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?

need - resources and family come in because it's not always possible to earn your keep. If, for example, your family can't put you up any longer, or your family don't live somewhere in commuting distance of a job you can get. It's fine if your parents live near a city centre, or can fund you a car, or you've good public transport. Less good if your parents are unable to let you live rent-free or you'd need to move to a city to find a job.

It's true it's a bad idea to take the wrong course (which might, of course, be at Cambridge). But there's plenty in between jumping for a bad choice of course, and doing a gap year.

LRD, there are jobs outside London. DD has earned her keep in various places, a care home, a ski resort and she plans to move onto an American summer camp. None within commuting distance of our house, and whilst the pay is grim she has not asked for any top ups from us. She was at home when working on a market stall, and when washing dishes, but surely these are the sorts of jobs that are available in towns as well as cities.

(I accept that only the care home was specifically course relevant, but the other jobs have added to skills that will help her be a successful student, and if needed would have helped interview confidence. She says both gap year Oxbridge applicants who are working with her in the Alps got offers, so I guess difference experience whilst earning your keep cannot harm an application.)

Sorry, I don't know anything about the London job market - I've never lived there. Maybe you're mixing me up with another poster?

But it is a resourcing issue. DS has a place but has been offered deferred, which he didn't apply for, but we will manage. But I earn a reasonable wage (teacher) and DH works part time, which helps. But, child benefit will stop and we will have to feed him. There are lots of tourism related jobs here for summer but nothing between the end of October and Easter. We live a long way from anywhere and he is going to have to push hard to learn to drive and we are going to have to find money for a 2nd car, and insurance, so he can get to any job when we too are working.

He will manage and is relishing the prospect. He will read (Historian) and will travel a bit - UK mainly, perhaps Europe a bit. But, while we can afford to feed him and pay his electricity bill, we couldn't do that without 2 wages coming in.

But I teach plenty of pupils for whom a gap year would not be an easy prospect for their families.

As for re-applying. DS had decided not to, if he didn't get an offer. And he won't if he doesn't meet his offer. Otherwise, your whole life is aiming for one thing. There are lots of brilliant places to study and wonderful places to live. I failed Oxbridge and went elsewhere and then did post grad at Cambridge.

I think that some candidates do underperform in their first interviews ( not all interviewers put the candidates at ease and it can be off putting for candidates when they don't get any verbal guidance through the interview on how they are doing). The second time they are less likely to take it personally especially if they are more confident in their subject whether it is STEM. Also some students are academically single minding from a young age and put the work in that carries them through a difficult interview. Others only really start focussing on their subject quite late in the day and it shows IME even for the rather bright students in STEM subjects. Another year can help if they become very motivated, both for pretests and for speeding up in interviews. with the basics from sixth form.
Still only a minority will get a place second times as for first time.

LRD, sorry I misunderstood your post. I though you were saying that it was hard for potential Oxbridge recruits who did not live in or near cities to finance a gap year. So I was counter-arguing that you don't need to live in a city to get a residential job either in the UK or overseas. And that these sorts of jobs do help with confidence and maturity as well as being fun. (Especially when 60cm of snow has fallen in a day!)

Sure some gap year types will go travelling, but most I have heard of work.

Yes, I was pointing out that it is hard for many students to finance a gap year.

Many students do not live in towns, and it's not necessarily that easy to travel (for family reasons, for reasons of expense - how do you pay for flights before you've earned anything?).

Of course for many others it's no big deal, but that's where I came into this debate: pointing out that advice to treat Oxbridge entry as a two-year process must be specific to some candidates based on their situations, as it wouldn't be appropriate general advice.

In the old 'History Boys' days 'seventh term' applications especially for those doing the Oxford exam was very much associated with private school candidates. Perhaps the 'two year process' is a vestige from that.

Certainly maturity and learning from first round UCAS experiences can help make a better informed application but for those who have offers for other very good universities courses that would suit them very well it can be time wasting to hang around for a second chance. For those destined for a life in academia many Oxbridge graduates are advised to do PhDs at other universities as this helps widen experiences. The converse applies also. 'Oxbridge ability' is not confined to undergraduates especially now a days with the weight of applicant numbers.

On the other point I do know plenty of students who managed to find at least minimum wage jobs for the year with the express purpose of helping to fund their university maintenance.

I meant Oxbridge ability' is not confined to Oxbridge undergraduates especially now a days with the weight of applicant numbers.

What college and course did she apply for?

Depends on subject.
I read English at Cambridge, and got in on the strength of my interview. We didn't discuss school at all (I went to a horrible, dangerous comprehensive and mitched constantly). We just talked about books, because I spent all my time reading, writing and thinking about books, and that was what they were interested in. If your DD wants to reapply, let her spend a year studying her subject intensively, so she is ready to give a fantastic, totally uncoached interview. On the other hand, Oxbridge isn't the be and end all. For instance, Cardiff has the best Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies School in the UK. Warwick is probably best for Creative Writing.

I am not aware of any data in the public domain. The internal data is also obviously not definitive, as it is not known in every case that a candidate applied previously to the "other" place.

I have no issue with people referring to general trends they've noticed in, or their own experiences with, undergrad reapplications. That's really useful to anyone considering a second try.

But I don't think it's particularly helpful to say 'statistics show' and 'this isn't just anecdote', when it turns out the data isn't openly verifiable or even reliably collected for internal use. Both Oxford and Cambridge have released huge amounts of data about admissions. I would suggest any statistics not made publicly available are a) not considered sufficiently accurate, and/or b) risk giving an over-simplified impression of a more complicated situation.

Again - I have no issue with people discussing general trends or giving their opinion. And, if there are accurate statistics about reapplication success rates (specifically to Oxbridge: not just post-A-level applications), then it would be interesting to see them.

I would suggest any statistics not made publicly available are a) not considered sufficiently accurate, and/or b) risk giving an over-simplified impression of a more complicated situation.

Or (c) would involve too much effort to process for the benefit that it would give. This doesn't mean to say that there isn't reliable internal data. (A mathematician does not say "statistics show" without being convinced of reliability.) There may even be publicly available data - sometimes MN point to data responding to FOI requests that I wasn't aware was in the public domain. But I don't have the time to search for it. If people are interested and think that data is relevant, they should search.

I would suggest that it would probably be more sensible for rejected applicants to look at feedback, reflect on individual circumstances and consider whether and how an extra year would improve performance in the selection process, than look at abstract data on re-application statistics. Any publicly released data is unlikely to be broken down too by college/subject as individual candidates would be too identifiable.

I would also think there might be issues with confidentiality? I don't know. But the numbers who reapply are quite small, aren't they, especially when you take into account the fact interviews are doing by individual colleges. It would be awful to publish data that would let everyone else in your college realise that you were the poor sod who got rejected twice from college X and got in the third time.

(I say this because I knew someone who applied and kept it very close to his chest. I knew, because we went to school together and were friends prior to university, but he told everyone else that he'd chosen to do a gap year and I know he felt quite insecure about it for a long time. He shouldn't have, of course, but he did.)

I know a fair amount of people who didn't get in and reapplied. Obviously this is entirely anecdotal, but the ones who then got in seemed to have used their rejection well as feedback - they applied to different colleges and thought about where they might have gone wrong - one knew that he had fluffed his interview by being arrogant. Some didn't get in second time but still went to other excellent universities. I don't think it's worth giving any attention to people getting places with worse grades. The admission doesn't work like that anyway, and there is no way of knowing how their interview went or what other skills they might have that contributed.

I've looked at the Merton link on feedback, they have done a really good job to get the information out so quickly.
I think particularly the biochemistry page says it all really. A rather large number of biochemistry applicants were interview scored as 'worthy of a place' but there just are n't enough places for those who would do well at Oxford and interviews will always have an element of luck for all apart from the very few truly outstanding candidates.

In deciding whether or not to reapply, one could ask for feedback however this may turn out to be disappointingly generic and consequently meaningless, eg .. there were many applicants and the strength of the competition meant we were unable to offer all strong candidates a place.

I dont think Oxford looks at whether it is a second application. They consider each application on its own merits. I cant imagine they dig up last years application to compare it so they can see whether to shortlist you.

I would recommend contacting the the head of admissions after your results to find out what success gap year applicants had in applying with the gcse grades and as grades and a2 grades that you have and how this compares with last years year 13 applicant. From this, you will probably find out that your chances are lower than the average candidate unless you end up with superb grades.

Go to the subject open day and ask searching questions about how to improve your chances.

As the previous poster has stated, there just aren't enough places and the best candidates go to other great universities. Each college only takes 4 applicants.

I would say if you have an offer from somewhere you are happy to go, its not worth having a gap year.

Finding gap year work that isn't waitressing/ shop work isn't easy. Most work is more long term and employers aren't interested in training someone for the short term. If you don't mind doing this/and have the money to go travelling, think you would do a lot better in the interview, sure give it a go.

tropical, there's a lot of wrong information in that post. For starters, I've no idea where you got the idea each college only takes four applicants, but it's absolutely not true.

I meant for one particular subject. Of course it may vary from subject to subject. I just wanted to make clear that it is very very hard to get an offer.

Agree sendsummer - the biochem page is sobering. It should give applicants both side of the divide pause for thought. I've never seen it writ so stark.

I assume the quality of feedback will vary enormously depending on the tutors in question. My own DC have only ever got the results of pre-tests so that's been purely numerical, but I do know of cases where their school has asked other universities eg Durham for feedback on why what seemed to the school an exceptional applicant has been rejected and the feedback has been utterly meaningless (essentially: computer says no).

at Cambridge successful applicants traditionally exceed their offer. Therefore if you apply with known grades that only match the usual offer they will be looking at you and thinking new applicant is predicted the same grades but they'll probably exceed them and hence, interviews being equal, be a better bet. Therefore reapplication was only likely to be worthwhile if you had exceeded the offer.

In some subjects offers have been increasing so this may have changed but take a good look at the grades applicants actually achieved before deciding whether to reapply. A confident candidate might do better trying the other place where fewer people get the highest grades.

Having chatted to DH tonight we both agree that we're seriously unhappy for her to take a year out.
What if she retries for the same top 10 unis and gets rejected next year?

The course she wants to apply to is one of "less" competitive with 50% offer rate. She's desperate to go.
She spoke to an admissions offer who said that if she's one grade above min ent req she'd be a very competitive candidate.

A year in life is quite a long time really and we wouldn't want her to waste most of a year in a dead end job to splash on an adventure, not get in, and pay an extra £4.5k per year fees other than if she went today.

DH and I had planned financially to have an empty house this year coming and are looking forward to it.

Apparently we are being selfish and don't understand that she'll be 18.

You don't need to make this decision now. Your dd can accept whichever non oxbridge offer she prefers and work hard for a level. She can assume she is going to uni in 17/18 while at the same time coming up with a high level plan of how she would spend a gap year if she had one.

If she does well at a level then she and you decide in August what to do.

I had the biggest argument with my folks of my life at that point. I had a great offer from Durham, my parents were worried about me losing that. But I was desperate for another shot at oxbridge. As it turned out Durham gave me an offer straight away in the new admissions round (as I had great a levels).

If she's desperate for another shot and gets the grades don't stand in her way. It's only a year - a trifle in the grand scheme.

alreadytaken it's been a well known phenomenon that a fair few students have 'relaxed' into their offer grades and of course Oxford's have been lower for years and kept deliberately so. This was especially easy in the days of modular A levels. My own DC could calculate how few marks they needed to notch up an A - in some case it was a matter of just a few %. The Cambridge students, even if they didn't have that mentality (and of course plenty of Oxford students will want to do their absolute best, not merely meet their offer) had a much higher bar. I don't believe there's much in it between the two sets of students intellectually (Oxford has a better success rate at the Bar for example) and of course it's important to remember that it's about more than A level grades indeed the Merton feedback suggests that GCSE grades still count for more than achieved grades at A2 (at least the biochem feedback that sendsummer flagged up). So pinning too many hopes on A level grades may simply lead to a second disappointment.