Oxbridge Applications 2019 (Part Three)

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

LittleSpace I'm absolutely in agreement with everything you've said but just a factual point - state grammars have been wrestling with the same funding situation as comps, which inevitably - as you rightly say - impacts on educational provision. The grammars haven't had a penny more to play with, to date. That is an area where the independents win hands down - they're bound to. It's called fees :)

Offer & grade requirements are in -

GCE A level
Grades A*A in any order in
Further Mathematics
Physics

Sixth Term Examination Paper Grades 1 and 1 in STEP Mathematics II and Mathematics III.

Agree about Grammars. Sorry, left those out goodbye as we don't have Grammar Schools in our area.

The possible advantage in the Grammar system is that you might benefit from more people being in the same situation. Misery loves company. I'm just going to download on here instead until August.

My assertion Mailaika was that all offer holders deserved their place not all applicants!!

Goodbye,

I wrote a response to you but can't see it.

I read an old thread where people were talking about your kids' school, no school name was mentioned, only that it is a high achieving grammar school ( you didn't like the characterisation of the school that you were reading on that thread).

Then just a few days a go LittleSpace described her DS's school. I made a comparison of the two schools based on what gleaned from those two places. I don't know any more than that...hence my comparison was only one line.

Re Brampton students, I don't think I have ever said any differently to you.

Mailaika I don't think I'd quarrel with the characterisation of my DCs' school as a high achieving grammar, on the basis that it is :)

LittleSpace does Cambridge ever go higher than asking for a 1? Or is that a really, really difficult offer ? (I'm very uninformed about STEP, all I know is that it sounds brutal).

I think it is more or less the standard offer. I believe that they specify A star in FM for some people whereas ds has the choice.

As you say the challenge is for STEP. Ouch! He will be self teaching but his Maths teachers have said he can ask them questions.

And yes completely right - grammars have huge advantages for bright DC; my point was only that that isn't (or hasn't been until lately) financial.

I've seen mention of contextualised offers in this Oxbridge thread. Hang on... do these actually exist?
I ask bc my DC went to a properly average (or worse?) coastal comp, and contextual
Offers for Oxbridge are unknown. Now, I have friends elsewhere who pay for their kids' education and report that their DC are regularly told that children like mine receive lower offers. I always have to put them right!
I also feel that many pupils get As and A stars. It's not that big a deal. Even kids at our school did - quite a lot of them in fact. But what they didn't get was interview practice or subject paper practice, in contrast to the kids at the local private school.
So it's there rather than with grades that Oxbridge need to look for understanding and leniency.

I don't think they do contextual offers either.

One or two other universities like Bristol do though.

I've just looked at the latest round of analysis for STEP out of curiosity but I won't link because I can't decide if it's cheery or not, for those needing 1s! I guess it depends on the quality of competition again.

Please link. I like to prepare for worst case scenarios.

Me too :)

www.admissionstesting.org/Images/501251-explanation-of-results-for-step-2018.pdf

LittleSpace,

No idea if this is still the case but at Cambridge, if you find you can't keep up with maths, you can transfer to another course e.g. Physics (NatSci). You may have to take Physics from year one?? I don't know for sure.

The most recent case I know of is someone who graduated in 2016, he was a high achiever, I think he had 7As/A, but more As than As at a-level. Got in to do maths but couldn't keep up so switched to Physics.

Your DS might not be interested in Physics in which case it is useless info, but it doesn't hurt to know what options are there.

Mailaika I don't think I'd quarrel with the characterisation of my DCs' school as a high achieving grammar, on the basis that

Hahaha, touche.

I've seen mention of contextualised offers in this Oxbridge thread. Hang on... do these actually exist?

You'll also have seen people pointing out that no, they don't.

Oxford (I really don't know about Cambridge) flag up some applications, when selecting for interview, as being from students with more challenging backgrounds. They should be more likely to get invited for an interview. If they are given an offer, it will be the same as everyone else.

A contextual offer is one like my ds got from Bristol, two grades lower than their standard offer, because we live in a postcode with a relatively low progression to higher education.

That is worth knowing if he does get in but can't keep up Mailaika.

Thanks goodbye. That will be really useful to gauge how he is getting on. He is working through questions and will attempt papers under timed conditions, after which we will have a better idea. It looks like torture to me but he is enjoying the questions.

Sometimes they do ask for an S in STEP but it's not common.

thereallifesaffy

It's a bit of a misnomer as the grades wouldn't be lower. It is assumed that all applicants will have the highest possible grades. There has been a furious debate recently that where two applicants (one from state plus disadvantaged and one from private school) are competing for a place and have equal academic ability, Oxbridge have tended to take the private school applicant (more often than not).

In order to be able to admit more kids from disadvantaged background somebody has come up with a way of identifying them during the application process.

I'm not sure that the truly disadvantaged will get through to the application process anyway.

Those ones have been lost along the way in toddler group, primary school and secondary school. I've seen really bright kids drop by the wayside. Lack of aspiration, drugs, drink, choosing the wrong subject, dumbing down, shit home life......

There has been a furious debate recently that where two applicants (one from state plus disadvantaged and one from private school) are competing for a place and have equal academic ability, Oxbridge have tended to take the private school applicant (more often than not).

Umm...……not sure. Perhaps they have chosen the candidate most likely to benefit from the tutorial system as evidenced during interview?? There are a myriad of reasons why one candidate might be chosen over another and we can only conjecture after all.

Good point LittleSpace.

Umm...……not sure. Perhaps they have chosen the candidate most likely to benefit from the tutorial system as evidenced during interview?? There are a myriad of reasons why one candidate might be chosen over another and we can only conjecture after all.

For sure.

No idea if this is still the case but at Cambridge, if you find you can't keep up with maths, you can transfer to another course e.g. Physics (NatSci). You may have to take Physics from year one?? I don't know for sure.

One of DD's schoolfriends transferred from maths to MFL - It sounded like it wasn't so much that she couldn't keep up as that she wasn't enjoying it as much as she'd expected and wanted time for some other uni activities. Obviously she'd done an MFL A level, and had to start the degree course from yr 1. I believe some maths students transfer to comp sci. Someone else she knew (not maths) decided to move to a different uni for a somewhat diff rent subject ... sounded like getting a place elsewhere wasn't too hard.

At the Cambridge maths open day at Trinity, they said students had in the past transferred from maths to a wide variety of subjects, including arts, languages, whatever. As long as you have the right A level background you should be able to do it if you've decided Cambridge maths isn't for you. They said what never happens is switching to maths.