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!

It is a bit sad. We will be ok as ds is pretty organised but some of the kids might not bother and I reckon there are one or two that would have a shot at it.

I'm not expecting ds to get an offer as it is maths and oh so competitive with STEP as an added hurdle but I think he might get an interview because of his grades and school.

Budget cuts, my arse. At ds's school it was definitely a case of the curled lip, rather than any cost. How much does a few announcements/flyers about dates cost? Ds's school persisted with the line that all universities are equal. I heard with my own ears at the parents' higher education meeting the HE woman say, "There is no difference between the University of the South West and Oxford." I don't know if this was due to a giant chip on someone's shoulder or a general political position, but no information was passed on about open days/outreach. I suppose they might have had a deal with USW as a lot of pupils do seem to go there!

RedHelenB - I know Goodbyestranger said her ds was admitted with a dropped grade, but I do know others who have been turned down. I suppose it depends on the subject/how much they liked the candidate. I said (and was howled down!) that ds's prof said they do not take grade droppers. Family member dropped a grade in a subject (not the subject she was hoping to study) and despite mega pleading was not allowed in. She said she has never really recovered - so near yet so far .

@Littlespace

Have you considered getting a group of interested parents to approach any local private schools who send students to Oxbridge for help?

A number of private schools do this as it ticks their public benefit box.

It is probably a bit late as the deadline is soon isn't it?

The STEP help page is very useful to ds so thanks to whatever genius set it up. Brilliant idea. And doing more maths has got to be useful for any future university. Might make an easier start in year 1.

Someone from our school got in with ABB at A Level so must have had a really good interview!

There was a woman on The One Show this week who was admitted to Oxford with 3 Bs at A level.

Was that recent-ish, and were there special circumstances?

At Cambridge, among DDs friends I know of two who were admitted despite not quite meeting their offers. One had stellar A levels but missed the STEP grade - she's switching from maths MML. Another got the grades (2A*, 2A) but the stars were on the opposite pair of subjects to those specified in the offer. She's decided to start again somewhere else after not really hitting the ground running. That's anecdote not data, but unless there's mitigating factors maybe accommodating dropped grades isn't necessarily a good thing in all cases.

RedHelenB he went up in 2014. At 7.30am on results day Track said he'd got his Oxford place confirmed so I didn't know there was a grade issue until he went into school. I thought it was odd of Oxford just to say yes anyway despite a missed grade, without further school intervention, so I rang the Ho6 and asked him to check and he said er are you sure you want me to rock the boat and I said definitely yes, in case it's a mistake. So he checked and they said no, we definitely want him. He did get a very good HAT score though (77 or 78, I can't remember which) and he did get his papers remarked, even though he didn't have to, and one rocketed up to a high A so that was weird, but had nothing to do with the acceptance. I guess his HAT made a difference and his interview score will have been taken into account too and possibly an A in the EPQ helped a bit (pure conjecture). Anyhow, I guess they made a good call since he got a first and had a full Oxford extra curricular life too. In fact his college gave him £300 as a present for getting a first (they do for all their firsts). A very nice bonus :)

Hi elena7475 and welcome to the thread (is your name a reference to The Connells song?)

Can’t help you with America I’m afraid. What subject might your son be considering?

DS had no mitigating factors at all.

Re song. Kind of...

My son wants to do Computing

@elena7475 - probably not the right thread for the US question but yes DD was. We spent a few weeks visiting East Coast Unis last month. She originally wanted to do computing but has now done a total U-Turn.

Feel free to PM me.

Btw. How can I PM?

DS2 wants to go MIT but I don't think it is possible for him (he is always 'late' for everything). As far as I know you need long CV to get there, not only good grades in exams.

I will be happy if he go to Cambridge

It is probably a bit late as the deadline is soon isn't it?

It's slightly over a month - there is still time! Key dates for Cambridge and details of their aptitude tests in the link below . I'm not sure where they can get the sample papers (the Cambridge ones have only been going a couple of years so there won't be many) but the email near the top of the page looks like a way to ask if the school is useless.

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/admissions-assessments/pre-interview

Elena - it might be worth starting a separate thread as there may be people who know about the US who wouldn't be on this one.

Where else they can be? Who ever is applying for American's universities as what if... will be most likely here to choose Oxbridge as first choice

I'm thinking there may be people whose kids have applied to the US in previous years who might have useful info who'd not necessarily take an interest in this thread.

Elena , my son applied for Oxford .

His school's advice was do not apply for Oxbridge and American universities in the same year - the application process is quite different - do one or the other. Combined with end of school exams two different application processes is quite hard. In truth I was happy that DS did not want to apply to an American university as without a scholarship they are rather expensive. ( More expensive than was feasible without a scholarship for us - at u/g level )

My son's school has no advice on American's universities at all. There are maybe only once in ten years someone actually going there. More commonly ppl are going Oxbridge. They have good advices for school.

I am asking just out of curiosity if someone know anything

@elena7475 There's lots of info and advice regarding applying to US Universities on The Student Room forums:

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=227

Thank you Evenstrangerthings
Very useful link

@elena7475 You're welcome! The Student Room is a great resource for info on applying to Universities. Also take a look at:

The University of Cambridge Student Room forum:

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=15

The University of Oxford Student Room forum:

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=14

The Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing website has details of all the Oxbridge Admissions tests (i.e. both Oxford and Cambridge) (not individual college tests which they might do before interview). This will include dates and deadlines etc (prob not for STEP2019 yet!).

@elena7475 - go to the active page then MyMums Net and then chose inbox. You can then send me a message. Meanwhile I will send you a PM and if you have notifications on you will get a link to my message.
...DD was interested in MIT so it was one of the places we visited