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!

Cut off, not cur off.

Oxford is nearly always guaranteed to receive more applicants than Cambridge because the typical offer in Oxford is lower and this encourages more students to apply. Just because more students to apply to Oxford doesn't actually mean it is more competitive.

For example, Oxford requires A()A()A for maths which is an especially high requirement for Oxford.

However, Cambridge requires A()A()A() as well as a grade 1 in STEP. Cambridge will only accept A()A(*)A with a grade 1 in two STEP papers. Approximately half the students who receive Cambridge offers will not achieve the STEP requirements. This will discourage all but the very strongest students to apply for Cambridge.

Coming a bit late to the thread (but I have been on a school trip for the last few days).

DD2 interested in Bio NatSci at Cambridge. DD1 already studying Physical NatSci there. We went on one of the open days and looked around a few colleges. She was a bit gutted that her favourite on paper was not that great when we saw it for real, but we then saw 2 that both of us preferred (not DD1's college). She went to a taster lecture and came out buzzing.

Over the summer we are going to visit a couple of other places, but she wants to give it a go. She has some A* at GCSE but not across the board. However, she is passionate about Bio/Chem so who knows?

Ds thought that Merton ticked every box. When we visited he didn’t like it at all. In fact he had a bit of a meltdown in the street outside and said he hated every college and so we went and had lunch and then went home!

He is now happily ensconced in the other place

My DD also has firmly decided on a college to apply to. It ticked all her boxes but when she say the accommodation, she hated it - said it was so old and dark that it spooked her out! We then had a frantic rush around to find another that she liked. we must have visited almost every college that offered her course over the 2 days.

I’m a little late to the party. I’ve had quite a long break from MN, and indeed have a DC hopefully about to start uni, having just finished Y13. So certainly the exam stress in our household has been high for a number of years, as DD Is just one year below.

Turning to said DD, she is going to apply to Oxford, for Archeology and Anthropology.

DD has just recently returned from the UNIQ summer school, and genuinely had the best time. Aside from the academics, the students were given a lot of information, coaching and material re the application process.

She’s drafting and working on her PS now. It was very much emphasised that passion for the subject was key.

She’s not sure which college she might apply for, as the ones they stayed in/studied in etc don’t offer her subject, but it was also highlighted that each application is given a fair assessment, regardless of choice and many successful applicants end up in a different college. So most students get interviewed by two colleges anyway.

I think...my energy is being directed at DS, who is now having a wobble about his university subject choice, a week before exam results day...

Just another point, DD has straight A’s, and 7’s/8 at GCSE, so she’s not a straight A* candidate. UNIQ were very clear on the course that every student there was capable of making a success application if they so chose.

It gave her the belief that she would ‘belong’. We are state school. Rightly or wrongly, this was a concern for DD, everyone was very ‘normal’ she found. Whatever that means, I understand how she felt though. 😁

Dr has her heart set on Cambridge for their ASNAC course. We still have AS leveis here, so tomorrow will tell whether she's going to be able to apply as I know they still look at them during their application process.

Her history and psychology grades are in the bag based on all mocks, and her teachers tell her she gets high As, and they dont do A at AS but that implies possible A if high enough.
Her English teacher has, in all elements, seemed harsher all year and predicts a B for her. So, much stress here as she thinks (And is possibly right) that a single B at AS level could be enough to ruin her chances of applying, even with another year to go to work on her results.

We have told her to wait for the actual results as the teacher, as I mentioned, has downplayed her in every aspect that they rate them on, in striking comparison to the other 2 teachers who talk as though the sun shines out of her! An externally marked exam is a far better measure. So fingers crossed for that third 3!

Does anyone have any tips on applying for choral scholarships? DS is looking at the big choral foundations (Christchurch, New, Magdalen) and is keen to get back into the (almost) daily services that he did as a boy chorister. He's a bit late to the party, as only just decided to go for it, so has missed the Choral open day and applications for CSs have to go in by 1st Sept.

Sorry, should have said that is for Oxford.

So.... the question being debated in our home today is whether it's worth putting Cambridge down with the AS level results that were achieved.

History - A. Psychology - A. English - the dreaded B. One paper was an A, but the other dragged her scores down.

She's rather disappointed, but we don't know whether that means it's an automatic rejection from Cambridge if she applied with those current grades, or how much scope there is to raise them next year.

Decisions, decisions....

@DrMadelineMaxwell - from what I remember reading on The Student Room from Cambridge Admissions Tutors, then it might not be the most competitive application but if DDs teachers are confident that she will attain the required grades (that is they can give her predicted grades which align with the typical offer) then it's worth making an application.

Are there 5 other Universities she'd rather put down? Would 1 risky choice be worth it and within her and your comfort zone?

Not even a question, definitely stick it down - ‘you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ There’s always a chance of bumping it up next year.

@Coleoptera you could try plugging the predicted grades and the course into the UCAS Offer Calculator. However it's just another data set and won't tell you whether YOUR child will get an offer...... www.ucas.com/advisers/offer-rate-calculator/

More data via the Admissions Feedback statements from each dept (this is from the Keble website but is for applications across all colleges)

www.keble.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/admissions-feedback

Leaving aside the stats, I guess some questions to ask are:

What is it about Theology/RS that your DT prefers?

Which subject would your DT be happier being grilled on for 30 mins?

Oops! I just realised that it was Cambridge not Oxford that your DT is considering.

Some Cambridge data here www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics

Yes, you have to tailor the PS to cover this I believe. DD is applying for Archeology and Anthropology at Oxford, but actually, only one other university offers this, the other courses available differ to be straight Archeology or variations. She's drafted her PS to cover this but it's tricky. I'm not sure how you would cover something entirely different.

I wouldn't expect ANY subject to be easy to be successful with regard to Oxbridge. Someone asked this for DD's subject on The Student Room. The answer was a resounding no!

I'd strongly advise applying for other universities other than Oxbridge. I'd be delighted if DD was successful but we've been to see lots of other places and she's be happy to study there too. It's very tough to get into, so we are being realistic.

She did the UNIQ summer school in July and did have an amazing time, nothing to lose from applying.

Coleoptera, 4 A is as many A at GCSE as I got before I went to Oxford, so that looks perfectly adequate to me. Not everyone there will have 13 A, there are plenty of mortals. Ideally the Bs wouldn’t be in English lit, but even then, if your dc is predicted A, I think you’d be as likely as not to be offered an interview.

@Couchpotato3: my daughter has just finished 3 years as an Oxford choral scholar. Her choir sang 3 evensongs a week plus lots of other services and concerts, so was very busy.

She didn't do the open day, just put in her application to her preferred college and they invited her for an audition. The auditions all take place over a 2-3 day period and the website tells you what to expect. They are put up in college accommodation and fed free during this period. My daughter met some of her now best friends at the auditions.

They get a letter fairly soon after, telling them whether or not they have met the required standard, and then of course they have to apply as normal in October and may be interviewed in December. In January the result letters go out.

There are various scenarios for those who meet the required standard: you get a scholarship at your college of choice; or you get an offer of an academic place from a different college or an open offer, and a choral award at the original college; or you get an academic offer but not a place in the choir, or of course you don't get in at all. My daughter was in the second category and a number of the members of her choir were at different colleges.

Perks were free singing lessons, free meals after each service, and £350 a year. Not to mention a chance to sing some great music, a great social life, and free choir trips at home and abroad. If she was in Oxford out of term time for concerts or recordings, her accommodation, food and travel was all paid for. On those occasions she stayed at the college of the choir, not her own college.

My daughter loved it. She has one final engagement next month and then the new choir takes over. I know she'll miss it.

Good luck to your son if he decides to apply.

Hi Coleoptera, it’s not intrusive at all. I matriculated in 2002, and I went to a public school (Tonbridge) that sends a lot of candidates off for interview. Can I take it that your DC’s school sends comparatively few? In which case I can understand their nervousness - they have a small pool of successes to draw from, and perhaps something those successes had in common was a high number of A* at GCSE. I would ignore them. As you say, this is the school considering your child ‘not a good bet’ based on perhaps somewhat limited experience.

From an Oxford perspective - they really, really do not care about polymaths. Your undergraduate degree at best is going to have three disciplines (I’m thinking of PPE here, don’t know if you can do PPE with a foreign language?) so for them, provided you can demonstrate potential there, that’s great. If you’re going for an English degree, the interviewer is not going to care that you got a B in physics - it is not relevant to their assessment of your ability to grapple with literary theory. In that respect, a high number of A* is not the be all and end all.