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!

I agree, Errol. My eyes goggled reading on MN a couple of years ago or so about a poster's dc's private school which drafted in a panel to "help out" in Personal Statement Week .

Heaven help the state school kid who gets told to write about their extra-curricular activities. As you said, hopefully acing the aptitude tests helps ameliorate duff PSs.

Now, JustanotherMile, get your dc to score out the bit about extra curriculars (unless they are very relevant, eg bomb making when they want to do Chemistry (joke) ) and ADD IN about the wider reading. As wide as possible.And not just a list, either, some comment on each and how it complemented/contrasted with A Level material.

Ds was grilled, and grilled again, and then grilled some more at interview about what he had read in addition to A Level stuff .

My eyes goggled reading on MN a couple of years ago or so about a poster's dc's private school which drafted in a panel to "help out" in Personal Statement Week .

I'd hope Oxbridge academics in general (and English dons in particular) would be able to spot genuine personal statements from comittee-assisted ones.

Wow! I had hoped stories of PS panels and students being coached were exaggerations that I'd rather not buy into, for fear of reverse snobbery on my part.

I guess the admissions data would tell you if academics see through this at interview.

Thankfully, virtually all of DD's PS is based on her wider reading, with a short paragraph re a specific extra curricular activity. She wants to study Archeology and Anthropology, not something many schools of any variety offer at A Level at least.

This thread is incredibly useful, thank you.

Dd2 just come back from having a look around Cambridge. She's got some ideas of what to put in her personal statement and had a good chat with the Porter at Corpus christi and has decided that's her no.1 choice. She's really not expecting to get in and part of her wants the big city experience of uni so we'll have to see what happens.

My Dd is a real planner and organiser so in the summer before even starting sixth form she was thinking about her PS. I distinctly remember us going to a cafe to discuss her strategy.

She had downloaded a copy of a PS of a successful Cambridge applicant which she then dissected. The elements of his PS included
-books he had read and how it related to his subject

• extra courses he had done

-relevant work experience -essay competition he had entered (we noted with relief he didn't mention winning) -extracurricular societies in school he had joined -conferences he'd attended And things I can't remember. We noted that he didn't describe what he ha done or but showed how it had furthered understanding and related to course.

At the time she wanted to study law so looked up relevant books , essay competitions and courses. And made a list of what she needed to do in Year 12. She got a place on Cambridge 6th form law conference, did the Houses of Parliament work scheme and entered law essay competitions. Perhaps the reading of the law books put her off as she ended up applying for a different subject. She had more than enough to include and anything that didn't fit, but seemed a bit of an achievement, she asked teacher to put into reference. However she still copied the basic structure of that original PS but made it her own.

She wrote it and insisted asked teachers to proof read. I think it must have gone through 10 drafts!

Funnily enough fellow 1st year students on different courses have asked her for a copy of her PS. Apparently their old teachers (from private schools ) had requested copies of PS s in relevant subjects for their prospective applicants.
So maybe there is some kind of template floating about!
So although she couldn't didn't write her PS without using copies of other students what she sent off did end up being unique to her.

Really study the curriculum for the subject at each university and apply for the one that matches your interests. Also really study the applications advice. Cambridge has masses including videos of interviews. Don't know about Oxford.

Gosh, that's very clinical, NeaterBonita.

Ds's was a bit rambling, really, but he droned on about what he'd read and why and his opinions on them.

I'm not sure they care that much about work schemes etc; not everyone can do these (it would cost a fortune to travel to the Houses of Parliament every day from here). For Law, trundling off to the local courts would be fine.

I googled essay competitions for ds and was unpleasantly surprised to see that you could buy bespoke entries; several purveyors of these boasted wins in university competitions. (Actually - particular bugbear is that people cheat in these: viz 50 words Radio 2 comp.)

I'd have thought each DC should just do whatever actually positively interests them rather than seeking out things they feel they ought to do. Neither of my two daughters who read law went to the local courts and as far as I can recall none of my DC ever entered an essay competition for their subject. It would have been fine if they'd wanted to but I'd always say do what interests you and don't be lured away from that by some notion that any particular thing is an essential pre-requisite to a successful application, because it won't be.

I'd have thought each DC should just do whatever actually positively interests them rather than seeking out things they feel they ought to do

Yes. If they're in any way faking an interest for the sake of their PS... maybe they shouldn't really be trying for an Oxbridge place?

Irma you're right it was a pretty clinical approach and I'm sure the admission team will have seen through sentences like 'working at The Houses of Parliament the week after the Brexit referendum I realised.....'. But hey ho she was barely 17 was very passionate about the application.

In her younger days Dd's passion was performing arts and I was described as the Mum with the pushy daughter!

I suppose the way a young person approaches something like this is in line with how they are as 17 year olds. So some of them are worrying about wording and some happy to ramble. I am sure your DS had insightful stuff to say even if his PS wasn't a one year project with military style planning.

Irma when DD did her UNIQ course this year, there were summer schools running at the same time that you paid to attend. I am really naive as I didn't know you could pay for the experience. Typing that sounds worse than naive.

I think DD wants to study Archeology to study Archeology, if that is at Oxford that would be wonderful, and I hope for her sake that happens if she is successful with her application. If not, I'm sure she'll study it elsewhere and be happy. Chances for all seem slim, maybe students feel the way to approach an application is clinically?

If we have had the opportunity to facilitate her interest that's great. We holidayed in Scotland this year and took the opportunity to visit some Neolithic structures (much to the disgust of DS..). She also managed fo find some out of print books while we were away at a town we visited that she had particularly wanted to read, which delighted her.

But it wasn't so structured. I can see why young folk think it might need be though, I can see why the extra curricular activities could be viewed as being so important. DS did D of E thinking he should. He actually got a lot from the experience, but he definitely thought he should.

A slightly disjointed post, I know!

I didn't mean to imply my Dd was faking an interest. Work experience at HoUses of Parliament was amazing for someone doing A level politics. In fact she had applied the year before and not got in.

Neither of us really knew what the prerequisites were for a successful application. She had never met anyone who had applied to Oxbridge or even attended a school anyone had these aspirations. She just had her copy of the successful PS and a few words on Cambridge web-site. I guess she just did the best she could with the information she had.

I wasn't trying to say this is what you could or should do, but it's as ok to try really hard as it is to just nip upstairs on October 14th and bash out 4000 characters.

I didn't mean to imply my Dd was faking an interest

I didn't infer she was, I meant that as a general observation!

* ..just nip upstairs on October 14th and bash out 4000 characters.*

I doubt that's ever a good approach. I think DD found it quite a useful exercise inthinking through what she really wanted to do and why; having to write it coherently was a good discipline.

Neither did I, I just wondered if students these days feel they have to almost approach the PS as a tick box exercise, subject, relevant experience, outside interests, D of E, etc.

Do you mind if I ask further questions?

DD has had her PS returned again from her tutor. There's a couple of suggestions that are valid. In addition, there's a couple of comments such as 'what school activities have you done?', 'what have you gained from subjects done in school?' and 'needs to be a bit more about you and what you are bringing to any university'. The PS is very much showing her wider reading with regard to Archeology and what specific areas of the subject she finds engaging and wishes to develop.

I think the tutor wants her to try to appeal to her other university choices in addition to Oxford.

I'm wondering whether she needs to, given her predicted grades are likely to be well above any needed to secure an offer from other institutions?

The subjects she's doing at A Level are History, Biology and English Literature and her target grades (based on mocks) are likely to be A (star), A (star) and A (I'm trying to avoid a bold fail, hence brackets..!). She doesn't study Archeology.

There has been no guidance from school at all about how to write a PS, let alone one for Oxbridge.

Naturally we are confused and I am quite cross.

However, she will also have to submit two pieces of marked work and an essay specific to the course, so I know the PS isn't everything.

The advice DS got about his PS from school , was , "bit like a party , come in late , leave early" which was a way of saying talk about the subject you want to do - get into the meat of it and don't flim flam around at the end with your hobbies.

That's probably not terribly helpful is it

Well, it's a great saying at least

Justanothermile state schools tend to err on the cautious side and often advice is risk averse and based in part on not getting it in the neck from parents if it all goes tits up. My DCs amended their PS where the advice made sense (and they got some very helpful advice on amendments) but where it was based on spreading the risk they didn't bother - or in some cases amended the PS to get it past the school and then reverted back. This thing of going through subject by subject is droney old stuff - so I'd say either appease and then revert to the original 'Oxford' PS or explain to the school why she wants to take that risk and dig her heesl in. It's her choice ultimately, and entirely legit.

That should be heels, not heesl :)

Oh I and I cannot speak about all universities. Ds was turned down by one very, very respected university ( LSE) and in hindsight his PS was not good enough / what they wanted. LSE give very clear guidance on PS. All others , his approach got him offers.

Just from one experience - wider reading, he included , any ec activities were edited to be relevant to subject and a couple of lines. Other than that it pretty much started " why I want to study X is ............." ( phrased better but the point stands)

That said it was Oxford so Aptitude test . interview etc obviously played a big part.

Same PS got an offer from UCL ( although they did ask him to write a short essay and submit before offer ) - also Exeter & I think Kings. Can't speak for other universities and do note - only one ds experience.

Thanks both.

Yes, there were two pertinent points that both DD, DS (he's just about to start university this year, so well versed with regard to writing PS's) and I objectively considered valid on reflection.

I think we will fight the corner on the other points.

I've told dd to stop now for the night. I'm not sure obsessing is healthy. She's been pretty relaxed so far, I don't want this to turn into an exercise in questioning her every word and starting to doubt herself.

Isn't there an extra section of PS they can fill in for Oxbridge (and I think med/vet where they make a non-med 5th choice)? IIRC DDs main PS was focussed on her interest in electronics type stuff as the other applications were for EEE, but then in the extra part she added something about why gen eng at Cambridge (generalise then specialise) would be even better.

I don't remember DD talking about her A level subjects at all in her PS - she mentioned her electronic products gcse because that was one of the things that had sparked(hoho, I think she avoided that!) her interest in the subject ...segue into Arkwright scholarship and so on. She talked about her epq because it was extremely relevant. DofE was barely mentioned in some sort of 'overcoming challenges' riff.

I'm not sure whether anywhere other than Cambridge paid much attention to the PS tbh - other than as a jumping off point for the interviews which were frankly more them trying to sell themselves as insurance choice to her than the other way round - they will assume early applicants with good predicted grades are applying to Oxbridge. That may not apply for other subjects and unis such as LSE and imperial.

That was actually the other point DS's school said - if you are going to be interviewed write nothing in your Ps you would not be happy to talk about - no matter how lovely it looks. Also ( and he had this from a friend of his ) if you are asked to submit a marked essay & will have an interview - submit the essay you are happiest talking about even if a lower mark than your "best essay"

This advice is anecdotal - please take advice from those with more experience - but - for what it is worth.

Errol - My great aunt swore ( and I believe it to be apocryphal but who knows ) she knew an electrician with a tin leg after the war who was , inevitably , call "Sparky"