Oxbridge applicants 2018

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I've hesitated before making this thread as I don't really like the whole making Oxbridge out as a special case when there are lots of amazing universities that are just as good for individual courses. However, it is a different application process with a lot happening by January should they get that far and irl I don't know anyone else's dc applying to talk to them about it. I expect most of us are in that situation. At the moment I rely on dd and the occasional foray into student room to learn what happens next.

So welcome all parents of Oxbridge candidates - a thread to chat over what's to come and to support if our kids find they have to steer in a different direction.

Application forms due in in a few weeks

And each of the 'mothers' will have a 'wife' (homo-subject pairings discouraged) during the first year so she should have 4 mothers and quite a lot of sisters....yes, we had a very surreal conversation.

I believe some other universities assign everyone a mentor - same function presumably but less amusing.

Yes everyone is assigned two parents, and the parenting skills appear to range widely. Slightly less legal onus on these parents though, so if they don't rate their kids they can just ignore them after the initial encounter :) Some are devoted though, no doubt. One of DS3s kids didn't turn up, so he borrowed someone else's.

DD still really can't decide if she wants to apply or not. On one hand, she sees that she's have an exceptional education; it is closest to home of all her possibles; and her living costs would be lowest of all her possibles. On the other hand, she will find the whole process an enormous challenge (not in a good way) and that will most likely be what puts her off in the end if anything does. She's hesitating about her PS too, in that an Oxford one will only have a tiny bit about herself (she was told twice on open day they disregard them) and she knows that a couple of her other possibles do read them carefully. Lots to think about still.

Can anyone on this thread give me a steer on predicted grades?

DD wants to apply for a course for which the standard offer is 3 As.
She is doing four A levels and is currently predicted AAAA.
She wants to upgrade one of the As to an A because it is the MFL she wishes to study. (One of the A predictions is for maths which is irrelevant to her application). The school do not want to do this as they say that A in MFL are notoriously difficult to achieve, that this is the first year of the new course, and since the standard offer is A there is no point in pushing the boat out as there is a risk the college may actually ask for the A - and if she did not get it, as has happened to really strong linguists in the past, she would lose the place. She thinks she will be massively disadvantaged compared to other students who will have all A * predictions.
Is there anybody here with any experience?

I feel really uncomfortable with students trying negotiate predicted grades with teachers. Teachers should be free to be honest with their predictions. dds college said from the outset that they will not budge no matter how much a student pleads. It's the colleges reputation on the line, if they become known for inflating grade predictions all the students will suffer at that college.

Thanks Hubble25

He's finally decided on (in addition to Oxford): Durham, York, LSE, and insurance Manchester. Don't know much about the Manchester course and he hasn't actually visited LSE, but really liked the other two. Is yours also applying for PPE? Where else has he/she looked?

Inchy, if she has a spare slot she could put Oxford in, write her ps as she likes and just take a punt at it, if it works it works, if it doesn't that's fine too. She doesn't need to tell people she has put it down.

Yes itinerant my ds is another PPE hopeful. Has chosen (in addition to Oxford) Warwick, Durham, York and Exeter. PS now in so fingers crossed.

Thanks OYBBK. I'm pretty sure that's how she'll play it. She may mutter about looking at Warwick later or some such, but given that she has close friends for whom it is no longer an option, I think she is most likely to keep quiet.

She thinks she will be massively disadvantaged compared to other students who will have all A star predictions.

Different schools have different policies on predictions and universities know this, so she would not be disadvantaged.

That's interesting about predictions. We had parents' evening last night and DD's teachers all pretty much said they thought she was capable of getting an A star and it was up to her whether she wanted them to put an A or A star on the UCAS form.
They said some students don't like the pressure of an A star prediction, so it was up to her. She chose to have A stars in 2 (history and French) and an A in the third (maths) which she isn't quite as confident about.
I wasn't expecting it to be put in her hands like that.

I was surprised she didn't go for all A stars to begin with and tried to say it would make her a much stronger applicant to have all 3. I worried that it was daft to turn down the opportunity to make her application as strong as possible, but she said she'd rather be realistic and have a target she can make, or even beat.
She was concerned that higher predictions might mean she gets higher offers which would be too much pressure.

The variability in prediction techniques seems to be as variable as everything else in this process! dd did AS levels in all her subjects so college basically took the approach of 'you got x ums or marks (depending on subject) so we predict you y. And that was that. Much harder for those who haven't AS exams and with reformed A levels it must be really really challenging to make confident predictions.

We haven't had any parents evenings or communication from college at all. I know next year we will have nothing to do with their unis, perhaps this is a way of getting us parents ready for that, but I feel very disconnected from college at the moment.

According to UCAS only around 25% of students met or exceeded their predicted grades. Oxford know that, all the universities know that.

Oxford has the advantage of using entrance tests and interviews to select candidates so they don’t need to rely heavily on predicted grades.

Predicted grades lower than the standard offer might be an issue but candidates with predicted grades at the standard offer would hopefully not be disadvantaged unless there was something in the teacher’s reference that indicated weak performance.

It was a report that UCU created that said that Goodbye and at the AAB end it was 46% of predictions that were over.

www.ucu.org.uk/media/8409/Predicted-grades-accuracy-and-impact-Dec-16/pdf/Predicted_grades_report_Dec2016.pdf

That's pretty reassuring. I think the school is being cautious as they predicted A in MFL for a couple of dual nationals last year and they got As. But she has a friend at another school whose language skills are significantly weaker who has an A prediction and she is feeling worried.
I do think that three As in essay based subjects is a more realistic offer than 3 A* even for talented students. I think maths and the sciences are easier to predict.

It is interesting how they all react different to their predictions isn't it. DD responds very well to being told she is good at something. She works harder, enjoys it, thinks she can do it. When one of her teachers suggested an A rather than an A prediction, she took it to mean they thought she was rubbish at it (yes, I know ) and that she may as well give up. She has been walking on air since they changed their mind and made it A again.

If I have any concerns about her applying to Oxford it is just that. If she is towards the bottom of an exceptional cohort, she will see that as struggling. Nothing her DF or myself say will alter that. It doesn't seem to matter how thoroughly she says she understands the concept of a growth mind set, a part of her doesn't believe it.

Kitten was that reply to a post I didn't make?!

Although you never did reply to my question about your question about whether my DC did aptitude tests? I said six of seven had but wondered why you wanted to know?

In terms of predictions, none of my DC with A predictions have had any above standard offers, ever. Some have had lower offers with no contextual factors at play but mostly they've been bang on the money, and in most cases all offers were significantly below their predictions. I wouldn't worry too much about A predictions leading to higher offers unless you're a candidate from a school known to lavishly over predict or a candidate where there are indications of relative weakness (grades or reference or both).

I'm clearly going utterly bonkers Goodbye, don't worry, it's not just you I'm being dippy with, it's real life too, I've had one of 'those' days sorry!!

I didn't see your query about my question. I asked it because I wondered whether doing really well at aptitude tests could be a way of getting a faster offer.

Kitten no problem at all! (I'm a pro myself at being dippy!).

Hmm, not sure. That theory (about faster offers) would be consistent with a really very early law offer one of my DD's got from Durham but three of the six only took internal Oxford aptitude tests which obviously aren't shared uni wide. But there's absolutely no question that a very high score on an aptitude test is a massive plus and a low one tends to knock you out of contention, at Oxford at least.

Good luck to your DD.

Couple of process questions if I may - we too are suffering from 'light touch' comms from the school

• is the school reference available to the applicant? I would be curious to see what they say

And

• DS has been practising the TSA (Oxford) but I don't know he can assess how well he is going with essay type answers. Does anyone have experience of this or any suggestions please?

I wondered whether doing really well at aptitude tests could be a way of getting a faster offer.

Certainly not faster for Oxbridge, afaik they both issue all their offers on the same day (may arrive slightly different times depending on whether they use email or post)

- is the school reference available to the applicant? I would be curious to see what they say

That might be a matter of school policy- IIRC DD was allowed to read hers but not given a copy, I didn't see it (by this stage some things aren't really our business any more!)

That's why I was assuming that Kitten meant broader tests eg LNAT, BMAT Errol.

You can pay £10 for the reference through UCAS itinerant. The student phones up, gives a card number and then UCAS sends a password protected copy of the whole application including the reference. Our school hasn't read out the reference to any except the eldest two DC so we've always paid £10. The Ho6 knows I shell out £10 each time and found it funny when I told him but still didn't offer up DC7's free of charge (grrrr).

Three of my DC have done the HAT and the LNAT and BMAT both had essay questions at the end too and none could really assess how they'd done so - not much help really :) All I can say is that they got no help beyond the advice on the Oxford/ LNAT/ BMAT websites (plus a book in the case of BMAT) and all followed that advice (whatever it was) and all did fine (well, we don't know the score of the first DC to do the HAT because we didn't know then we could find out, but the other five did well). What I mean is that the school didn't have any input at all and perhaps that was good because they didn't go in with any sort of script - not sure. Just trying to encourage those with no help!

Well, DS's application is in. No idea whether he stands a chance, but no chance at all if he didn't apply! School have given advice re PS, and his form teacher spent some long time with him discussing his reference, so interesting how different establishments do it.

Thanks goodbyestranger, useful to know. My question about the school reference is driven by curiosity more than anything else, and I am confident they will give a fair reference. Certainly he hasn't been discouraged from applying, has had a fair amount of feedback re his PS (which he won't let me see!!) and an offer of a mock interview so I will probably just leave it there. Also helpful information re: the essays and I agree no point in trying to train them on how to answer.

My ds has also sent his application off! He has changed from Edinburgh to UCL as well so we will just see now....
The natsci exam is on November 2nd so that's the next hurdle 😁