Oxbridge Applicants 2019

[evenstrangerthings]

The 2018 Oxbridge Applicants Thread was started at the end of August last year, but with many students now sitting internal school exams rather than public AS exams, many will have Year 12 results in hand and some will be starting to prepare for applications to Oxford or Cambridge University.

Let's support each other in supporting our kids through this process, which may involve extra exams, multi-day interviews and extra application statements.

Do feel free to join the thread, even if your DC is on the fence about making an Oxbridge application. It would also be great to hear from those who have been through the Oxbridge process before!

If anyone has a DC thinking of taking STEP this year, the 2019 STEP specs have been released - you can find them on the Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing website. (Also, please check out the STEP support programme - free preparation materials from Cambridge)

I called UCAS and asked them this. You can add to the choices before the January deadline, so you could in theory just put down Oxbridge for now and add choices in a couple of months or so. You can add choices via track or on the phone directly to UCAS.

Don't just take my word for this and please check yourself.

If you and your DCs haven't already had a good look at the UCAS site, I'd suggest you do - it should be the definitive source of information on the process.

www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/filling-your-ucas-undergraduate-application

There's a handy 'key dates' page here

www.ucas.com/ucas/events/find/scheme/undergraduate/type/key-date

Here's the specific bit on adding choices

www.ucas.com/events/2019-entry-deadline-universities-oxford-and-cambridge-and-most-courses-medicine-veterinary-331841

Cambridge key dates here
www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/dates-and-deadlines

I'm sure oxford has a similar one.

need, I’m very much in the camp that dd will be happy at any university she goes to. She’s liked all her open day choices so far, we’ve just one more on Saturday to cover, but did the rest pre summer break.

I’m not sure what she will do re putting her choices down separately or at once, although she’s not applying for a highly competitive subject such as Maths or similar.

But we’ve seen all we need to see bar one institution and so have the information we need really.

I’ve no idea if the school have a deadline for Oxbridge applications, one hasn’t been mentioned.

Thank you for the links errol.

Caveat - this thread has been excellent though to support her application to Oxford, as we get so little from school. She will be happy anywhere, but if you are going to have a shot at Oxbridge then it better be as good as you can make it.

Dd has just come in from school. No deadline given and not one piece of advice about writing an Oxbridge statement so far.

Caveat - this thread has been excellent though to support her application to Oxford, as we get so little from school. She will be happy anywhere, but if you are going to have a shot at Oxbridge then it better be as good as you can make it.

Justanothermile I don't think there is such a thing an an Oxbridge statement, bar the well known fact that they don't want fluff about being milk monitor/ county cricket etc.

There's been no guidance at all about personal statements, Oxbridge or not. I think the school plans on something in the near future, but not soon enough for the deadline.

I think that can be a plus though - so that statements don't get too formulaic.

True!

Thanks @Aurea for sharing what UCAS said about adding choices later and @ErrolTheDragon for the links.

Maths applications are a bit crazy in that the reputed Top 4 Universities for Maths "COWI - Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Imperial" all have standard entry grades of double A star plus an A with different combos of MAT and STEP. With Warwick and Imperial standard offers being as high as (and in some cases higher than) Oxbridge's, they aren't good insurance offers to hold, but are great 1st choices if Oxbridge doesn't come through.

I'm sure this might also be the case for other courses/Unis.

Having said that, DD, now starting 2nd year in a STEM course did decide to hold identical firm and insurance offers. Risky, but those were the only 2 she could see herself at. Luckily it worked out fine in that she exceeded her offers.

Are too many choices always a good thing?

@Justanothermile - when DD applied 2 years ago it was a 3 way editing war between her, her form tutor and us (mum and dad). So far, my DS at the same school, different form tutor, has been told that his personal statement looks fine and won't need many changes. Let's see...

Lots of great advice on here and on the Student Room. Hopefully the advice will help your DC craft a good personal statement that demonstrate their interest and suitability.

Maths applications are a bit crazy in that the reputed Top 4 Universities for Maths "COWI - Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Imperial" all have standard entry grades of double A star plus an A with different combos of MAT and STEP. With Warwick and Imperial standard offers being as high as (and in some cases higher than) Oxbridge's, they aren't good insurance offers to hold, but are great 1st choices if Oxbridge doesn't come through.

Many students do use Warwick as an insurance for Cambridge - 3 A stars is (usually) considerably easier than 2 A stars, one A and 1,1 in STEP! About 4000 students a year get A star in A-level further maths, but only about 400 get a grade 1 (or S) in STEP I, the easiest STEP paper.

Warwick do now have a "flexible offer", so that not everything rests on STEP - see [[https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/admissions/ug/offer/ ]]. Some Cambridge colleges (Downing, Emmanuel, Fitzwilliam, Jesus, King's, Lucy Cavendish, Newnham, Sidney Sussex, St. Catherine's, Trinity Hall.) are also trialling "alternative offers" - see [[https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate-admissions/what-qualifications-do-i-need ]]. Note that if you apply to one of these you might still get the standard offer!

Happy to answer any questions about STEP or maths at Cambridge!

I think from a cambridge point of view holding Warwick as a maths insurance can be fine now given students can take the TMUA or MAT and then end up with an offer without a STEP requirement.

Imperial seem to give out some scarily high offers though (4 A*s. in at least one case I know of)

Pallando how many students sit each STEP paper?

Maths is frighteningly competitive we found last year, he's going to study the subject this time.

Thanks even, DS also held offers that were almost identical. He didn't feel he had done so well, so the weeks before results day were stressful! He's somewhat lacking in confidence even now.

I emailed the school and they like Oxbridge offers to be in the week before deadline. Dd won't want to leave it that late, so I suspect she will ask for hers to be submitted before this date.

Apparently, the course organiser for UNIQ had emailed the school and said how impressed they were with DD, which is lovely to know. It might have been nice to know this when the email was sent, but at least she knows now!

Dd also doesn't want to leave submission of her other choices and would rather do it all at once. Different subject choice though.

OYBBK in 2017 there were about 2000 sitting STEP I, about 1300 sitting STEP II and about 800 sitting STEP III. This compares to the 500 ish who have a Cambridge offer!

PS Congratulations to your DD!

One of the most important things is to do your homework! Oxford colleges are a bit more consistent with how they do interviews, but Cambridge colleges can vary (especially for maths). Some colleges have short tests at interview etc.

As well as looking at the faculty pages for the subject you are interested in, also have a look at the college pages for that subject. For example, some colleges ask for STEP I grades for engineering students.

Justanothermile there's a huge advantage in making selections and then just whacking the UCAS form in. I absolutely don't get any sense that trying to persuade the other competitive unis that you're not an Oxbridge applicant has any advantage whatsoever, it's completely pointless. They need Oxbridge applicants and always have done. Durham was crowded out with Oxbridge applicants even in my day when the unis could see all your choices. It's no more than a myth. Much more advantageous to get an early offer since if nothing else, it's a good confidence boost going into the December interviews. My DC all selected their choices in one go ahead of the early deadline and almost all got offers from all of them. This playing with dates just prolongs the process and doesn't allow DC to get on with Y13 in the same way. I'd say the less drawn out the process the better.

I would say that though back in my day (early 80s) some great applicants were faced with four rejections and all their eggs in the Oxbridge basket (which of course would necessarily come through). I suppose some institutions took umbrage about being placed fifth. As you say, at least they can't see now that you prefer four other places !

There is some past data on the number of STEP entries here [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Term_Examination_Paper ]]. In 2017 there were over 4000 papers in total (though since many do more than one there were fewer candidates than this!)

(BTW - most of the info on the Wikipedia page is outdated!)

Irma that was my sort of day too but the reality seemed to be that if you just went ahead in those days and put Oxford above Bristol above UCL above Durham (or whatever order you please), they would in fact all shell out offers if you were a reasonable looking applicant. That was the experience of all my peers at any rate, and this idea that Durham/ Bristol etc got all up itself at being third or fourth just didn't hold true, although I'm aware it was the word on the street.