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

[Supermanspants]

..... 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.

Good luck with the interviews for this next week.
Chopsticks I understand where your DD is coming from. Mine has declined her interview as she has decided that short intense terms are not for her - she will be firming a northern city uni (but not Durham as she wasn't that keen).

DS graduated from Oxford with a first last year. At the time, he felt his interview days (particularly the first day) went very badly and he was asked questions which had nothing whatsoever to do with his subject (medicine). It was snowing and he was asked about the structure and formation of snowflakes- I guess these kind of questions are designed to see how candidates react to the unexpected, test whether they can think of their feet!

My DD had a similar experience to Rhodabull. Terrible first interview with lots of closed questions about AS syllabus, nothing from personal statement or anything interesting to talk about. Second one for other subject (application is for joint honours) seemed to go better. Third one on source was okay, but she came out overall feeling pessimistic. Anyway, the real value was in meeting the other subject candidates with whom, naturally, she had a lot in common. They had a lovely time exploring Oxford, going to museums, and commiserating over icecream, etc. Came away with a few friends for life, which is a plus however the application turns out.

Yes, ds met a couple of people he really bonded with. He says he'll be glad for them if they get in and he doesn't.

FoggyMorn to be fair the city was mesmerizing in that snow of 2011 - hard even for tutors to focus on anything else!

Sorry 2010, for entry 2011. It was just beautiful. Treacherous (clearly unexpectedly so for interviewees :)) but utterly beautiful.

Slightly at a tangent here, but I can't help but notice a few posters commenting that Durham might be more suitable to their dc. Have your dc heard from Durham then? My son is going up to Oxford tomorrow for his interviews (hence my reading this thread) but has also applied to Durham. It is the only one of his 5 choices not to have offered him a place/interview. They contacted him weeks ago to ask for his specific AS marks (or something) but the general view in his school is that Durham are not interviewing/offering places until the New Year, presumably after Oxbridge have made their offers. Is this not correct?

My DC mostly heard from Durham after Christmas Dumbledoresgirl, only one of five heard before but none of those were for science.

Durham are just notoriously slow, nothing to do with Oxbridge outcomes.
Two years ago DS1 got his offer from Durham in the November (before Cambridge interview) and yet others he knew didn't hear until April.

DS had a generic email to say that most candidates would not hear anything til after the closing date.Why would Oxbridge offers have anything to do with it?

Thanks everyone. I did wonder, when people said their child still had Durham to fall back on....yes, I hope my son does too, but I can't say that until he actually hears back from them.

Re, why would Oxbridge have anything to do with it - no, thinking about it, it doesn't make sense that it does. But then, no other uni I know about bothered waiting until the closing date before interviewing/making offers, so it does lead you to wonder why Durham is doing things differently.

I think it's because Durham like to see the whole pool of applicants before selecting ,they have always been late , I went in 1983 when they used to interview and they were still the last one I heard from .

Molio, yes! It was a huge logistical nightmare for DS to get to Oxford (from Scotland) he went on his own by train and bus and a day earlier because travel was very difficult - a bit of an adventure for a just turned 17 year old. Serendipitously, he had read a new scientist article on the train about... Snow crystals!

Do they not interview now? I thought they still did. Some unis still do.

FoggyMorn it was very clearly meant to be!

My DD had an offer from Durham last week.

when we went to Durham with older DC, they said that uni policy was as far as possible avoid interviews because 1) of cost 2) that in most subjects the whole applicant pool could not be interviewed by teh same panel so hard to make fair comparisons

DD had email from college today to say they would either get rejection by email on the 12th or acceptance letter sent out the 11th.
I wonder if this implies they have finished interviewing for her course now?

Puzzling re 11th/12th, on TSR the Brasenose Admin person said 6th.

That's what the university say - www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford

Oh, but Brioche's dd is Cambridge, isn't she!

Discussion segwayed to Duham - who also have colleges- and when they reply.

oh, my poor ds had his Cambridge interview today and has just rung from train station and said it went "really badly." I didn't get any more info from him than that. he sounded so down.
But...from this thread... maybe that does not definitely mean all is lost??

I think it is very hard for the young people to know how it went. It may be your son will say more on his return.

With my daughter a year back we just told her that it had been an experience. (She didn't want to be encouraged or to rehash it much, or be told it had gone better than she thought.) And she settled back down into Christmas stuff.

pickledonion - I was being motherly towards a boy at Cambridge today who didn't think his first interview went well - maybe it was your DS?

DD2s interview went "well, but not well enough" she thinks, although as previous posters have said, you really can't tell.