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’s depressing that a single school sends 40 to 50 pupils to Oxbridge every year.

LARLARLAND they'll send off 40 to 50 applications. Most would get to interview, but not all of them will get in. My school certainly had the ethos of 'if you're not in the 1st XV or made it to Oxbridge you're a failure' so send lots of people, but some of them were for sure not the required standard, and others had forgot to think what they want to do, so just did what the school told them, and therefore didn't cover themselves in glory at interview, which probably came as a relief to them, as they could then concentrate on going somewhere they wanted to.

At the risk of jolting (but by no means derailing, I hope!) the thread - is it depressing? Shouldn't every school have that kind of aspiration?

I thought Col meant that 40 or 50 got into Oxbridge every year, not just that they applied. There are a few (very rare) schools in that position (the ones I know of are incredibly academically selective at 11/13).

Presumably this 40-50 school is highly academically selective, so the calibre of every pupil will not be too shabby, let alone the ones deemed good enough to apply to Oxbridge.

One of ds's friends at Oxbridge went to Westminster, and ds says that of all the people he's met he is most envious of this student's schooling. He says the lessons and standard sounded a world away from what he experienced at an ordinary comprehensive, where the ethos seemed to be "bringing up the bottom". (See Education threads for much banging drum for this.)

So I don't think you can blame the 40-50 school. Should those pupils not apply? Are they more stupid/less worthy than pupils in a state school? What about grammar schools? They have "creamed off" pupils and so do and should do a hell of a lot better than schools with a less academic intake.

It’s a myth that these schools have all the best pupils achieving all the best results which is why they get the most Oxbridge offers. This article is old but still relevant. Kudos to those kids who get in but the system is very flawed.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/dbf5d3ba-6610-11dc-9fbb-0000779fd2ac

This link may be better.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/sep/23/comment.britishidentity

That is a fascinating article larlar - Cambridge was considering abandoning the interview in 2007? Interesting that it did not.

I suppose supporters of the interview might say it enables the university to see past exam results to the benefit of those who don't have 'private/grammar school levels of exam teaching'. (Not saying that is my view!) I know there is a school of thought in support of ceasing the practice.

My impression (based on not very much) is that outside the south east the 'oxbridge is nirvana' may be much less pervasive and that perhaps it's less uncommon that pupils outside the s-e don't particularly want to go there even if they would stand a very good chance of getting in! Is that a problem? It would be if it has a detrimental effect on employment prospects, obviously.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of applying for PBS ( psychological and behavioural sciences) at Cambridge ? Dc only in yr12 at the moment but is interested. Slight issue is that we are only an hour from Cambridge so would prefer Oxford as location , but the course at Cambridge sounds more of what they want.

Well that was worthing reading. Not.

As I said, I have no axe to grind as ds went to a comp and received no help (well, apart from me reading MN threads!). But all this tosh about posh old dons wanting to recruit in their own image is not very helpful. Ds is at an ancient traditional college and his profs etc are very wide ranging. I don't know how ds got in if every place is awarded to a floppy-haired public schoolboy. Perhaps they felt sorry for him...

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

IrmafayLear your phone is autocorrecting your words to towns with ing in it - Worthing, Reading, Nottingham. You should get it looked at!

Eh? Oh, ha ha!!

I agree, it's a thread about applicants and how to help/support them. It's for another thread that it's all so unfair !!!

It's difficult sometimes to not feel somewhat despondent if you're a northern kid from a state school background .

It's hard too not to feel somewhat negative when you see the raft of amazing qualifications and support independent schools provide. And you read all the articles basically confirming the disparity in application and numbers. Quite frankly though, if I'd paid shedloads of money to my child's education I'd hope they had a good shout at Oxbridge too.

I don't resent said schools though, I feel more resentful that the state school system doesn't encourage aspiration and belief necessarily. Well, ours doesn't anyway and it's by no means a 'sink' school, more a standard comprehensive.

The system is what it is at present, so we have to work within those circumstances.

But whatever our backgrounds, I'd rather we support each other through the application process. I've personally learned so much from this thread and MN in general, I'd hope DD has a better chance for this knowledge, or at least enjoys the application process more.

Great news about your DT coleoptera, even with restrictions. Routine is good isn't it? And thank you for the compliment re DD, it does sound like your DC and DD share a similar work ethic.

I wasn't being rude at all, just saying what others are too that this is a support thread. And like Justanothermile says, what's the point of resenting schools that do well and denigrating their applicants?

I think that for many schools "good enough" is great. That certainly seems to be the case at my dcs' comp. As long as they've pulled up the bottom ones that's a feather in their cap (stats). Any high achievers are ok anyway. And it starts at primary school, with an obsession with the average. As I said, look at the threads on here where teachers are spouting the ethos that higher achievers bring on the weaker pupils. Many schools (and most certainly not just ones dominated by poor pupils) are cultural wastelands. All this does not provide a great launching pad for the bright but unpushed .

I don't wish this to get into a 'she said, she said', and would just as soon let the matter drop, but... I invite you to flick back IrmaFayLear to your initial response to LARLARLAND's post, and, dispassionately, assess what it reads like, absent any context:

Well that was worthing reading. Not.

Doesn't that response, seem, I guess, a little nakedly aggressive?

I am sure you didn't mean to be rude. But without tone of voice, raising of eyebrow, other visual cues, it does read quite strongly, and if it had been in response to something I had contributed to the thread, I'm sure I would have felt the hackles rise, before smoothing them back down with my child's nit-comb.

I take your greater point in all this though.

I meant that the linked article was not worth reading. Because it was very one note. I didn't raise an eyebrow - I did a confused emoji, as I didn't know why my response was "interesting".

I apologise if LARLARLAND is offended and will bow out now.

Sorry - I'm back already! Can we pax?

I'm just trying to stress that that article is piffle, LARLARLAND and don't take any notice of it! Honestly, it gives the impression that Oxford is still the province of Bertie Wooster or Sebastian Flyte, with "supper clubs" and wotnot. And then comes up with another cliche that Manchester, otoh, is full of clubbers, as if it's 1995 and it's all Britpop-tastic.

Really, if your dc wants to get in, first they have to be clever. No short cuts there. And probably a bit driven. The workload is brutal. Then, depending on subject, make sure they read appropriately widely. Well, actually, they need to want to do this - you can't make them! Honestly, they really aren't looking for "posh" types at interview. And you don't need to be uber-confident. Ds said his hands were visibly shaking, his face was flaming and he kept stuttering.

I'm surprised it doesn't say explicitly what to do? Dd applied to Oxford not Cambridge, and her course clearly spells out all the info about submitting written work.

Maybe your DT will get the information once the saq is submitted and their application complete? (Clutching at straws!)

And honestly, I'm sure it won't sound presumptive. I imagine they get all sorts of enquiries at this time of year!