UCAS: Cambridge or Oxford?

[user1473771286]

DD is interested in studying economics at Cambridge. The predicted grade is AAA, not all A (due to a low A grade in one of the AS science subjects). Is this good enough for Cambridge? or is Oxford easier? She got straight A in GCSE. Any advice? Many thanks.

Sorry "a good chance of getting in" meant as good as the average candidate i.e., not disadvantaged by grades and subjects.

I don't see why having a go at EM means he loses the chance to polish the PS. Applicants are often worried about the fact that they are applying for EM/PPE here and pure Economics, or something else, at other universities. I always tell them (and I know other tutors say the same thing) to write the PS for the other universities and we will understand.

If he is genuinely interested in PPE/EM he should apply. There is no real cost.

Ah. Perhaps you meant just the earlier deadline? He's got a month. To be honest, if he can't write a good PS in a month then I doubt that having any longer is going to help much and is postponing the inevitable. Much better to get it done and spend the time gained reading about your subject.

IME applicants who have a realistic chance of Oxbridge i.e. the sort who get called to interview all knock off their PS in a few days max. The long slow drawn out PS tends to be applicants to non-Oxbridge selecting universities like LSE. Then there are applicants to recruiting universities only who tend also to knock off their PS quite quickly 😉

Thanks so much to all for your input. This is what I love about MN, the chance to get to the real nitty-gritty of things and ask questions that you can't really ask anywhere else.

irregularegular - I actually meant the combination of subjects by the potential candidate. They are all STEM. I was wondering what percentage of successful candidates on PPE had all STEM A levels and no essay A levels. Is all STEM unusual amongst successful candidates? Always worth having a go, of course.

needmoresleep - I just agreed with you - nothing more, nothing less!! Was the errr directed at me?

As an aside, re FM, in our day you could be accepted on to eg Engineering at Oxford without FM if your single Maths was very strong (presumably evidenced by marks from those Maths papers you'd already sat - and plenty of people would have an adjusted mark of 100% on several if not all). However, the department caught those students up by teaching them what they'd need from the FM syllabus in one week before everyone else went up. Far better to take a year over it in sixth form!

And while I'm thinking about it, my matriculation (for languages) was dependent on my FM - I specifically asked the college about dropping it because hard Maths is hard and was told no.

I think FM is a pretty good indicator of Oxbridge suitability. That is, neither necessary nor sufficient, but indicative. From a completely unqualified perspective I would certainly recommend FM to anyone seriously looking at Oxbridge for anything remotely analytical.

Ugh. Science-analytical rather than textual-sources-analytical.

FM probably not vastly useful for historians!

OK, so rather encouraged to give a bit of obvious advice based on people who want a range of views. Just been out walking the dogs with DS. He said (he is at Oxford - not offered a place by LSE - rejected ) - think about the actual course and what happens when you get in , not just getting the place. This is so obvious as to be ludicrous , but DS looked at various courses and chose the ones he could see himself doing. That is not to say he did not take into account the reputation of the university , because he did , but he thought clearly (with the exception of LSE) whether what he had to offer was welcome. In the case of LSE he was (as he says himself ) a weaker applicant, it was one of five and he gave it a shot. It didn't work. At his school (generally decent advice on university admission ) E&M is "hard" - some idea of what management is about is required , not just thinking it is sounds like a good course to get a job.

In response to something in your aside MrsHathaway: is it really correct that plenty of people get full ums on all maths papers at AS? DS was really pleased (so was I) because it was extremely, extremely unexpected. He wasn't predicted a high grade until very recently (after the exams). Cambridge Family Guy said an applicant with full ums on each paper would stand out on an Economics application there (not that it would clinch an offer in itself of course). Perhaps he was being generous but I didn't realise it was so common.

He's not applying to Cambridge or for a maths related degree, so fortunately it doesn't matter hugely, except in terms of confidence.

bojorojo I don't know the figures. Admittedly the number of PPE students with all science and maths A-levels is probably quite small (I would guess it is slightly higher for EM). However, I think that is because we don't get many applicants with that profile, rather than their success rate being lower. We certainly wouldn't look at someone with those A-levels and rule them out. People can change their mind about what they are interested in between 16 and 18. That's OK.

goodbyestranger I think getting 100% UMS on maths paper is unusual but not as rate as hen's teeth, and how it would be viewed by a university will partly depend on the school context too. For example, my DC just got full UMS on 4 out of 6 papers at Maths A2. Now I view DC as a decent but not outstanding mathematician - never qualified for the Olympiad for example - so was very proud of the achievement. But assume there are therefore plenty of children getting full UMS on all papers. Well done to your DS!

Thanks WIOAIG - yes that's exactly me too: not just the working it out as I go but the being very pleased at what seemed a really good achievement from a decent mathematician and no Olympiads here either, in fact predicted a B until late July. As I say, quite a surprise. Very well done to your DS too, especially at A2 which is something else again I gather (none of my other DC have ever taken maths to A2). Is he going to do maths, or something maths related like Economics?

irregularegular. It could be that schools, especially the fee paying ones who have huge numbers apply to Oxford, have not had success in the past with STEM subjects for PPE, so advise these applicants to look elsewhere. Therefore PPE has fewer STEM applicants applying. Just may be a factor. I think a lot of schools think History ( or similar) in the mix would be good. When my DD applied for MFL she had to submit an essay. Difficult if you are not studying an essay subject.

In response to something in your aside MrsHathaway: is it really correct that plenty of people get full ums on all maths papers at AS?

Sorry, I should have been clearer: that was back in my day, which was the year before AS/A2 started.

Remember that UMS is normalised, so you don't need to get 100% on the paper to get full marks. For a horribly hard paper it might be half!

Thanks for that MrsH. Yes I've been careful to use the term full ums but 100 on each paper looked far prettier than some of the other marks my DC have had :)

bojo if you ask on MN what A2 subjects are good for Law, which I know a little more about than I do Economics, the advice is always history, english, RE type subjects whereas in fact STEM subjects are of enormous use in terms of the thinking skills acquired. Nevertheless the vast majority of applicants seem to have the former rather than the latter but I can't see that it affects suitability for the course one little bit, certainly not in the negative. Medics have to write weekly essays at Oxford and Cambridge too having frequently taken three sciences and maths, it's not a hard talent to revive.

A poster below (sorry, can't remember who) said cambridge pay very close attention to a s level grades. Does anyone know how it works now that some (many?) schools have ditched a ss? I realise maths still has as, but in those subjects that have gone linear some applicants won't be doing as at all? If you desperately want to go to cambridge should you be switching to a 6th form that does as?

Cambridge will be doing pretests now that ASs aren't generally done, so no, don't move at sixth form unless you want to.

goodbyestranger my DC (careful not to specify sex here as preserving privacy) is going to do a STEM subject but did momentarily consider Economics as is doing double maths and as the OP has learned on this thread that's a key enabler to that subject.

ciutadella this is all changed now - no need to switch schools as there is the new entrance exam for all on Nov 2nd which will be used to assess all candidates in the way A/S level grades did before. My DC did no A/S levels this summer so it's really all on that exam (though they do have the help of having done Maths A2 this summer instead). We're going full circle - back in my mother's day the only way in was the entrance exam.

Thanks working - aha, wonder if we will go back to the days of the offer of 2 e grades for cambridge? That certainly would be full circle!

Does it also advantage students whose schools can do lots of targeted preparation for the 2 nov exam? (I realise there have been pre tests anyway for aptitude so perhaps it doesn't change things so much!).

No schools can do lots of targeted preparation for the Cambridge tests this year Ciutadella - it should be a really interesting year.

Ah thanks goodbyestranger - is that because nobody really knows what the exam involves? By next year things may be different, I suppose....Is the new exam the response to schools dropping AS levels, I wonder?

Well they're not supposed to know what the new tests involve. I think this year is heralded as a halcyon year for Cambridge where even the best known independents will be on the back foot, at least relatively. Cambridge had to respond to the demise of A Levels. They did so initially by writing to all schools asking for support in campaigning against the proposal but now have to go in the same direction as Oxford, despite their former criticisms of GCSEs + pretests as a method of assessing applicants.

Stranger, surely it will be schools that teach to the test that will struggle. The beneficiaries should be either those pupils who have had a broader education, or those who have chosen to read beyond the syllabus on their own. I don't think everything can be described in pure state/private terms.

I'm assuming that you're drawing a distinction between state (test) and best independents there (broader) yourself though Needmoresleep. There's a strong argument for what you say I can see that, but Cambridge seems to be hoping for a more mixed intake in the initial year, not less.