Uni offers for 2017 start

[Carriemac]

Could we have a handholding thread? I have two DCs going through UCSS at the moment, would love to obsess here so I can appear calm on the outside.
LNAT results go to the UNIs tomorrow I think, so offers could be rolling in soon for DD who has applied for law.

As I have written on another thread, I know DCs from highly academic schools who received offers of 4 As even when standard offer was AAA, and equally know DCs from state school who were offered AAA for the same course.

That level of variation is unusual, though. It's very unusual to make an offer of four A stars for a course with typical offer A star AA, even to a pupil from a top school like Westminster. It's unusual for Cambridge to drop a grade below the typical offer, even for low performing state schools/difficult circumstances. It would be more normal to make the typical offer but then be more lenient in August about one dropped grade.

We shall see with my two. I think one of them may actually be getting their UCAS form in today. I helped hm route out music exam grades and D of E dates last night. I paid last night for one. The other is still obtaining comments from a teacher. I would have got it all over and done with a lot earlier.

They mentioned a friend at school by the way has an unconditional offer from Nottingham University (not sure what the subject is).

DD has unconditional offers from Nottingham and Birmigham. Not uncommon in her subject (s).

They look at GCSEs and predicted A level grades ( well when I say 'they' I suspect it's a PC). Birmingham even have a facility on their website for you to check if you're likely to get an offer and when DD input her details it told her she would probably get an unconditional. This was before she even put her form in!

Wow. That must be comforting although I did remind one of mine last night that your A level grades are still vitally important for some careers. My lawyer daughter still has to fill all hers in with every job application. So if my children get unconditional offers I hope it doesn't make them slack off and get bad grades.

User 1571 - you say that Oxford behave badly about interviews, which are about six weeks away now. On their website there are already dates and times as to when students for each course will be expected to arrive and leave. Do you think these are inaccurate then? (It does say the maths applicants will need to be there overnight for three nights which seems odd, but the other courses are much tighter "windows").

That's great about the unconditional from b'ham. Ds used that offer calculator and was told he'd probably get an unconditional for one subject because he got an a* in it at GCSE but they don't do it for the subject he decided to study.
Still no offers here except for the insurance choice.

Oxford do not tell you exactly how many interviews you are going to get and what their times will be before you arrive. Clearcut cases will often get fewer interviews, and finish long before the leave time. Marginal cases will often get extra interviews at other colleges. On the one hand, this allows their cases to be considered in more depth (good). On the other hand, for many students it is very stressful to not know beforehand exactly the interview schedule (bad).

As an academic, I would rather trust the judgement of my colleagues at other colleges than have students do extra interviews. Imo this interview procedure is biased in favour of students who can handle interview stress and pressure. (Oxbridge is stressful so it is reasonable to see that students can handle pressure but should we really subject kids of 17 to an interview regime that would put off many highly skilled and capable adults? Is this really the way to widen access and reduce gender inequality?)

The unconditional are nice to have in the background, particularly as DD's actual grades are unlikely to be stellar if she takes the exams at all.

Would an unconditional include no A levels? I haven't looked at the detail TBH.

Similarly any offers made by US colleges are likely not to rest on A level results. And RADA don't give a stuff.

user3615 there are a number of subjects at Oxford where you know exactly what their leave time is. Medicine for instance. Indeed the sciences in general are far tidier on that front, as you'd expect. For those subjects where 'pooling' takes place, I think you're being slightly hyperbolic about the effects the process has on students - it really isn't that bad in fact plenty of interviewees thoroughly enjoy the process/ missing school/ Christmas shopping etc. You might prefer to rely on colleagues' opinion rather than see a prospective student yourself, but that's merely one opinion - others prefer to be able to select the students they'll be teaching personally for the next three to four years.

Admittedly the inability to book trains in advance is a pain, but for those who need financial help with an open ticket, the 16-19 Bursary at their school should have sufficient funds to help.

I think you're being slightly hyperbolic about the effects the process has on students - it really isn't that bad in fact plenty of interviewees thoroughly enjoy the process/ missing school/ Christmas shopping etc.

You do know that they have been criticised in widening access reports about the effects of their process, with data based on debriefings with students several months after the interviews?

I'm sure the process is fine for the people you know (inc kids from a superselective grammar, siblings at Oxford, etc). It's not OK for kids from deprived backgrounds who were reluctant to apply to Oxbridge in the first place. It's not OK for kids with SEN. We do need to look at how we can improve, rather than stand still and defend the status quo.

BTW my understanding is that the 16-19 Bursary funds are now so stretched that financial help with open tickets is often not available. I know that my (rich) college is being asked to take up the slack and make more funds available for helping with interview expenses.

I thought that as an academic you would know not to make sweeping assumptions. I am not generalizing from the particular and sarky comments about my own children are unnecessary.

Yes, I am aware of these reports about access but you were very general in your comments and as far as financial help for tickets goes, the 16-19 Bursary funding should actually meet the cost. No doubt some colleges are asked for help too but help should be available from the school direction. If you know the criteria and who is allocated what then you'll see why.

Incidentally one of my children is deaf and the college couldn't have been readier to help during the interview process.

(They followed that up once she got an offer by suggesting she had a ground floor room with a red flashing light which would trigger whenever a fire alarm went off on site. She felt that one might be one to avoid....).

The three day process slightly freaked out my otherwise calm older dd and she found it a bit overwhelming. I think it was the waiting that got to her. However the interviewers were lovely and as she likes continuous assessment so it wasn't right for her. She ended up somewhere more suited to the way she works. Someone did get in from her school recently with grades of ABB.

It was a good thing to have done though as there have been massive side benefits in that she will now happily attend job interviews as she says that having done an Oxford interview she can do anything.

If dd3 gets through the exam stage I expect the same thing will happen to her but it is going to be good for conquering shyness. I'm a bit of a convert now I know that there are still benefits in failing to get in.

I'm not an academic but I would have thought the process of sending candidates to other colleges, which if I understand properly, is an attempt to make sure the university gets the best candidates overall even if e.g. in one year a specific college gets a disproportionate number of good candidates and another far fewer, outweighs any extra stress students may feel from not having a completely set timetable for the few days. I would have thought (only my opinion) the bulk of the stress comes from being there at all and the anticipation of the interviews. If I remember rightly, DS said there were lots of student helpers falling over themselves to help interviewees make sure they were where they needed to be at the right time.

Yes - being there, waiting for the interviews and listening to stories of horrific interviews as people come out. The staff and helpers were great.

Or Littleho , perhaps worse, listening to stories of how swimmingly the interview went as people come out .

There should be a trapdoor in the interview room for those people.

One that leads to a shark infested pool unless you agree to accept a place at a university run by Michael Gove ?

Admittedly the inability to book trains in advance is a pain, but for those who need financial help with an open ticket, the 16-19 Bursary at their school should have sufficient funds to help. Not in all areas and certainly not in Scotland.

If DS gets an offer of an interview, he faces 12 hours on the train to London, and then across London and then the train to Oxford. Travel is very, very expensive. We can afford it (just) but it is an issue for many pupils from far flung areas. A normal Open return, even with a railcard, is very expensive.

I can see why it is done the way it is done and DS FWIW copes very well with stress. However, the late notice will make the ticket much more expensive than it needs to be. I appreciate that timings are based on deadlines, time to mark HAT tests etc. However, it is £££.

...trying to restrain self on this issue of students being too scared to do interviews ... there are plenty of good children from state schools who can cope with the pressure so precious weak things who cannot cope with interviews surely are just the sort we don't want at university anyway so making the process a bit hard like we make exams hard is a really good filter - bring it on.... Or should we make it dead easy for everyone?

Roseformeplease I regularly buy tickets to and from Scotland to Oxford for my DC. I'd say that since the interview dates have been out for months, it would be have been worth getting one of the advance tickets from Glasgow or Edinburgh based on the outside dates. The colleges will always put up a candidate for the extra night in that sort of situation. I'm able to book tickets for a very modest price indeed provided I book well ahead, which would be possible here.

Me2017 yes I agree. My children vary a lot in character but even the shyer ones found the interviews doable, and none of them had more than a single practice interview at school, which didn't mirror the real thing at all, so it's not as though they were or felt well prepared.

Don't see a problem with shyness and interview nerves. Not everyone is an extrovert.

weak things who cannot cope with interviews surely are just the sort we don't want at university

Anxiety. Depression. High functioning autism. All reasons for finding interviews particularly difficult. Nothing to do with innate ability, intelligence, potential. Some of the most brilliant scientists in history would fail modern day Oxbridge interview hurdles through high functioning autism.

In the past the UK has rejected such students from top level courses because of their difficulties. Should we continue to do so, or look at how to improve interview procedures to help such candidates? It's fairly straightforward to support students with SEN such as deafness or physical disabilities. It's much more subtle to support students with SEN that affect their abilities to communicate in unfamiliar situations. It's even harder to support such students when they don't declare SEN and perhaps don't know they have them.

'Just the sort we don't want at university' ummm... I was fine at redbrick and Imperial inteviews but (back in the day when there wasn't much info and my school did zilch interview prep) I found the Cambridge interviews totally intimidating. I didn't feel I 'belonged' there, rabbit in headlights. I know now, having got a First and PhD without too much bother, that I'd have been fine.

Being discombobulated by interviews has very little to do with academic potential and achievement.