Oxbridge Applications

[Bibibayliss]

Dear Mums

My daughter is planning to apply to Cambridge next year. She will be taking her entrance tests this October. A company called Oxbridge Applications, ( not endorsed by Oxford or Cambridge) provide consultancy services on entrance tests, interviews etc. Has anybody used them or has any feedback about the company.
Thank you in advance

[PCohle]

Why would a school not want a student to attend Oxbridge? Seriously. Not having the resources or experience to adequately support students I completely understand, but schools actively sabotaging realistic Oxbridge candidates sounds like tin foil hat twaddle.

If a school has a set policy regarding predicted grades I highly doubt an external consultant (or indeed the student with the consultant's "advice on negotiating with the school") will change that policy.

God, this thread makes applying for Oxbridge sound like a Kafkaesque nightmare. Your DD will be fine OP. Her school will not actively undermine her application

[MariaNovella]

PCohle - when you live in England it seems absolutely impossible that any school anywhere could possibly not want its pupils to apply to Oxbridge. This is what you need to move past!

[MariaNovella]

If a school has a set policy regarding predicted grades I highly doubt an external consultant (or indeed the student with the consultant's "advice on negotiating with the school") will change that policy.

You might doubt it, but that is because you have no experience of the situation. The global market for higher education consultants is massive. Study Group was sold by Providence to Ardian a couple of weeks ago: www.provequity.com/news/ardian-agrees-to-acquire-study-group

That transaction valued Study Group at £500 million.

[PCohle]

I don't live in England.

And the market for higher educational consultants has no bearing on whether or not the services they provide are actually effective.

The market for homeopathic remedies is probably huge. It's still shite.

[MariaNovella]

Surely the people to judge the quality or otherwise of higher education consultants are their clients rather than people who know nothing at all of the market because they are in such a privileged position that they cannot even conceive of schools being appalling gatekeepers to HE?

[PCohle]

I can perfectly well conceive of schools being poor gatekeepers to HE because of lack of resources or experience. I've said so already. However I sincerely doubt there are appreciable numbers of schools actively seeking to sabotage Oxbridge applicants.

Of course I have no direct experience of these bogus consultancies - I think their services are completely unnecessary. I do however have experience of successfully applying to Oxbridge without using one.

You seem to have some kind of agenda here.

[MariaNovella]

However I sincerely doubt there are appreciable numbers of schools actively seeking to sabotage Oxbridge applicants.

Schools generally want their highest performing students to continue to the most prestigious HE in their own market. Oxbridge beyond the limited horizons of many, many schools (or their in house guidance counsellors).

[MariaNovella]

I have no agenda other than to draw attention of posters to the fact that the transition from school to HE can be severely compromised by the agenda of schools (or their in house guidance counsellors) and that external advisors can be of critical assistance. This is a very complex and opaque marketplace. Cambridge University, for one, is beginning to understand that in house guidance counsellors employed by even reputable schools are a very heterogeneous bunch that should not automatically be considered more reliable than independent advisors. But independent advisors come in many guises too - the market for both sorts of advisor is unregulated.

[Cocopops2010]

@marianovello you’re talking absolute twaddle. sorry to be blunt but there it is. Yes some schools aren’t very knowledgeable about Oxbridge but none would sabotage- that’s ludicrous. Are you writing from outside the UK?
In addition Oxbridge have made huge efforts to ensure that pupils are assessed fairly.

OP - your daughter needs to read read read and do sample admissions tests and turn up and be enthusiastic and committed and ‘teachable’ - that’s the word a lot of interviewers think about. Is she engaged? Is she flexible in her thinking? Fundamentally would they enjoy teaching her for 3/4 years?
Applying to Oxbridge is not some incredibly cloak and dagger process. Just so your best, turn up and fingers crossed.

[Cocopops2010]

Also in the UK schools don’t employ in house guidance counsellors. I think you are writing from the USA or an international school.

[MariaNovella]

in the UK schools don’t employ in house guidance counsellors.

Are you crazy? Of course they do!

[Cocopops2010]

International schools maybe. But in 99% of uk schools: references are written by teachers. Predicted grades are done by teachers. Advice is given by teachers. Guidance counsellor is a term for US applications.

[PCohle]

I agree. I've heard of a couple of schools having a teacher that does double duty as a career adviser. I've never heard of a UK school having a guidance counsellor.

[MariaNovella]

There are schools with teams of up to 20 university guidance counsellors, in the UK.

[MariaNovella]

And you should also bear in mind that universities have large marketing departments who schmooze with university guidance counsellors.

[PCohle]

Can you give any examples? Because short of Eton I'm struggling to believe that that's the case.

Your perspective on this seems really skewed.

Oxbridge admissions tutors in my experience spend their time trying to improve access - not schmoozing private schools in the UK with 20+ "guidance counsellors". That's probably different for overseas schools whose students bring in huge fees for universities, but it's just not the case in the UK.

[MariaNovella]

All the big name schools that send large numbers of students to Oxbridge have huge university guidance departments. Remember that, historically, housemasters placed pupils at public schools at Oxbridge colleges - a lot of Human Resources and direct contact with universities has always gone on. It’s just organized differently these days, with schools having a central bank of guidance counsellors who mostly have subject specialisms. Sure, those people are often also teaching staff - they wear more than one hat. But that has also always been true.

[MariaNovella]

Your perspective on this seems really skewed.

I think that few people in the UK are really aware of the multimillion global business that is managing flows of international students. Read The PIE if you want to know a bit more.

[PCohle]

Your posts seem terribly confused regarding whether you are discussing domestic or overseas schools.

As I said, I'm aware the situation is different for international schools where there is a financial incentive for universities to recruit.

The idea that there are genuinely British schools that have 20+ "guidance counsellors" still seems like nonsense - and you don't actually seem able to provide any examples.

Individual teachers providing a bit of career advice to their students is hardly "huge university guidance departments" and such individual teachers having the nefarious anti-Oxbridge prejudice you accuse schools of having seems even less likely.

[MariaNovella]

Of course the aversion to Oxbridge is not in the schools where there are very large university guidance teams.

The point I am making is that university guidance counseling is a huge sector with many different players - all shapes and sizes, all sorts of quality from the appalling to the excellent, in house to schools and external. The OP asked for opinions on one small player in this huge sector and some posters dismissed the very idea that an external university guidance counselor could possible add any value or be a reputable business. That position is to ignore the reality of the university guidance counselling business and its many facets.

[PCohle]

I agree with those posters frankly.

The "external university guidance counselling business" takes advantage of student's and parent's anxieties at a highly pressured time to extort ridiculous fees for services that add little value beyond what could be gleaned with cursory online searches. The claims made by these companies are usually misleading and wholly unverifiable.

[MariaNovella]

PCohle - I am afraid that position is naive and outdated, if it were ever really true. And the social injustice of your position is shocking: why should pupils at expensive private schools be allowed access to specialist in house university guidance counsellors but not pupils at schools with lesser resources?

[youmeandconchitawurst]

OP, don't waste your time and money on a bunch of shysters whose business model is fleecing the desperate. There is no way to prove that they are effective because you can't prove a counterfactual.

If you want to help your daughter look at the relevant university access and outreach websites (there's usually stuff at both a university and college level- in Oxford they've divvied up the country and each county has a link college where students go out into the world and try to encourage people from non-traded backgrounds to apply). Several Oxford colleges run summer schools and prep sessions - don't know about Cambridge but they're worth a look.

The reality is that your daughter is unlikely to get a place, because demand for places exceeds supply. Chucking money at it won't change the odds. Supporting her intellectual curiosity and interest in the world around her might help her do better at interview. She still most likely won't get in, but at least she'll have a life skill, you'll have spent time with her, and most importantly (on the basis of this thread) your won't have wasted your money on MariaNovella's services.

[MariaNovella]

I don’t provide any kind of paid for service, though I know plenty of people who do. I also know plenty of young people whose schools are hopeless at supporting the HE application process and need external support.

[Cocopops2010]

@marianovello
In schools there will be some teachers who have experience of advising for uni applications. That is not the same as a twenty strong guidance counsellor.
I’ve worked in and have colleagues at large private schools. I can tell you categorically that you are wrong.
Oxbridge run an absolute mile from schmoozing with private schools. Maybe in the 1950s but not any more.