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!

Well ds is not happy this morning. He did the last of the MAT practise tests and did not do well. He says it was the most recent and much harder than the other two. I am philosophical about it. He has worked as hard as is possible and is working to the best of his ability. If he doesn't do well enough, then Imperial is not the place for him. He still has the STEP paper for Cambridge later in the year which is totally different from what I understand.

that should be 2 x A star and 2 A's predicted but for some reason I cant post that! sorry :D

Ingles2 - are you talking about the interview for York? Ds couldn't make the date they offered him (it is Cambridge prep day at his school) so just ticked the box and they offered him another date right away. His careers advisor at school said they run the interviews all the time and it would not be a problem.

that should be 2 x A star and 2 A's predicted but for some reason I cant post that! sorry :D

MN bolding with asterisks mucks up posts with more than one star (on some platforms, maybe not all?) - I've got used to parsing them now having started on these threads years ago now with old-style GCSE predicted grades!

yes wiifitmama ... that sounds promising then. On the uni web page, we could just accept or decline, there were no other options, so I hope it's the same..

It was the same for ds. He was not able to put in a reason why. They sent him back a new date very quickly.

Echoing Coleoptera and wishing everyone's DCs well for the tests tomorrow.

DD is having a last minute crisis of confidence over the ELAT, but all her practice ones have been fine. I will be distracting her with Bake Off tonight!

We now have 3 offers in, from her second, third and fourth choices - all UC if firm (or AAA, AAB and ABB respectively for conditional.) It's no longer being viewed as a spanner in the works but a very, very nice cushion if there's no offer from Oxford.

DS only has one offer (Edinburgh A* AA) for Maths so far but it's great to hear about everyone else getting offers through!

All the best to everyone's DCs for the tests tomorrow!

A family friend has a DD sitting a test paper in an overseas city which has flooding right now, so they're worried the centre might be closed tomorrow.

Glad that I'm only worrying about failed alarm clocks, broken public transport, last minute sickness and a few other stressful scenarios!

Good luck all.

Dd is working through a MAT paper at present. She came to ask me about it, and I said one word "perpendicular" and she glared and went back to finish it.
I've also just disagreed with the way they worked out the answer on one of the specimen papers. That went down well. Dd actually agreed with me, so I've told her not to worry.

Good luck for tomorrow exam taking dc :)

DD is watching 80s pop videos rather than revising for tomorrow which I’m sure is healthy!
She has offers from Bristol, Durham and Exeter already — all AAA so a bit pointless...!

I mean, she’s v pleased to have the offers but there’s no wiggle room.

Good luck to everyone doing admission tests tomorrow!

Good luck to everyone else tomorrow. Ds sitting MAT. He is not much fun to be around this evening! He is planning to come home after and eat chocolate all afternoon! I was not worried about alarms and public transport until it was mentioned on here

Good luck all DC tomorrow! My DD has just got back from her Russia trip and is exhausted. Hoping she sleeps tonight.

All the best to those sitting aptitude tests tomorrow xxx

Good luck to those doing various exams today. Hoping the dc can then have a wee bit of chill out time after that, if they are on half term.

Dd has all four offers from her other choices and Liverpool reduced their offer grades in their offer last week? Weird.

She’s got everything scanned and ready to submit to college, she’s just waiting for one piece of work back from her teacher, promised Monday. Then it can all go in. The other piece of work she chose was lovely, and her subject teacher is going to use it for the Y12’s, which Dd was chuffed with when she heard that comment.

The work has to be signed and stamped, if that’s useful to folk, as Dd spent most of last Friday trudging round school trying to find a school stamp!

Good luck again.

Best of luck to all exam sitters today. Dd was busy working on past examples even last night and is going in early to the test centre, which is also her sixth form college, to find the past paper she did so she can see the comments her tutor has left on it.

Then she can chill out a bit for the rest of half term (apart from the driving test on Friday!)

Additional work chosen, stamped and submitted this week too.

What has impressed me is that every time I've asked dd what she needs to do next, using tips I've got from here ready to advise her, she's already known what she needs to do and has made a start in it. I had no idea work needed stamping, but she's already sorted it.

Good luck to all sitting exams this am! Dors anyone know when any reduced offers are likely to arrive (should DC achieve them) based on today's exams? DS is sitting the MAT today but for his other options not Oxford...

I am nervous!

Dd hoping to get her work stamped after the test. If not will have to be done Monday. She missed the deadline for extra reading time in interview but emailed and Cambridge said send it in when she can.I hope she at least gets an interview after all this!

My DD is doing the ELAT as we speak and seems utterly unbothered by the whole process. We posted off her work excerpts to her college yesterday. She wants to do English Literature and has a triple A offer from Manchester and an u/c from Nottingham. She's struggling to work out where she sees herself being happiest. I admire her for trying to see it as a holistic choice. Might Cambridge be too intense? She wants time to socialise, volunteer maybe and develop interests in drama and film. Lots of hand wringing at the moment. I said to put it to the back of her mind for now and resurrect it when she has all her offers. No doubt she might then be influenced by where her friends are choosing.

Hope pretests go well. Dd is going in later to hopefully sort out her submission.