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?

I'm not saying "everyone gets everything" but those who make properly targeted and supported applications have a very strong probability indeed of getting offers. I am sure that your DS' persinal tutor has a very realistic appreciation of his chances and that your DS has been well advised - why wouldn't he be?

Perhaps this is where the difference lies. At this level if there are 8 applicants for every place, and it might be reasonable to assume that at least 7 are making properly targeted and supported applications. An individual applicant might have a good chance, but as with Oxbridge applications at other levels, you cannot control other factors, including the strength of other applicants.

If DS does not get a place, he will be disappointed, but will have other avenues. (Just as happened at UG level.) He won't think conspiracy, he won't blame his academic advisor, he will just accept that he gave it his best shot, that these things happen, and often things work out for the best.

Have you looked at the statistics, NeedMoreSleep?

Only those on the University website.

Try to find other sources to put them in perspective.

It is true that my undergraduates are almost always accepted to the graduate courses they apply to. I only encourage them to apply to (and only agree to write strong references for) appropriate courses that they are well qualified to do. Funding however is much harder to achieve.

I think there is a lot less uncertainty than at the undergraduate level and far fewer equally able applicants chasing each place. There's a lot less luck involved I think. Except perhaps the luck of being accepted to a top undergraduate university, which probably helps with graduate applications.

Which other sources Bobo?

If she told you she'd have to eat you Cow!
Perhaps it was someone's sister whose cousin went to "W" but had a friend at "x" whose tutor at "Y" told "Z" who told her. It's not what you know but who you know, nudge nudge wink wink, funny handbagshake etc etc....

Sources depends on the profile of her DS: she would need to look at sources that told her the success rates of similar applicants. But irregularegular has already conformed my earlier point and that is as valuable as any other imformation.

Isn't that approach true of most applicants, not just to University.

You apply because you think the course/job is a good fit, and you think you have a credible chance. You take care over your application and do appropriate background work to make sure you present yourself well. You don't put all your eggs in one basket and have a good Plan B. If you don't get what you want, you ask for feedback, and learn from the experience, sometimes realising it was not for you anyway.

Yes academics seem to know what sort of applicants appeal to good departments in other Universities, though they don't always get it right. And similarly can't make promises to their own students without going through due process.

I can't see any advantage in finding "sources" that tell you success rates of similar applicants, beyond those that tell you you are a credible applicant. You then either get the place, or you don't. Believing that you ought to get the place, opens up scope for believing dark forces are against you, and beyond that lies madness.

It depends what kind of person you are, NeedMoreSleep. Data is very informative and what you call "dark forces" other people call "cover ups" and "prejudice" and "discrimination" that it is best to be aware of. It is, more importantly, useful to identify your own shortcomings so that you can work on self-improvement: failing any sort of selection process can be a terrific learning opportunity.

Thank God my SFO typo got under the radar . An end of the week joke - merely.....

(I'm a regular education poster, but namechanged in order to be more frank. Feel free to pm me if you want.)

Lobster - my dc is in their 2nd year at Oxford doing Classics, on the no-Latin-or-Greek option (although they did in fact do Latin AS very casually in y13 after dropping it after GCSE, but they're quite crap at it (got a D at AS)). Although the uni are encouraging before application, as a faculty, they're not brilliantly supportive afterwards and actually the numbers without the language A levels are very small. Dc's college are better than some for support for the ab initios. I saw dc last night - they are choosing Greats modules atm and without Greek their choices are much restricted, there are no options to study anything Greek in translation, and there are about twice as many Greek options as Latin, so they're all about the Romans and whatever other random modules they can choose to keep the amount of Latin to a minimum! They can do some Logic which might appeal to your dd if she is good at Maths (my dc has enjoyed it and will do more). The Classics dept are not as up to date as others in terms of getting lectures online and so on, which would be really useful for my dc. We were discussing last night how much easier their studies would be if dc had gone to their insurance (Leeds), where any languages would be entirely optional! That said, dc loves their college, loves being in Oxford, and doesn't look like they're going to fail Mods, so atm all is well and dc is happy

cowgirls all colleges should have a Disabilities Tutor (or similar name) which would be your dc's first port of call. You could contact a few before application to get some info/an impression of helpfulness. My dc has been diagnosed with ADHD (and a touch of dyslexia - probably hence the crapness at Latin!) in the last year - an educational diagnosis only, which means no drugs, lol, but does mean dc can apply for DSA. My dc had gone to the GP first but was told there would probably be an 18 month wait for the medical diagnosis process to start, but got this done very quickly through the university disability service, and there are various adjustments for exams that can be made if desired. Having had no experience of sen stuff before, just hearing people's frustrated stories about schools, I've been pretty impressed with it all.

Thank you MysocalledPseudonym

I think there is a lot less uncertainty than at the undergraduate level and far fewer equally able applicants chasing each place.

It depends on the field/course. I know of Masters courses which are very competitive.

But I do agree that academics can advise accurately on what Masters/PhDs are realistic options. And it's a lot fairer when judgements are made based on much more information i.e. three years of undergraduate results and references from academics (who are better placed to judge academic ability and potential than teachers).

Abstract data about graduate admissions would be a far less accurate predictor of success than asking your own tutor/director of studies your personal likelihood of success. Needmoresleep's DS should get sufficient information from his advisor.

MysocalledPseudonym

I have to say that I am totally at your description of the Oxford Classic 2 course. Surely the Greek texts are absolutely key for Greats. It makes no sense to me, it must be better to study them in translation than not at all?

You can start the second language, and so do some Greek literature that way. Or you can stick with one language but do some Greek archaeology/history/philosophy I think. But it doesn't seem that you can do Greek text-based papers without studying Greek language. And vice versa for Latin of course.

user7214743615 - that is of course true. My experiences are Oxford-centric and mainly based on Economics, Business and related Masters. Also Politics and Philosophy to an extent.

An Oxford PPE undergraduate with a First and support from their tutors does not seem to have much trouble getting onto a prestigious UK Master's course in a related subject, whereas an A-level student even with a string of A* really cannot count on an Oxford PPE place.