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!

Good luck to all those with tests!! Don’t know whether it’s good that DD has no test...just work submission. Her work is chosen - she’s got the word count to do by hand as it’s an exam essay so hand written. No more offers yet..just Kings (London) But I see that some have offers from her other choices so hopefully she may get something from them soon.

Might Cambridge be too intense? She wants time to socialise, volunteer maybe and develop interests in drama and film

I've got the impression from my DD that many of the English students at Cambridge do a lot of drama - including the summer vac such things as the Edinburgh festival (fringe, I assume).
Even a 'full timetable' course like engineering does leave time for socialising and volunteering.

Just heard very briefly from DS after Latin, Greek and OLAT papers for Oxford. Off for lunch with his friends/fellow exam sitters, so I'll have to wait until later for the post mortem.
He hasn't even thought about work submission yet - seems to have developed tunnel vision and can only think about one hurdle at a time.
He has had offers for Classics at Bristol and UCL so far and would be very happy with either of those.
Hope everyone is surviving. I've munched rather a lot of Halloween chocolate this morning....

My DS (Maths) did a summer season at the Minack theatre in Cornwall on the technical crew while he was at Cambridge. Great fun but bitterly cold!

Warwick took forever to come back with a reduced offer for maths fro dd after her tmua and mat. It might have even after the New Year. So don't read anything into how long it takes afterwards.

DD found the pre-history Cambridge multiple choice section harder than some that she's done herself at home in preparation.

But was much more confident with the theme of the reading excerpts she had to write about and compare because she has more knowledge of the historical period that they were set in.

Mostly, she's happy she's done everything she can and feels she has done quite well, so she can have a few days down time (minus driving lessons and that test on Friday morning).

My Dd felt the same about the multiple choice DrMadelineMaxwellso that's a relief. Just need to wait to see if she gets an interview now!

A relief here too RedHelenB, if your DD felt the same. Fingers crossed all round!

My dd found the reading comp for the HSPAA more difficult that the past papers too, but was pleased with the essay choices. Does anyone know if and when they get results?

I think the student can request the result after the offers come out? Tbh goodbyestranger is I think the only person I've ever met who's mentioned knowing the result! None of my kids' friends have found out

Might Cambridge be too intense? She wants time to socialise, volunteer maybe and develop interests in drama and film

Dd did something like 25 productions in three years at Cambridge, including 2 international tours and a summer at the Fringe. She was not at all unusual. There are fewer NatSci people involved at such a full-on level but lots of students from across most of the uni faculties.

Thanks for comments. In fact when she looked at Cambridge, she visited one of the theatres there and many of the staff and participants were English Lit students. I am sure there is enough balance if she stays on top of things. In fairness, she has pretty much liked all of the universities she's visited which is a good position to be in (with 2 offers already). I just wish there was a Harry Potter style sorting hat to allocate them to what will be a perfect fit for them.

My dd found HSPAA really hard and more difficult than practice papers.
Felt sorry for her as had another exam today and it is all in the middle of half term .
I got back from work at 9.30 pm and she was already tucked up in bed.
I am really proud of her for having an attempt at Cambridge no matter what the outcome.

olliepolly I’m hoping that finding it hard doesn’t mean not doing well! I think we find out in a couple of weeks whether they get an interview. So fingers crossed!

Atia . Embarrassing. I'll defend the two DSs in question slightly!

A few seem to get their result, no idea how many. For LNAT and BMAT though, you get the result automatically from Pearson, BMAT ahead of the Oxford interviews and LNAT retrospectively, so three out of four of the older DC had had results (DD2 never asked for her HAT result. Probably quite sensible for long term confidence since she'd forgotten it was happening until her Ho6 reminded her the afternoon before - she went in pretty rattled and came out no better). Then DS2 got an unexpected offer also a letter written to his HT from the college tutor saying he'd done very well and thanks for encouraging him to apply (the letter was presumably more about encouraging DC from the school to apply than about DS, although there was no telling him that :)). So he was curious. He also (very tactical, DS2) thought that if he'd done well and missed his grades (he did!), getting a good HAT score would help him (it did!). So he asked - there was just some link he followed on something. Then DS3, applying for the same subject the following year wanted to compete (bad call as it happened :)). Brothers, eh. I would say that the lady who e-mailed the results when asked did so at the speed of light in both cases and sent a really positive message too, so it was clearly a usual request.

Long winded defence over :)

PS I happen to know that another DC on these threads also asked for his HAT score which was even better than my own two DSs' - it was phenomenal - but all three were well above 70 and all three ended up with firsts, so it does seem to give a pretty good steer to tutors on the ability front. Hence being crucial in the decision to call for interview/ not.

For anyone interested you can ask the dept in January, after offers/ rejections are out.

olliepolly I can categorically confirm that finding any of these aptitude tests hard is not an indication it went badly.

I invigilate these tests and some test candidates (yesterday TSA and TSA1 and ELAT) are given sheets with logins and dates on them after which they can go online so they can find out their results.

How did your DS find the Latin paper couchpotato? My DD said it was “actually okay” which I hope isn’t, paradoxically, a bad sign!

He thought it was fair, pretty much what he was expecting from past papers. Two very obscure authors, but other than that, he hasn't said much. He was half expecting Euripides and Xenophon for the Greek paper and they both came up. He thought that one was OK too. He's very laid back on the surface but he is a wreck today!

DD1 said for the Oxford MAT you get the result if you don't get through to the interview stage, but you can request it after Oxford has given offers (I think).
The other one comes out on 28th November, and you can choose whether to declare it to the universities or not.

She says she doesn't know how she's done on either. She hasn't got 100% but she managed to do most of most questions. Problem is that there's a certain amount of multiple choice, so she'll either have got 0 or 4 marks on them. Which means a slip can mean nothing, whereas if it's marked with working, you might get 2 or 3.

DD2 said the NSAA was "ok" and as she expected. She was having a bit of a wobble on the way to school about which order to do the different sections. I told her the way I would do it and why and she beamed and said she had decided on the same order but couldn't rationalise why and it had helped her (phew, I know very little about anything scientific!)

Now the wait begins. To distract her, she has her 2nd driving test attempt next week and an interview in York at the end of the month. She has one offer, which is reasonable, so she's in a good place at the moment. Fingers crossed about the bloody driving test - she sobbed for over an hour having failed it last month...

Atia Embarrassing. I'll defend the two DSs in question slightly!

Lol, no need to be embarrassed, I think we've just spent too much time on threads like these together!

FWIW, dd1 decided she must have done well in the CLAT, because some people got asked questions about it in their faculty interview, and hers wasn't mentioned. So there's no way she was going to burst her bubble by finding out

Thank you goodbyestranger that made me feel better.

DS got stuck on one of the longer MAT questions and ended up doing what he described as "panic maths". He's hoping he'll still get an interview. Let's see! A nice offer came in from Bristol for him of A* AB plus 2 in any Step. He has internal exams in the next week or 2 to keep him distracted.