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?

Don't know where you live Lobster but google 'classics summer school' - lots of places offer intensive courses i.e. UCL in London does this. Not sure how expensive / whether there is financial help available but worth a look?

Sorry, it's not my subject so I don't know that my advice is worth much. I would think they'd love her, though, because it's always great teaching students who're motivated to try something new.

I don't know if she knows which she's interested in, but there are FAQ for Cambridge (sorry, this may be dead obvious and she may have found them): www.classics.cam.ac.uk/prospective/undergraduate/faq#5

Broadly - again with the caveat it's not my subject - I think they will be more interested in how she thinks and what's motivating her, than in how much she knows. If she can demonstrate she's an independent person who's made an effort to pursue her own interests, that's always going to be impressive.

In case it is of any interest my daughter is studying Human Social and Political Sciences - where there are options to study Archaelogy and History.

More information here. www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/human-social-and-political-sciences

If she is at a state school, then an application for Classics will put her in a relatively strong position, because despite a recent expansion of Latin teaching in the state sector, it remains a more unusual choice of subject outside private schools, and therefore has struggled to achieve the same widening participation. But as LRD says, she will need to demonstrate why she would be a good candidate. It's not a free pass.

Do also have a look at the Oxford courses. And of course elsewhere. What LRD says is so true, I know of several young people who have gone to HEIs and then said eg " but I prefer applied to pure maths, I don't like this". Why did you choose Cambridge then taking up a place someone else would have wanted?

Also decide whether she prefers campus or collegiate universities. DS likes collegiate ones, though there was one campus one that is so good in his field he'd have been mad not to apply.

Orlanda's point is a good one.

However, my daughter hadn't initially been 100% sold on the Human Social and Political Sciences course. Her other four applications were for 'straight' Political and International Relations courses. (An excellent Politics teacher at her school.) She'd been encouraged by her school to think of Oxford or Cambridge - good AS levels - and I didn't discourage it. After all there were 4 other spaces on her form,. Also even if she got offered a place and didn't want it, she could decline it.

After her first year she' realised that some of the modules she had to study in Politics and in International Relations didn't really inspire/excite her. But that she was fascinated by Anthropology which she'd only opted to do because she had to take other modules than Politics and IR - and thought it hadn't sounded too bad.

Some people know - or think they want to know - exactly what their areas of interest are at 16 and 17. But others are very much continuing to evolve, and degree courses where there is a certain amount of flexibility (room to grow) can work out well.

I tend to think life is not just planning but also about seeing what gets chucked at you - and doing your best to respond to that..

Thank you all for your replies, I feel very privileged to be able to ask advice from so many people with so much experience.
We don't really know anybody who has ever been to Oxford or Cambridge so it's all a bit daunting.

DD's plan is as follows:
She has asked her mfl teacher if the school will enter her as an external candidate for GCSE Latin. It isn't taught at her school but one of her teachers has taught it previously and has agreed to a few hours tuition which along with dd's independent study should get her to the right level in time.
She has applied for every Latin/Greek/Classics summer school and taster course she could find!
She did some volunteering at our (very local, very tiny) museum as part of her DofE last year and has emailed her contact there to ask if she can have more work experience.
What else would you suggest she needs to do?

She's has a careful look at the course contents and her favourite seems to be Oxford at the moment.
Oxford and Cambridge run a joint Subject open day in March which she has applied to so will use that to make a final choice.

The thing really baffling her at the moment is looking at Colleges - how on earth does she choose?

Have a look at their dons/Fellows. Look them up on the internet. If, for example, they've recently published a book on Socrates and she thinks Socrates is brilliant, then it might be the place for her. ( but don't bullshit in the interview..) if they have no classics fellows at all, perhaps it's not the right place as they may not be v interested in the classics.

After that, it's a question of does she want to be in the centre of town or does she mind cycling, does she prefer modern accommodation or would she like nineteenth century romantic inconvenience, does the college offer three years accommodation and if so would she like that, is there one that particularly sings to her interests, and is there one she thinks would be magic? Don't fall in love irretrievably, she might find herself somewhere else. If you can't visit, many offer virtual tours these days.

And although they complain about it, actually eith the exception of Girton in Cambridge nowhere is very far out: LMH, Somerville and St, Hilda's are all just a bike ride.

Hi again Lobster.
The college choice thing really shouldn't daunt her too much although it does seem daunting at first sight I agree!
She should have a good look at the info on the University website - and the individual college websites- and go to one of the University Open days and have a good look around at as many she liked the sound / look of as possible.

• does college offer her subject
• does she like the idea of small / big
• ancient or more modern
• central (threat of constant tourists) or a little further out
• can she lives in college every year or do 2nd years live out?

My dc both found it easy to shortlist and then easy to choose - they liked the feel when they looked round.

There's always the choice of making an open application - the University allocates you to a college and lots of people do this. It's also good not to have your heart completely set on a particular college as the way decisions are made at both O and C mean you can be "pooled" and end up offered a place at a different college. The idea is that college choice shouldn't affect the chance of an offer of a place...

HAHA.

Bloody autocorrect. HTH not HAHA!

Oh and massive thanks Lobster for the very welcome and timely steer of the thread into fresh waters

Newnham has Mary Beard! Although shares her knowledge with all Classics students.

The richer the college, the cheaper for the individual student in general. But there's loads more to it. Don't let her get too tied in knots. The open application is new since my day and I think it's a great idea.

Find out about cost and quality of accommodation. Additional financial help available both to low income students, but also to all students in the form of book/travel/computer/vacation grants. It varies more than you might think and it does make a difference.

Bear in mind that (depending on which subject and college you apply to) there is a good and increasing chance that you will be reallocated to a different college at some stage in the process anyway.

At Oxford, decide whether you want to rule yourself out of Permanent Private Halls or not (there is a tick box).

Lobster

I can thoroughly recommend the summer schools ru by JACT. Great fun (apparently ) and they cater for all abilities. Link here.

Oh yes. Many happy memories of my JACT summer school. Including a private tour of the Roman baths in Bath by the then-director and plenty of trips to pubs .

And we were the only state school students on ours. I met quite a few of my fellow summer schoolers again at Cambridge.

The Times Good University guide (which is pretty useful when thinking about uni courses in general) has a bit about each oxbridge college, it might be a useful initial read. But as giddy says.... my DD chose a college based on reading enough to shortlist a few and look round at open day ... decided she definitely wouldn't want an all womens' ... and then performed a remarkably quick 180 degree turnaround when she was pooled to Murray Edwards.

With my daughter is was a bit casual.

She was putting the form together and asked for advice. I Googled the university and the subject. A particular college came up. I looked up the college and found that a very positive adjective was frequently applied to it. On the college's website, there were - I think - some favourable things written about the Director of Studies. It also seemed to be a college that had a good reputation in that subject. Also it wasn't a place that had a hugely 'hearty' and/or 'right wing' reputation. It had been one of the first batch of colleges to go mixed back in the day. So I said 'How about X?' And my daughter said, 'Oh I'd thought about X too.' I think neither of spent more than an hour or so on the process.

I am not necessarily recommending being quite so quick and casual. Merely saying that it doesn't have to involve years of agonising. Plus the pooling thing means that the one you apply to isn't always the one where you end up if you end up anywhere.

I've read this whole thread with increasing delight. The icing on the cake was realising who Bobochic is! It's been so long, and curiously empty without your singular pensees.

Methinks she has une pomme frite sur l'epaule...

une seulement? Je crois qu'elle a une grande portion de poisson et frites.

Glad you were delighted Hully!

I applied to my college based on a famous alumnus that I had a crush on. And I wasn't the only one.

Sorry to derail again, thank you all for your replies - it's a relief to learn that choosing a College is less a million spreadsheets/study the stats/make or break and more go with your gut. That takes the pressure right off (for that decision anyway!)

My next question is about the change in A levels.
School's advice to most dc was to still start 4, then choose one to take as AS at the end of yr12 and continue 3 to A2. (A lot of local 6th forms and colleges this year were scrapping AS completely and only letting dc start 3 in yr12)

Dd is doing Maths, English, French and History.
Currently Predicted A in English, A stars in the rest (backed up by results of mocks taken just after Christmas)

She could probably just about manage to continue with all 4 (school have said she can if she wants to) but would obviously be more comfortable if she only had 3 to A2.

So what are the benefits realistically of 4 rather than 3?
Would it be enough of a benefit to outweigh the extra work?

I know most offers are based on 3, but do a lot of dc do 4? Will she be at a disadvantage if she "cashes in" English Lit as an AS and continues with just 3 in yr13?

For what it's worth my daughter's school advised very strongly against carrying on with 4 subjects afetr AS levels - , on the grounds that it was a massive increase in work. Therefore easy to fall behind if you got sick - and having to spread one's time/energy around more, could affect the depth of learning and depress grades. Also if you started with 4 A2 subjects but dropped out of the 4th, the unfinished 4th would still be recorded on the form and make your application look worse.

However my daughter did Critical Thinking - just a bit of extra preparation. An alternative would be general studies. And an EPQ which is regarded as quite a good preparation for university type of study, evidence of independent learning.

So no huge benefits and some disadvantages, I'd have thought. Though I imagine different schools vary in the advice they dish out - and there is always someone with a story about how their child did 17 A-levels while also doing piano playing at Olympic level.