Take a gap year and reapply to Oxbridge?

[tyngedyriaith]

DD has been rejected from Cambridge. People with far worse grades have gotten in. She's disappointed. She mentioned retrying next year if she exceeds the standard offer?

Is it worth it considering Welsh fees are going up next year?

Moi?! Honi soit qui mal y pense.

I never do data. Only observation. Why let facts get in the way of a decent anecdote.

Neuf is sembilan in bahasa and jiu in Manderin. Does this affect the chances for Asian students?

Ah, I see. You are not saying the stats are faked or misleading, but that the 9% figure covers a large group with subsets?

Absolutely, but no attention is drawn to this and it leads unsuspecting French applicants to greatly overestimate their chances and to invest too much time/energy/money/emotion in the process.

I do think it's misleading (not falsified).

But similar criticisms would apply to all the admissions data.

A kid who attended a private prep, followed by Winchester and a state sixth form college would appear in the statistics as a state school student. (But they most emphatically would not be treated the same as a kid who'd been to failing state schools all the way through their education.)

And virtually all applicants from many countries are from international schools, concealing the statistics for kids from regular state schools from those countries. I would say, for example, that the chance of a Greek kid from a regular Greek state school getting into Oxbridge is likely to be smaller than a French kid from a French state school. (Despite the fact that Greek secondary education as a whole is actually pretty high standard and Greece still produces a lot of scientists.)

user is right.

I know sometimes 17/18 year olds find it rough applying, and they can be naive, and that's not culpable. I certainly know students who believe all sorts of utterly implausible things that make them certain they will get in - or, equally certain they won't. I know of students who are sure that they got in because they impressed interviewers with their Etonian charm (when actually, interviewers breathed a sigh of relief at that one interview when the facade broke down), and I know of students who think they scraped in despite messing up badly, when they shone.

But I don't think you can reasonably say that the info is misleading, just because it contains subsets. If someone is genuinely shocked and unable to understand how that might be, do you not think that Higher Education probably isn't for them?

Thank you, user3615, for confirming my suspicions about the profile of international applicants. While this might seem blindingly obvious to you, it isn't to applicants and it fuels an unpleasant industry in applications consultancy.

There are Oxbridge applications agencies in the UK too who have done my family great service in topping up our free pen supply each July for nearly a decade. They seem to hang around on street corners at the July Open Day gullibly dishing out pens. They really are quite a reasonable quality - I recommend them.

No one is shocked, LRD. But the data that is published is misleading and it is used to great commercial effect by those agents and consultants who you, and I, quite rightly condemn.

That would be a great deal more convincing, bobo, if you hadn't let slip that you are credulous enough to imagine Oxbridge is engaged in a massive institutional conspiracy to take revenge on Etonians for Brexit.

Yes, it's annoying when people exploit candidates' worries instead of directing them to the Admissions Office.

So try directing them to the Admissions Office.

But it is the admissions office, LRD, that is publishing this misleading data and, crucially, not enlightening applicants when they make further enquiries.

FGS. It's really not misleading.

What sort of information would you want Admissions to give? There's a heck of a lot on the website, which anyone can find at the click of a mouse.

Of course, one would need to understand that statistics for successful applicants aren't the same thing as the 'probability' of an individual getting in, but anyone who's reasonably intelligent would understand that.

There isn't really anything to enlighten these students about though, is there? I think you find it a bigger deal than it actually is, and that no doubt increases your allure to the parents of French students seeking your advice. But beyond telling them how incredibly difficult it is to get an offer from Oxford or Cambridge, I don't really see what you do to help these students, which the Admissions Offices/ websites/ Open Days couldn't do better?

Cross post with LRD. Agree - not misleading. Storm in a teacup really.

I wonder if this is a bit like the people who bring 'probability' into it because they imagine you can game the system by choosing to apply to a college that gets a lower-than-average number of applications.

If the system worked like that, there would be an element of probability (as opposed to selection) in there. But it doesn't (colleges work together to make sure you can't be advantaged or disadvantaged by your choice of college).

In the same way, I can fully believe that, of the larger group you list a few posts up, some subgroups will have an internal statistic of more than 9% successful candidates, and some lower. One very obvious reason for this - and it's on the admissions website for Cambridge, as for all other UK universities - is that there's an English language requirement. And some of your subsets are more likely to include lots of students who pass that than others.

This does not mean either that the statistic is misleading, or that it ought to be terribly difficult to weigh up your own individual chances.

It is not fair to scaremonger, or cast doubt on the transparency of admissions, unless you've very good reason.

There are relatively small numbers of international applicants. The data cannot be broken down into smaller subsets as (i) it would very likely uniquely identify some students and (ii) it would take far too much time and (iii) it really wouldn't give more useful information than already exists or can be obtained from admissions tutors directly.

goodbyestranger - as I have said repeatedly, I have never volunteered to give anyone any sort of advice, though it seems quite reasonable to answer people's questions when they have availed themselves of publicly available sources of information and failed to get an adequate answer that allows them to move forward in the process.

True. I would never presume to give anyone advice, but when my students are really struggling, they've checked all the public info and still can't figure it out, I definitely urge them to presume it's all a secret plot about Brexit. Cos really, why wouldn't you?

user3615 - the crucial piece of information for applicants is the % coming from national education systems versus international schools and their relative success rates. If that information were made clear it would already be a massive improvement.

Bobo they move forward in the process by filling in the UCAS form, doing any pre-test and showing up for interview if called. Knowing how many other people get in from a particular school or type of school doesn't help then 'move forward in the process'. You are mystifying the process because it suits you to do so and presumably gives you cachet of some sort, but it's not in any way helpful to the students.

Personally I think I would be paying most attention to the impact on my daughter if she got rejected a second time after taking a year out. And the odds of that happening are presumably quite high (regardless of whether they are higher or lower than first time round). If it was difficult to take rejection the first time, imagine how painful it must be the second time, if you have held your life back for a year for the sole purpose of reapplying. If you have other good reasons to take a year out and the chance to reapply is a side-benefit, then it might not be so bad.

goodbyestranger - it is precisely because I get absolutely nothing out of being asked the same questions again and again that I think it would be nice for the information people seek to be publicly available. If I got something out of it my interest would be in the continuing of economy of the truth!

Yes, and I think there must be a very fine line between making a child feel it's ok to reapply, and you'll support them in what they want to do, and inadvertently making them feel you're claiming to support them in that option because you actually feel they failed and want them to do better. Which is awful, and I can't imagine there's an easy way to negotiate it.

I think the 'you could always apply for the MPhil ...' advice brings some of the same problems.

The Student Room has many many European posters. Particularly on threads covering popular and competitive courses. It is far from unusual to see reminders not to post in French.

Obviously, and like MN, not all the information is accurate. However it does not take much persistence to get to a position where you are as well informed as a good British applicant. And with an understanding how difficult it can be to gain a place.

I don't really understand why a particular sub-set of French students consider themselves entitled to a place, when informed British students accept it takes both a strong application and a fair wind. And that this is because of some sort of Etonian/Brexit plot.

Bobochic
Im still at a loss over why you suggest Brexit would affect oxbridge admissions for Etonians. You never said. Others have very clearly explained how impossible it would be for this to be the case.

Admit it, you're wrong.