Oxbridge Applications 2019 (Part Three)

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

Yes I hope there isn’t a backlash against successful candidates.

Absolutely. “It’s not christ church though, is it”

err no it’s richer and 1st on the Norrington darling

Coldfingered I read that interviewers have to deal with private school candidates who have been overprepared for their interview and state school candidates who have been underprepared for their interview so yes I think this is definitely an issue.

Congratulations to everyone who got an offer yesterday and commiserations to those who didn't. I think the system is unduly stressful and the atmosphere at my son's school, which sends loads of people to Oxbridge, was postively febrile last Wednesday and yesterday, which is ridiculous.

At his school, there are no discernible trends this year - just a few individual surprises as there are every year. Almost everyone applying from the school is minimally qualified in that they have flawless or virtually flawless GCSE grades and are predicted varying combinations of A* and A at A-level. None of them are 'weak' candidates. And they certainly don't have intensive interview practice so I doubt they all say the same things!

Of course there is a huge element of luck and subjectivity in the Oxbridge process. There are many more qualified candidates than there are places and every student faces a unique combination of competitive field and interviewers. Everyone who does get an offer has just happened to hit the sweet spot of grades, test scores, interview performance and outperforming those who were up against you for that particular slot.

This English (maybe British, but definitely English) fetishisation of Oxford and Cambridge is not at all healthy, particularly for the students. There are lots of other fantastic universities, many with more flexible and interesting courses, many better at specialisms like aeronautical engineering or mechatronics.

Does your dc’s school offer any interview practice at all ontop?

They can ask to set up a practice interview, but it's not obligatory. One of the subjects my son was applying for isn't taught in school so there was no one qualified to do a practice interview on that. My friend's son in a state school also had one practice interview so I'm not sure it's that unusual.

"Our observation is that the Oxbridge mystique is largely a British phenomenon."

Also interesting is the fact that more employers are now blanking out the university name on application forms - possibly to try to avoid unconscious discrimination? (though I think a mner was aware of some research which suggested that this practice did not reduce the number of o/b recruits! But it would not be on grounds of prestige, at least)

"This English (maybe British, but definitely English) fetishisation of Oxford and Cambridge is not at all healthy, particularly for the students."

Totally agree. I think in fact some schools with significant numbers of applications do try not to do this, and do point out to their 6th form students that there are so many other great universities, o/b is not for everyone etc. But it doesn't always work!

I think it’s an accepted fact that private school candidates come to the process far better prepared than the majority of state school candidates.

The thing about interview preparation is that I'm not sure how useful it is beyond the practice of responding to someone who is asking you questions.

You don't know what you're going to get asked. They could ask you anything about your subject, so heavily prepared answers aren't very useful. One boy I know who interviewed a few years ago assumed they'd ask him about his EPQ, so he spent a lot of his own time making sure he was up to speed on it, but they didn't ask him a single question about it.

For maths, it's typically problem solving so you can't specifically prepare other than being good at maths. For literature based subjects, there's an unseen passage to comment on, so you can't be coached for that - you can only be good at commenting on unseen passages which is part of your A level course. For the subject not taught at school, my son was given problems to analyse - he had no idea that the interview would take that form. I think it's similar for history; you're given sources etc to comment on.

This English ... fetishisation of Oxford and Cambridge is not at all healthy... There are lots of other fantastic universities, many with more flexible and interesting courses, many better at specialisms like aeronautical engineering or mechatronics.
This is so true. My DS wasn't interested in Oxbridge, and is now at his first choice, Bath, which has a low snob factor. People don't know that it's ranked so high for the engineering course he's on. When friends have heard where he's studying (non Russel Group ), they've assumed he did badly in his A-levels. (I don't mention he's got 5 very high A-levels, so they really have no idea!)

When my cousin's nephew also got an offer from Bath last year, my cousin even said to me, "I don't think X should accept that. I think he should aim higher!" I'm happy to report that my DS has had a couple of happy years at Bath, with plenty of intellectual rigour, and X has also had a happy first term there!

DD has a Cambridge offer this year, which is great, and I hope she makes the A-level grades. But there're plenty of other alternative universities full of "Oxbridge rejects" who are just as "intellectual".

I don't disagree at all that private school candidates will be better prepared - I think specific interview practice however is a red herring. They're better prepared overall because of the privileged experience. At my son's school so many apply to Oxbridge that you could argue that almost every class is an Oxbridge heavy class. That's just the level of discussion they have in lessons and therefore the level of confidence that many of them have in unfamiliar situations.

So that's the massive inequality that interviewers are trying to see beyond.

Ontop It’s not just about the questions though is it. It’s about building up the candidates experience and confidence.

Yes, I cross posted with you, Bowchica, and I completely agree.

windowframe you made me laugh!! Yes I have heard some corkers in my time!!
Also I agree about the so called 'surprises'. Only Oxbridge tutors know why they chose certain candidates. People with stellar results/predictions should not have a sense of entitlement I'm afraid -although I understand it might make rejection quite painful and unexpected.

The thing I'm interested to see in the stats is whether there's been a shift down at the borderline, which is where the independents make considerable gains over the state applicants. It can be quite irritating for state school kids at Oxford (and presumably Cambridge) to see less bright kids from the independents get places where their friends have lost out. It's a very, very obvious thing to a lot of students. There's really no doubt that that's where the money talks. It would be very good news if there was a concerted shift this year at that borderline end.

I think with maths you can prepare some for an interview, but it doesn't need to be with specialist support. Being able to talk through thought processes outloud is needed and replicates supervisions well.

Interesting conversation about private v state preparation. At the public boarding school I went to, the first term of lower sixth the teachers picked the Oxbridge ones (highly tense) and they were given special lessons throughout the two years. They were very much known as the Oxbridge candidates. There was no input from parents. At Dds school (state comp) she noticed her photo on the staff noticeboard in autumn of Year 12, along with a few others and, on ‘casually’ legging over to have a quick look before a teacher came back , realised they had identified a group as potential Oxbridge candidates. We were invited to a couple of evenings where an admissions officer talked about how to get in and the differences between other universities. It came across as quite an intense process tbh for students and parents. I think my Dd would have been more enthusiastic if they’d talked about clubs and pubs, different societies to join and less about formal balls, colleges and catering in halls. The latter three were all familiar to me from my time at school. She is extremely bright and has so much more knowledge of life and general society than I had at her age. I think she would have done well at interview as she is more adaptable and opinionated than I would have been. But she didn’t want to go.

A long time ago I applied to Cambridge. I had no interview prep, no practice for my STEP exams. I didn’t even have an A level teacher who had studied that subject to A level themselves. I did get an offer, but predictably did not achieve the grades. I went to York. (Incidentally Coleoptera your DT2 may like York very much as it is a compact campus with colleges. I think History is meant to be very good there too.)

Anyway, fast forward lots of years and I am sooo proud of my DD getting the place she (not me) has dreamed of for years. She used to want to study Maths, but since being at a very good state sixth form college with excellent teaching she has changed direction. They did have excellent preparation for Oxbridge with one or two practice interviews and advice sessions for personal statements etc and an overnight trip to Cambridge with workshops thrown in. If she had stayed at her previous GCSE school (was in Special Measures) the picture may have been different. But she may also have been flagged for being at an underachieving school too in that case, and her GCSE results and self taught early A level results seen in that context.

I think it must be hard, if you have have decided on an expensive private education, often at great personal sacrifice, to feel that allowances are made for state school pupils. However, the education received at a private school will still have been better in the main and the chances of a successful application to Oxbridge from a private school are, I suspect, still much higher this year even if there is a (in my opinion necessary) move to make things a little fairer.

Another big difference this year is the lack of AS results in England. Lots of A*s at GCSE do not necessarily indicate a huge academic ability. There is a big difference in A level content. Also, someone who is brilliant at Maths, for example, may have poor results in some subjects, but be a perfect Cambridge Trinity applicant. Somebody who lives and breathes History may not be good at Science, but that doesn’t matter. My brother, who was in the ‘remedial’ class in school, is a Dr of engineering.

Hopefully Oxford and Cambridge, with all the variations of interviewers, colleges and subjects etc, do get it right most of the time, but they are bound to miss out on some really brilliant students sometimes, and by the sound of it there are some we have heard about in this thread. They are bound to get it wrong sometimes. That doesn’t mean the children have failed at all and they will do very well elsewhere.

I’m sorry if this comes across as at all ranty.

Good luck to all the applicants here for all the universities. I am particularly thinking of those with STEP to get through too!

Lililili I think they probably rarely miss out on any brilliant student. It's at the tail end that things do seem demonstrably unfair.

Not completely understanding 'tail end' Goodbye. With so much competition how can there be such a thing??

Yes I agree, that is where it seems most unfair, but there must be times when someone does very poorly at interview and just doesn’t click with the interviewer despite being motivated and excellent in their subject? I think my DD is brilliant (!!!) but I wouldn’t have been surprised at a rejection as she has some very good and some very bad days .....

Ah ……… tail end is where there are choices to be made rather than dead certs. Is that it??

You have a point there Lili

That's a phrase used at school Hubble, re. the 11+ - sorry. It's easy with the 11+ of course, since it's now purely numerical. There'll always be a clustering along the borderline where it's six of one and half a dozen of another as to which applicant to take. And that's where for years the slightly less able from independents have so often seemed to pip the slightly more able from the state sector. Obviously not everyone is uniformly brilliant but talk of a tail is relative, obviously.

I think so Hubble. That is what I understood it as. In one article I think I read about the initial selection being into 3 piles - the very likely, the maybe, and the nos, before interview. So it would be the maybes. Those in the maybe pile would have to really shine at interview.