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?

Okay interesting. Thank you. Was asking anyone in the know! Do come with opinions.

We know more about Durham as have been and have by coincidence have subsequently met two people currently on their course. Pure Spanish student has to pick up another language so does German as beginner too - this will be judged as a considerable part of his degree. Joint honours candidate does French and History and highlighted that her language is at same standard as all other MFL students because they need to divide between two subjects. So from students on course - it seems it is not a singular honours subject. I will have to check with Durham. She, my DD likes the course because of emphasis on cultures.

Oxford , we know very little about - so will go on a Languages day and see what we can glean.

Thanks for info.

Hi Horsemadmom,

I had been looking at this table but it did not make sense to me.

26% are accepted for History but only 12% with joint honours for Spanish and History for example. Why I wonder - do History prefer single honours?

and it says they had 17 applicants for an MFL and History. Surely not. What does 17 represent? The numbers all seem very small to me. What am I missing?

Sorry novice to this.

Also Bojoro - despite all my typos on here - I tend to rush - am very sure English is not an MFL, I'm an English teacher!! Excuse the question mark in wrong place on previous post!

Can anyone explain the seemingly low numbers of applicants on Oxford's stats. tables?

I don't think there's any other explanation other than not many people apply - e.g. the 17 for History and Spanish of which 2 got in.

Possibly it's something to do with people applying to Oxford being hugely into their subjects, and it might be hard to demonstrate that passion and commitment to a language and to history?

Leeds offer loads of joint honours, I think they said that 70% of their students were doing joint honours. If she has decent grades predicted, I'm sure she will get an offer for mfl and history from any non Oxbridge uni.

Oh hang on, I was only looking at the first column which is female. There are males too applying. Altogether, 87 people applied for History and MFL, and 18 of them got in. Way higher rate for boys than girls.

History with German or Russian were more successful though. It really depends on whether you wish to study a popular MFL (French and Spanish are widely taught in state schools) or a less popular one. Again, fewer people may get in with a particular combination because they are not so good at the history or the mfl. We will never know! It may be that the better History candidates opted for single honours History. If the History/Spanish applicants were not outstanding, did the admissions tutors and interviewers believe they could do two demanding subjects? It is possible they thought not. Although about 25% of History applicants are successful, there are very many students applying. So lots are disappointed. I am not sure anyone would be disappointed with doing a degree in Spanish at Oxford.

Regarding Durham. You do not have to do a second language with Hispanic Studies. You can elect to do German as part of the degree if you want Joint Honours but I cannot see where another language is compulsory. Look at the Modules for the Hispanic Studies degree.

Joint honours means just that. The same degree of competence for both in the best universities. If you are ab initio for a MFL at the start, you must be the same standard as everyone else by the end of Y4.

Dd's doing an ab initio MFL - in their second year they join the post-A level freshers, plus get one extra hour a week support - so basically nothing to A level in a year. Then they're advised to spend longer in their ab initio country in their third year abroad, and then as bojo says, same as everyone else in your fourth year. She's a term in and so far loving it, thank goodness - it's definitely a steep learning curve!

All interesting.

Now, I vaguely remember a thread about choosing a college. Can anyone remember what it was called?

or would people share knowledge about colleges on here? What are the differences?

old vs new (or combo of styles)
big vs small
central vs further away
live in all years vs live out for part of your degree

Probably important not to fixate on any one college given the prospect for re-allocation pre-interview or pooling during the process, although I can't see the attraction of an open application myself - why cede all control to chance?

Weaker colleges don't take weak candidates who applied directly rather than wait for pooled candidates from Trinity.

On my own DCs experience I beg to differ.He is definitely no mathematical genius.he went a relatively unpopular college, they gave him an easy time at interview compared to the big name colleges. People much stronger than him got pooled and not fished, and the big name colleges make higher offers too.

search the forums and you'll find lots about maths at Cambridge. The standard is extremely high, more offers are made than for other subjects and it's left to STEP to select people. The reason Warwick has such an excellent reputation for Maths is that it is often the backup for those who miss a Cambridge offer.

In addition to subject days Cambridge offers a shadowing scheme www.applytocambridge.com/shadowing/apply/ My child has been shadowed and while some make more effort than others to see shadows have a good time anyone who isnt being looked after may be temporarily adopted by another Cambridge family.

Very few students dropout completely at Cambridge. There was at least one person in my child's year/college repeating a year and both they and their parents were lyrical about the support offered. I did get the impression that some of the other colleges were less supportive of students.

The jump from school to university is a particular problem for maths students and is said to be worse initially for students from state school. From my child's experience I'd say that apart from maths it was probably private school students who found the transition harder at first. In all subjects it seems to even out later on.

There is help in preparing for STEP here www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/step/preparing-for-step/

But what are the names of the most popular colleges?

And those less popular?

You can look at the stats college by college to see which are most heavily oversubscribed. It would be daft of us to start guessing.

www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate/additional-info/college-success-rates?wssl=1

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics

If you haven't already found them.

It really must vary year by year though - 3 years ago when my dd was thinking about applying, the most recent stats showed my old college was one of the most oversubscribed. These later stats show it's back to being average. So perhaps publishing these statistics has a balancing effect.

On my own DCs experience I beg to differ.

One example obviously overrides the admissions data and another poster's 20 years of experience.

The big name colleges do not on average make higher offers for maths. The admissions data makes this clear. The fairly standard offer for maths is two STEP 1s (plus A level grades). It is unusual to get offers not asking for this, from any college. Occasionally students are asked to get higher STEP grades (one S), if they come from top schools which support with Olympiads/STEP. Such students are more likely to apply for the old colleges. Similarly occasionally students are asked to get lower STEP grades because of very poor school teaching but such students are more likely to have applied for the newer/lower ranked colleges. But any particular student is likely to get the same offer from any college i.e. they would get the same slight increase or decrease regardless of college.

Is that true of Trinity? Observation is that really good mathematicians - National team types, try for Trinity, and if they narrowly miss the (high) STEP requirements, get picked up in the summer pool by other colleges.

(And from memory Trinity was the only college requiring STEP for economics - enough to put off those not absolutely secure in their maths.)

I know of two candidates, both applying for Maths from the same school but at different Cambridge Colleges, with identical GCSE and very similar high AS UMS grades, but who were given different A Level offers. I also know of a third who applied to a top name college for Maths who was given a two S offer. Had he applied to a different college, it is unlikely he would have been given such a high offer, so in a sense it is possible to 'game' the system by not applying to the 'top' colleges. At Oxford every candidate is given the same offer for the same subject which to me seems a more transparent system.

The usual offer for Trinity Maths is two STEP 1. MN and Student Room seem to pick out unusual cases in which the STEP offers are higher.

A level offers are pretty insignificant for Cambridge Maths. They do vary a bit but they are rarely the deciding factor - candidates miss their STEP grades, not their A level grades. So, while asking for > 2 A stars in particular subjects sounds harsh, in reality the candidates rarely miss this part of their offer.

I shrug my shoulders. If you think you can game the system with college choice, OK, try it. With several decades of experience, having watched generations of students come through, I don't agree.

Not much fun for the candidate with the unusually high offer however and no way of predicting whether you will be the unlucky one! Given how much pressure candidates are under to achieve their STEP offers, adding unpredictable differential offers into the mix, seems to ramp it up further. Surely if two 1s are good enough for the majority of colleges, certain colleges shouldn't need to impose higher requirements on certain candidates?

'Twas only asking. There seems to be a perception that, as far as maths is concerned, Trinity is the place for the really talented.

In terms of super-high offers, word tends to spread around London day schools, so they are probably rarer than they may seem. Imperial also seems to give variable offers.

Surely if two 1s are good enough for the majority of colleges, certain colleges shouldn't need to impose higher requirements on certain candidates?

On the other hand, some people would argue that it is not fair to ask the same STEP grades from a student coming from a low achieving state school and a student from e.g. Westminster (where the student gets lots of support in preparing for STEP). The evidence suggests that the help given by private schools doesn't make significant difference, but undoubtedly students from the top London schools do have huge advantages, so why not ask them for higher grades?

And instead of worrying about the differentiated STEP grades required, why not complain about the whole system i.e filtering on STEP in August rather than giving fewer offers in January? (Although again the evidence suggests that filtering by STEP is actually more accurate at selecting the right candidates than Oxford's system of filtering by MAT in the Autumn and interview. The latter tends to disfavour students from non-selective schools and misses quite a few very strong students.)

If help given by private schools doesn't make a significant difference (and I suspect that at STEP level it is down to an applicant's innate Maths talent as well as maturity in being able to direct their own learning in preparing to sit for STEP papers rather than external preparation) I can't see what is gained by giving higher offers. Also, when you have two near-identical candidates from the same school applying to similar level colleges and being given different offers, it seems to me arbitrary. I guess for me the more clarity, the better.