Oxbridge Applications 2019 (Part Three)

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Today is a big day for many... time for a new thread too

Long time lurker here- I thought I would add some more anecdotal evidence around the state/ private school thing.

My DD was state-educated until 16 but then wanted a change of scene. She was offered a sixth form scholarship at a local small selective day school which offered her preferred subjects and generally smaller classes, better extra-curricular etc.

When she decided to apply to Cambridge I was really worried that we might have made a mistake accepting the scholarship and the fact she was now at private school would go against her.

I am pleased and relieved to report that today she got an offer for an Arts subject at one of the oldest central colleges. She is predictably over the moon and I am relieved that the private school thing did not matter.

So to other students and their parents- if a move to the private sector suits their needs don't worry it won't be held against them.

DD reported that when coming out of one interview the boy about to go in after her said hello, immediately followed by 'which school do you go to?' - she told him (of course no one who lives more than 15 miles from our northern town will have heard of it) - followed by 'I am at Westminster' - what a weird first question- she is interested to see if he got in.

Best wishes to all our DC, whichever path they take.

I guess from a philosophical point of view all those talented students who missed out on Oxbridge who will now go elsewhere is good news for other universities . Although I’m not back home until tonight my partner says my DD is fine . I’m struggling with processing the value of a course , albeit the same course , at a university that has only asked for two A’s rather than , had it been forthcoming , AAA .

Coleoptera a new thread might me a good idea . A thread for Eeyores .

Not sure what of your dd's subject, Bengal, but in lots of cases, Oxbridge offers are often lower than the other top Unis, so that argument surely goes the other way?

NatSci .

True to form, DS did not track down exams officer to fill in the form required for Aberystwyth (deadline Thursday...) . However, he obediently filled it in with me last night. Trouble is, it needs an acoompanying email about his exam concessions and her signature. The woes of his silly split site school is that the woman is never there! WIBU to pp her signature, since she definitely knows about it and is happy to progress and then get her to send a separate email to them? Otherwise, I am all out of ideas....

I ahve looked at sample exam papers online and they do look rather hard! The Spanish one in particular looked like only a really really good linguist (ie bilingual) could do it.

@Coleoptera, “He's looking for a place with intellectual rigour and prestige but I don't think any of his other offers will match Oxbridge, although are all excellent unis - Bristol, Warwick and York”.

I have 4 dds including triplets. Dd1 at Oxford, dds 2 and 3 at Bristol. Dd4 has an unconditional offer for Oxford as she is on a gap year and applied post A’level (much less stress). 3 Dd’s are studying the same subject and I can reassure you that many of the courses at Bristol are very challenging and full of academic rigour.

I think your dcs will be fine wherever they go.

Danglingmod the offers which are lower relative to other 'top' unis are Oxford humanities and social sciences. The sciences vary less. Cambridge generally has high offers. So the only relatively 'relaxing' offer is for something like History, English, Law or PPE at Oxford.

Coleoptera it's interesting that you think it's been brutal at your DTs' school. It will be interesting to see if that's reflected in the wider admissions statistics for state/ independent this year. Here's hoping for a double offer from Durham in the coming days and a liking for it when they go to see it.

There is always a danger when parents think they know the pecking order within the school that many candidates are put off applying altogether!

DS's school also has had a downturn this year in offers for both Oxford and Cambridge. There are some surprise rejections and surprise offers, again leading to raised eyebrows in some quarters. DS will be going through it all next year as he is year 12 and it has given him hope that as one of his schools probably so called lesser candidates that he has a real chance over the boffs!

I am glad to see the Colleges are treating people as individuals and not "cloned, I have ticked all the right boxes" applicants.

No-one other than the interviewing panel knows how well the interview went. Sometimes people think they have fluffed it because they can't provide a definitive answer whereas they will have been judged on their thought processes. Others may think they have done well because they do confidently provide the answer, without realising (a) it might not be the answer and (b) their reasoning behind the answer was not actually sound at all.

It has definitely been a strange year and I think there is a lot being done to address the "it's not for the likes of us" applicants.

Well done to all those who have successfully received offers and I hope you achieve whatever grades you need to meet them.

Commiserations to those that didn't. There are some excellent courses that can be tailored to your own interests out there. If on reflection you don't think your back up choices were right take a gap year and reconsider options, including whether to reapply to Oxbridge.

Would be interesting to see the admission statistics for Cambridge admissions this year.
Dd is fine about her rejection, in fact may be relieved. She has UCL interview coming up and has already been interviewed in two other universities. No offer yet!

She is incredibly smart, not spoon fed , well read and would make a really good doctor - makes me think what are they looking for?
Retrospectively, looking at the interviews I can sort of see how some schools get so many people into Oxbridge.
Luckily for Medicine, there are so many good universities..

Have started looking at London living costs - insane amount of money required!

I wonder how many places went to students who will be paying international fees. Places are limited so they can't just expand to pull in more fees and give unconditional offers just to get more money so just find a way of getting extra per student.

I have to go to work in a mo but will tune it at lunchtime. I just wanted to say to Coleo, you have reeled off all the bright candidates who didn't get offers from Oxbridge. Where do you think those kids will go? - Bristol, Manchester, Durham, Warwick, York. Of course those universities have academic rigour. Candidates of that calibre aren't going to coast. Please get along to the offers days where you will meet fellow students and have sample lectures, do some research on the Student Room and look for the positives that will chime with your boys, have a couple of weekend forays to the towns/cities to judge the student lifestyle. I don't know how the offers day compare with the open days but we picked up many positives on ours. You can choose modules in philosophy, politics, drama or another language without doing joint honours but just for your own interest. You can choose a year abroad. Oxbridge doesn't offer this sort of flexibility. I have worked with some total arseholes from Oxbridge who are completely up themselves. DH went to Cambridge and we are on the same page with this. It must be so hard for you but I hope you come back in a few months time having completely turned this around.
Finally, DD has relatively weak GCSE results compared to many you have mentioned. Just 3 are A* and God forbid she got a B. She also did 4ASs but when she dropped to 3 A levels she let a really chunky academic one go and kept a slightly lightweight subject. However, she loves her subject, has opinions and argues them well, wasn't nervous for the interviews or entrance exam and she enjoyed doing both. She said of her entrance exam that it just started writing itself once she got into it. Somehow she beat the algorithm and some sort of raw talent came through. I think you've just got to stop trying to guess at this game. She is delighted with her offer and dad and I are adjusting as we really weren't expecting it. She's worked hard and we are proud.

Coleoptera, upthread is discussion about why some of the best and brightest wont go to Oxbridge.

The thread also contains a couple of suggestions that Oxbridge students work harder. I am really not sure the latter is true. What is true is that Oxbridge terms are shorter so both work and social life are more condensed. There is obvious advantage in having more time to get through the same content.

I simply dont get your DS' concern about intellectual rigour and prestige. Despite failing to get offered an Oxbridge place DS has achieved a funded place on a leading US PhD programme with students from around the world. He has one of the strongest technical backgrounds despite being the youngest. How your son does is up to him, not a product of being at Oxbridge. He has a choice of well regarded Universities. Perform well at any and the sky is the limit.

In particular your son really needs to avoid turning up and acting as if Bristol/etc is beneath him. DD knows a couple like that, who are considered slightly sad, not least because they are not obviously brighter than their cohort. It acts as a barrier to them really engaging with their courses.

It is worth remembering that there is a real silver lining in your son's first major disappointment happening whilst he is at home, where you can help him process it and get it into perspective. And if need be he takes a gap year and tries again. Though with the understanding that the competition will be strong next year as well so the outcome will remain unpredictable.

I agree there is nothing worse than the "Oxbridge reject" mentality. In fact "anything reject" is a mindset that is just not good.

Reminds me of a schoolfriend who applied to the John Lewis graduate trainee programme. She thought she was a dead cert as she had worked in John Lewis all through university holidays and was highly determined. When she was rejected there were ructions and she and her mother vowed never to patronise John Lewis ever again. And they haven't! I asked her when I met her a few years ago and no, for twenty five years neither had set foot in the store...

Everyone has focussed on the academic rigour bit for Oxford DT. I can’t speak to that, nor about students at Oxbridge working harder than others, except to say that when talking to my friends at other universities it was clear my workload was considerably higher than theirs at the beginning. That’s not to say I worked harder, but I certainly had more work to do. However, come finals I’m sure we were all working flat out to get the degree we wanted.

The bit that’s being missed is the prestige bit. Regrettably, US universities notwithstanding, there’s not much substitute for that for many of the degree subjects within the UK, though there are plenty of notable exceptions. It’ll just have to be something DT2 has to come to terms with, or formulate a plan to try again next year, as there’s no getting round that part.

For stats purposes, DD’s London state grammar has done pretty much the same as in previous years. Cohort of 140, about 40 applied to Oxbridge, many others apply to med/dentistry school. 10 oxford and 20 cambridge offers to her knowledge so far. All subjects, so NatSci, MML, Law, Medicine, English, PPE, History, Engineering etc. So no discernible trends.

Love the idea of an "Oxbridge unsuccessful this year" support for mums thread. Also found it very uplifting to hear about the sucesses of some of your DC who had the guts to have another go. Would anyone know how to set one up? Xxxxxx to all and well done to those who got through the gates.

Hingle...are you sure? Our observation is that the Oxbridge mystique is largely a British phenomenon. London based Europeans and others were happily applying to places like Imperial with barely a glance at Oxbridge. The sort of London internationals who are responsible for recruiting the next generation.

Manchester, York, Warwick, Bristol, Durham, Cambridge. You’re a London based European. You’re recruiting for a role. You have candidates with degrees from those universities. Hand on heart, are you sure that they won’t be particularly interested in the Cambridge candidate? I’ve worked for international (non-European) and British companies, and in both cases, among the first things I am asked about at interview is an interested ‘I see you were at Oxford?’ I’ve said in other threads - this is not a good thing, but it is a thing that happens. I’m sure in cases I’ll not have been the most qualified person, but they have made assumptions about that Oxbridge mystique.

I accept that this is only anecdotal. But every recruiter I speak to is delighted I was at Oxford. My much more qualified, and more intelligent wife, does not get that sort of cooing over the education part of her CV. At this stage it really shouldn’t matter, but it still draws the eye.

I wonder whether the interviewers were looking for something different this year in the sense that I imagine that candidates from the schools that usually send a lot of Oxbridge tend to give the same kind of answers? They have all been through intensive interview practice and perhaps this is starting to grate with the interviewers?

But there are lots of interviewers and they are all very different. You get old traditional ones, young traditional ones, different sexes, trendy ones, foreign ones...

I think a candidate "gels" sometimes, and sometimes does not. I suppose there are the stand-out candidates and those who clearly struggle with answers (not through nerves), but most will be very able and keen and it must take a Solomon to choose between them.

I don't think they're looking for outgoing personality of the year type people, though, as ds got in!

I always do feel for thos who got offers “surprisingly”. I’m not talking about surprising themselves, but more so others and parents within the school. I’m supposing this is probably a thing at the biggest or most academically selective schools, that even applicants to the same university see themselves in a pecking order; and if one lower down that order gets an offer whilst one above does not, it is a “surprise”. It almost makes me think that they’d feel unworthy if they were ever to hear that.

There will be slews of snippy comments, too: "Hmmm, yes, I hear they bend over backwards to let state school applicants in now." "Is that one of those out-of-town new colleges?" "My cousin's ds went to Oxford and he works in Poundland now."

Heard 'em all. But don't care!

Do many people go through intensive interview practice? At my DC's school, they can ask to have a practice interview, but it's not really intense! I think there are just so many people with A* GCSEs and predictions, that this is perhaps less important than the Oxbridge exams - and it's easy to have an off day. There's so much competition that there are many excellent candidates that don't get through.