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

[MariaNovella]

I attended a schmooze event (as a parent) in September.

[MariaNovella]

Oh, and I attended another schmooze event, but not Oxbridge, a few weeks ago a bit by accident. We were served wine at 4pm

[PCohle]

My position is socially unjust??

Implying that parents at state schools need to fork out hundreds of pounds to "university guidance" companies or their children will somehow be disadvantaged against kids at "expensive private schools" is ridiculous and fear mongering at its worst.

Oxbridge go out of their way to make sure the relevant information and advice is available for free online.

The majority of your posts seem to be mad conspiracy theories that kids at expensive international schools with "20+ guidance counsellors" on staff actively undermine Oxbridge applicants and have no idea how to predict grades so parents need to shell out more for independent advice and advocacy. What on Earth that has to do with social justice for kids at UK state schools I truly I have no idea.

[MariaNovella]

PCohle - the hypocrisy of pretending that students who get offered places at the most selective universities don’t need guidance is the socially unjust position. It perpetuates unfairness to pretend to students without access to knowledgeable people to help them on their way that they should be able to manage on their own.

[sendsummer]

The best way of accessing the right information is to attend the open days and ask questions. Whether the option of getting to the open days is socially exclusive (including for international students) is another question. Certainly it is for students who do not the idea and are not encouraged by their school or parents or simply can’t afford the journey.
Navigating the predicted grades including for international students is also another matter.
There is confusion marketing with all these companies. They may be set up by as well as employ present and past Oxbridge graduates who have a certain amount of personal inside track experience. They capture the market for wealthy internationals and certain wealthy UK parents who think along the lines of ‘nothing to lose’.
There probably is n’t apart from money and displaying some gullibility in believing faulty statistics with no proper control group.
Similar issues of credibility and benefit I think to those of tutoring companies specialising in highly selective London secondary school. entrance.

[MariaNovella]

There probably isn’t apart from money and displaying some gullibility in believing faulty statistics with no proper control group.

If the universities themselves published better quality statistics, it wouldn’t be so easy for these firms to get away with their own vague statistics.

[sendsummer]

The statistics produced are not going to pander to providing the control group for students with the potential to access this sort of company. You would also have the issue of DP from small numbers per course etc in the right socioeconomic bracket from eg speciifc European countries

[MariaNovella]

The statistics are deeply flawed for everyone. Someone well known to our family got a place on an undergraduate degree in a highly competitive subject at Oxbridge. That person is considered to be an underprivileged person from a low performing state school. This is beyond a joke...

[sendsummer]

Without knowing the details (and I don’t want to) of the specific case it is difficult to comment but just like tax there will always be some way of getting round the system plus set data fields can be out of date.

[MariaNovella]

This person wasn’t getting round the system. It was the system which wants to categorise this person as “disadvantaged” for the benefit of its statistics. I think this person finds the situation difficult and hurtful. Being sought out by your college for extra attention makes this person question their assumptions about themselves.

[MariaNovella]

Being told by your Oxbridge college that you are disadvantaged and then going back to your respectable middle class home and being treated as if you are a hyper privileged Oxbridge student is quite complicated for a young person whose identity is still in the making.

[sendsummer]

I don’t think ‘disadvantaged’ equates to being treated at home as hyper priveged for being at Oxbridge but it does highlight the problems when a student is made to feel uncomfortable both at university and during the holidays.
That student would need some access to help if needed from similar peers.

[MariaNovella]

Having talked through the issue with that person, they came to the conclusion themselves that their college was, to some extent, instrumentalising them in order to massage their statistics. Once that person was clear about the politics, they felt free to take up the extra opportunities that came their way and to play along with the college’s agenda because they had nothing to lose. But it was important for their own mental well being to be clear that the hypocrisy lay in the system, not with them.

[sendsummer]

Maria my sympathies to the student but one case does not indicate a systematic problem.

[MariaNovella]

I agree, but this example which I have been able to examine forensically, IYSWIM, did shed light on how published statistics did not tally with the lived experience of applicants and students.

[PCohle]

How on earth could the universities themselves publish statistics showing the success rates of external consultancy services? For a start there is no requirement for students to disclose to the university that they have used such services.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of statistics regarding the social and economic background of successful applicants. (Which I would think fairly clearly have to be measured against objective criteria rather than the 'lived experience' of students).

[MariaNovella]

No of course universities cannot publish those statistics and no one has suggested that it is possible to compile them.

However, when universities’ own published statistics are vague, it is much easier for external agencies to offer their own vague statistics. There is nothing like one really hard data set to show up a vague anecdata hodgepodge!

[PCohle]

But the sort of issue I'm talking about are eg the claims made by Oxbridge Applications that "Those making use of our Premier personalised support programme are almost three times as successful as the average Oxbridge applicant."

What statistics on earth could the universities publish to make clear that that sort of statement is unverifiable twaddle.

[MariaNovella]

PCohle - when compiling statistics for disadvantage, how do you control for an applicant whose two parents did not attend university, nor did their own parents. Whose parents are nit themselves high earners. Who attends a mediocre state school and lives in a disadvantaged postcode (albeit in a nice detached house). But whose stepparent has two degrees from internationally top ranked universities and whose cousins attend top ranked private schools with university guidance aplenty? Who has travelled all over the world on holiday?

[MariaNovella]

PCohle - that is a pretty woolly claim. It might be a way of getting prospective clients in the door but I am pretty sure they would require a lot more sell from a convincing human in order to convert.

[PCohle]

As I have said previously, statistics regarding students from socially or economically less advantaged backgrounds has nothing to do with the success rates being claimed by consultancy organisations.

I'm sorry one student you've met dislikes the way their social background has been categorised by their college. It has nothing to do with the topic of this thread though.

[PCohle]

Yes, it's a woolly claim by the company this thread is about that you are staunchly defending!

[MariaNovella]

I defend the business of accompanying people from one life stage to the next. The inability to move on to new life stages is the great obstacle to social mobility.

[PCohle]

Do you not think it is damaging to social mobility to tell applicants that getting into Oxbridge is such a complicated black art that you need to pay a company thousands of pounds to guide you through the process because you can't possibly do it yourself with free, publicly available information?

This sort of nonsense puts kids off applying.

[Cocopops2010]

Good lord this thread has gone off topic. There are mad conspiracy theories being peddled here. The kind of theories that make state school pupils feel they shouldn’t apply. Because that’s the main (under reported) reason for lack of state school representation at Oxbridge: not all state school pupils who are good enough apply. Oxbridge do huge amounts of (under reported) outreach work to combat this.
OP - if your dd has the grades then give it a go. Lots of extra reading. Practice the admissions tests and read the mark schemes on the website. It’s another ucas application with a few extra bits on top.