:49

I had a terrible interview at Cambridge in the 1990s, and didn't get a place.

This will out me to anyone who knows me...

It was completely the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd left school at 16, spent a year in and out of hospital, working various jobs, had moved out of home and was then going to a sixth form college and living with my (then in his late twenties) partner, who drove me there to the interview.

I was very very bright, but also very messed up, and had no idea of how posh/formal it would be. I went wearing my normal 17-year-old garb (tight t-shirt, combats, army boots, nose ring!) and as I was waiting for the first interview I could hear the previous girl smarming up to the interviewers about how much she loved the King's College Choir every Christmas. I was more into the Chemical Brothers and the Manics...

The interviews themselves I found very frustrating. They were obviously designed to be challenging but I could see that they were just trying to be annoying for the sake of it and it wound me up.

(For example, I had expressed a liking for Shakespeare. They asked which plays I knew - I listed about 10-12. They asked how on earth I could say I liked Shakespeare when I only knew that many. I just thought that was so pointless and irritating. Like I say - not the right time or place for me!)

They would also have made me live in the college, apart from my partner - by then we'd been living together for a year and been through a LOT (he had cancer) and we were each other's rocks.

So I knew I didn't want to go. I'd made that decision by the time I left Cambridge that day.

I was hella relieved to get the rejection letter, because I'd been agonising over if - if I got in - I should be honest with my parents and say I was turning down the place, or if I should lie and pretend I'd been turned down. So it was good that the decision was taken from me.

In the end i went to another, very good university, where I had the most brilliant time, got a First, ended up doing a Masters and a PhD there, made some lifelong friends and ultimately met my now-husband. Everything I found out about Oxbridge subsequently made me very glad I didn't go there. I've always felt like I dodged a bullet.

RhodaBull · 11/12/2015 22:26

Ds home now and said he enjoyed the camaraderie with the other candidates, but says he knows he didn't do well enough at interview to get in. He didn't particularly like the college he was sent to for third interview. Oxford but not Oxford, iykwim. Probably the same one as the girl upthread!

I suppose all interviews are challenging in different ways, but ds says it wasn't particularly fair that some other people seemed to have general chitchats, or were asked about interests mentioned on their personal statements, and he had a thorough roasting.

MarianneSolong · 12/12/2015 08:33

The general consensus here seems to be that a fairly searching interview that is experienced as tough by the interviewee is a good sign, indicating that the candidate is seen as a real contender.

But at least it's done now...

Molio · 12/12/2015 09:41

But the book was on his personal statement Rhoda. Some colleges never mention the personal statement at all for the subject I assume we're talking about. Just a long unseen source for one interview and an interview about the written work for the other (there are lots of variations). At least the tutors in his chosen college talked about stuff he was familiar with - others in different, more 'clinical' colleges would call that 'unfair'. Anyhow, all credit to him, he obviously got through it and ticked the up-to-it box. Did he have strong feelings about the second college, or would he accept it? I feel quite sorry for the tutors there, they must feel pretty unloved when the pool begins :(

ChopsticksandChilliCrab · 12/12/2015 10:34

Lots of interesting stuff here. DD17 visited friends at Cambridge recently for a few days and found them all ill, stressed, with no time to go to societies or have a social life. One friend has lectures on a Saturday and supervisions on a Sunday so doesn't even get one day off a week. DD was horrified, and decided she'd have a much nicer time somewhere else. She is liking the look of Durham, friends there seem to be having a blast.

MalhamWaterfall · 12/12/2015 12:53

rhoda, don't you think that's a good sign? Why is it unfair he got to show more skills?

RhodaBull · 12/12/2015 13:08

Actually he says the "roasting" did at least give him a chance to say something. The first interview was worse, he said, because they didn't really give him a chance to talk, just asked rather closed questions about his written work. The final interview was more interactive, but he had an awful headache and lost his train of thought at one point.

Yes, that college must feel like a real ugly duckling. They must have loads of pool candidates as surely the only people putting it as first choice are trying to game the system.

MalhamWaterfall · 12/12/2015 13:10

Good for him, then!

RhodaBull · 12/12/2015 15:09

He knows he hasn't got in (he said he came across as dull in two of the interviews), but he said the overall experience was enjoyable if exhausting!

Molio · 12/12/2015 17:56

He can't have been that dull at the first college Rhoda or they wouldn't have sent him elsewhere. Would he accept an offer from the second college if it came to it? (he might still get one from the first college). What form did the third interview take, out of interest?

MrsUltra · 12/12/2015 18:35

Watching with interest, as DS is going up on Monday.
I am driving him up so I can have a nice few beers catch up with a friend of mine who is the lull between interviewing for his subject last week, and the meetings to divvy up the candidates starting the next day...
Will be really interesting to hear it from both sides (entirely different subjects and colleges obviously!)

HocusCrocus · 12/12/2015 18:46

Rhoda, obviously your son knows ( smile] ) he hasn't got a place but just, just in case he is wrong..

A friend of Ds applied to a very central and very famous college. He was invited for interview instead (i.e. that was his first and only invitation , not pooled) at one further out which was not of the honey coloured dreaming spire variety. He is there now and is thoroughly enjoying it.

AtiaoftheJulii · 13/12/2015 00:13

They must have loads of pool candidates as surely the only people putting it as first choice are trying to game the system.

!!! Perhaps not! That's fairly rude

My dd chose a less over-subscribed college because she really liked it, not because she was hoping for any advantage. (I, horrified, said "that's miles out!" She told me the world didn't revolve around Turl St )

HocusCrocus · 13/12/2015 00:44

Atia - are you sure, quite sure, you did not, "horrified" , say , but Morse would never have died there .

HocusCrocus · 13/12/2015 00:48

Oh and she's right.

AtiaoftheJulii · 13/12/2015 01:50

Rofl I was honestly more concerned at the thought of having to cycle more than 3 minutes to get anywhere! But he wouldn't, there's .... shock horror ... no quad! They do have punts right there in college though, which keeps the Oxford Quotient up (thank goodness ). And she's very happy there, which apparently is vaguely important ...

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 15 16