Oxbridge - how best to go about this?

[GoodyGoodyGumdrops]

Ds (Y11 at a decent comprehensive) has his sights set on Oxbridge.

How best to support him?

How best to maximise his chances?

I would be interested to know what sort of school Crumbs' dc went to and if that could have been taken into account when giving high offers.
I mean, plenty of schools won't let you do 10 GCSEs anyway so if candidates without 10 A*s were excluded a lot of kids wouldn't even get to the starting blocks.

Here's a thing. You apply to specific colleges. So you may find it's really hard to get into trinity hall for geography, but hardly any competition to get into, say, maudlin for the same subject.

As atia says, it doesn't work like this. Colleges are required to communicate so that no candidate can be disadvantaged (or advantaged) by his or her choice of college.

So, you might find that one colleague has ten places, but only accepts 3 of the students who apply to them, taking the rest from the pool, because numbers 4-10 of their applicants were just not as good as candidates already pooled from elsewhere.

crumbs, you really don't need extracurriculars. And extrapolating from an experience of a child who's got in isn't as useful as reading what the university actually says.

Cross post.

countess, they would have information on how many GCSEs students at x or y school take, and would know which students didn't have the chance to take 10. It'd come into play when choosing between two equally-qualified, equally impressive candidates from similar schools, not when comparing a student who had the chance to take 10A*s with one who was only able to take 9.

(I think you probably know that, but ...)

Why are open applications not more popular?

Because I think that those who have visited / researched find a college they have some affinity with. Those who are wise know that they may be invited to another college & if successful end up somewhere else ( I think about 30% - is that right from those who know? ) Certainly at least on of DS's friends ended up with an offer other than the college he applied to. Very happy there.

Have a look at www.uniq.ox.ac.uk/ - summer schools for Oxford hopefuls. Really hard to get into, but very useful if you manage it in terms of understanding what's required in your application and what Oxford is all about. Uniq is aimed at state school pupils only and take from "low socio-economic backgrounds". But most of all I think it's about your love of the subject - that has to absolutely shine through in the personal statement.

Crumbs1 you say your youngest declined an offer but have your older DC accepted an offer to either Oxford or Cambridge? I only ask because I have no tips for the OP myself but your own advice is wrong.

UNIQ - is this £3000 thereabouts and just in a few subjects?

Steer him away from English & PPE - HUGE numbers of applicants. One of the reasons private schools send more people to Oxbridge than state schools do is because of the better advice. If you check on the Oxford admissions pages there is a long doc somewhere with all the stars for each course and some have a 50% acceptance rate.

Surely the best advice is to study a subject you really like, whether that's English, PPE or whatever.

I'm actually a bit surprised at his interest in Oxford. Until half term he was talking about Warwick for his subjects (Maths/Computing). I suggested he look at Cambridge, too.

It feels so wrong for a 15yo to be making these decisions already!

He's not making firm decisions though, he's keeping his options open.
Understanding that his future ability to go to his university of choice depends on his working his socks off for his GCSEs is no bad thing, and nothing he does to work towards Oxbridge will limit his options for any other university.

Warwick is lovely for maths too. But it's good to think about Oxbridge. And they're quite similar in terms of reputation for that subject. He might also want to look at LSE (though I know living in London isn't for everyone).

Arggh. Maths is a minefield!!

Most University subjects make decisions based on A Levels (or equivalents). For Maths, some places throw in an extra hurdle called STEP. It is not unknown for very able Mathematicians to get fantastic grades in GCSE and A Level in Maths, additional Maths, Further Maths, Statistics (etc, etc), get an offer of a place at a very prestigious University ... and then fall at this final hurdle.
When making the five UCAS choices make sure you have a mix of STEP and non-STEP.

Any state school pupil with a good smattering of A* at GCSE has a chance of a place at a UNIQ summer school. Yes, they give priority to lower income families but they usually will have spaces to take pupils from other backgrounds who have strong academics & applications

Voilets -UNIQ - is this £3000 thereabouts and just in a few subjects?

Hope everything was paid for including travel. DD did oncology and got experience of lab work and about 4 free books, a couple of which could be useful to her dental applications. And nearly all those that she got to know staying in the college have secured interviews.

That should be Nope everything was paid for

UNIQ pay for everything - travel, vouchers for lunch, books to be read, etc. It used to be paid for by a grant from somewhere or other, but when that finished the university took it over. There are Oxford/Cambridge summer schools advertised which are hugely expensive, and places are only dependent on your ability to pay! I'm not sure many admissions tutors would be impressed by attendance at them, I'm afraid

Also, you don't have to have a lower income, just live in a dodgy postcode Although most of the people dd met there were delightfully middle class (pushy buggers ).

When you say a dodgy postcode, do you mean properly dodgy, or based on the fact that most Oxbridge students these days are from the southeast does that mean perfectly average for the rest of the country, not posh, but probably hasn't seen an Oxbridge entrant in a decade?

All details here - www.uniq.ox.ac.uk/selection
I don't actually know enough about UNIQ attendees' postcodes to answer your question But someone above mentioned lower income, and they definitely don't ask your income, they use the Acorn and Polar data.

Oh, I have just looked it up - they are very transparent about the criteria. It seems it is the latter and my dc would qualify (though it will be a few years till they are old enough and the system will probably have changed by then).

Nope, ignore me, I got our postcode wrong by a digit. But we would only be one off in the Polar rating so it does seem likely there are mners who don't think they live in deprived areas but whose children would qualify.

We definitely do not live in a deprived area & pupils from my son's state school regularly get UNIQ places. Obv I don't know everyone's personal circumstances.

I'm sure it didn't use to say which quintiles they expected, just that they used the data. But now it specifies the 'bottom' two quintiles for Acorn and Polar - no idea how strict that is, perhaps they are trying to become more restrictive. They still have GCSE grades and the personal statement as the other two criteria so I guess there's always wiggle room if wanted.

Tutor doing admissions for an Oxbridge college here. Comments based on my subject (PPE) but probably generally applicable.

To reiterate a few things:

4 A-levels definitely not required, or even an advantage really.

10A* GCSEs also definitely not expected unless the applicant went to a top school, or even particularly a strong advantage once other factors are taken into account.

Extra-curricular is not important, except for specific subjects as mentioned.

Yes it is easier to get into some colleges than others. However, the system is now designed to ensure that which college you apply to does not affect your chance of getting a place somewhere in the university, just not necessarily at your first choice. There are reallocations at various stages. I believe that for PPE it works pretty well these days - it didn't in the past.

And as for phoning up a college that rejected you after your results have come in? Good luck with that...

As others have said, there is plenty of information available on university and college websites as well as open days etc so please rely on those rather than anecdotes.

Re the Sutton trust summer schools - my DD met 5 out of their 7 criteria and was unsuccessful. The rejection email said that the demand was so overwhelming that most successful candidates met all 7 criteria.

I'm bemused as to why someone would apply if they met none.