Oxbridge 2020

[GinWorksForMe]

Is it too early for an Oxbridge 2020 thread? I'm feeling in need of some hand holding through this process...

DS1 is going to apply to Cambridge for Maths. Doesn't know yet whether to name a college or put in an open application, so any tips gratefully received. We have visited two (very different) colleges and been to a Maths Open Day. It's unlikely we're going to have the opportunity to visit many more colleges as their open days seem to be on Saturdays and DS1 has a paid job Saturdays and Sundays.

Anyone else applying for Oxbridge for 2020 entry and want to share the journey?

I hold views on the Johnson & Rees-Mogg families, Gareth Anscombe's try, social care budgets, funding research into epilepsy, Big 4 domination and disruptive technology amongst many other issues. Can't say I'd thought about gowns until someone mentioned they didn't understand the Latin phrase someone casually threw in.

That's good. Definitely sounds as though you have quite enough concerns without pitching heavy gowns into the fray :)

@Stickerrocks - I like your list of concerns.

To it I will add (in no particular order): buyers/sellers of property that mess other people around; colleagues who don't deliver on what they promise to do; politicians who put personal over national interest. I could go on but the common theme seems to be annoying people.

I'm also with you on gowns not appearing on the list

I may be in touch regarding buying & selling after mid August next year, but I doubt you want to wait that long!

Can I also add students who are meant to have been through the best education this country has to offer, but still have to get out their iPhones to calculate 10%! That is my key issue at present.

As I recall DS's gown was in the range of about £20 odd quid ( and frankly enough at that given I could probably had made him similar out of kitchen roll / lining material ) - also I think he had to wear it into exams but you could take it off once there. I am pretty sure his tutors wouldn't have blanched at shorts in tutorials, whether they would have blanched at his knees , entirely different matter

Sorry team! I tried not to 'casually throw' Latin in; I mentioned it was academic dress. A casual throw in would have been to give no context:

On the formal aspect, I think all colleges will have a degree of formality, not least sub fusc.

spababe - University College, Oxford is a pretty relaxed place, and it offers Maths and Engineering. Check it out! www.univ.ox.ac.uk/

Hingle because it was in bold I thought you had done a typo of spababe's name somehow

Anyway it is nice to learn something new and I will come across more knowledgeable in real life if hear the term again.

Hingle it's been very amusing seeing the excitement it caused.

I'll be sure to keep my bolding to people's names only, and use quotation marks for anything else I'd like to draw attention to.

OKBobble I'll leave the typos to goodbyestranger, she's rolling in them these days! (Only teasing stranger!)

I am surprised it is not me re the typos. If I use my phone I swear it auto uncorrects! Also my stubby little fingers on my phone lead to random letters rather than spaces!!

Autocorrect does sometimes mangle perfectly legitimate but unusual words.

As to bolding ... just wait till you're discussing A level grades. You lot may have escaped at gcse with numbers rather than A* , but you may not be skilled in parsing the effects of using more than one asterisk in an MN post.

Yes you're quite right Hingle and I can't even blame mechanical failure :(

In happier news that book written by your tutor has arrived, gratifyingly short (and cheap: £4.99!) but somewhat the worse for wear since my two doggies got their paws on the parcel when the postman lobbed it over the gate and did a team effort in munching through the cover.

You’ve convinced me goodbye, I’ve bought it too. I see there’s a version called Classics, written by Mary Beard. That gets good reviews. Might give that a whirl at some point.

I'm lost with the talk of tutors and books!! Did I miss something crucial?!

Gin it was just that Hingle suggested Univ might be a good college for Classics, I looked at the webpage, the tutor recommended his own book, I bought it (as I say, £4.99 on Amazon - bargain). I don't know how many tutors add these book recommendations to the course pages but DS1 did say that at the Open Day in 2012 the tutor giving the Medicine talk very strongly recommended his own BMAT preparation book as being second to none :)

Stephen Siklos has written a book to help with preparing for STEP - it is available for free download: www.openbookpublishers.com/product.php/342/advanced-problems-in-mathematics--preparing-for-university?342/advanced-problems-in-mathematics--preparing-for-university. It hasn't been updated in line with the new specs, but I don't think there are many questions included which are no longer relevant.

The blurb does contain the slightly outdated "You are very
likely to get a grade 1 if you manage four questions (not necessarily complete)", for STEP 2 this is not always the case and I would advise candidates to do at least the first part of two extra questions if they are concentrating on 4.

DS2 has had some good news; he did well in the Senior Physics Challenge and has been invited to a residential summer school at Cambridge, along with 30-40 of the other top scorers in the UK. They will stay in one of the colleges, attend lectures and lab sessions at the Cavendish Laboratory. It'll also be an opportunity to meet other people who are happy to talk about Physics all day.

goodbyestranger out of interest, what made your DD decide that Classics is what she wants to do?

I have a younger DD who is not Oxbridge applicant level but would like to go to university. Latin and Classical Civilisation are two of her favourite GCSE subjects.

goodbyestranger - it’s here! Woo hoo!

Well done to your lad First, that's a great achievement!

Your copy is in considerably better nick than DD's is Hingle. And someone is having a great week with royalties!

TheFirstOHN many congrats to your DS. Fantastic.

In answer to your question though, slightly different for DD because her school doesn't do Latin, Greek, Classical Civ or Ancient History, either at GCSE or A Level. Well, she was thinking about MFL but didn't have a second MFL at GCSE so couldn't do one at A Level and thought that would be a disadvantage. Also vaguely contemplating Law (she won a national competition so an easy step to thinking do I do it at uni). But actually we waiting for a teacher to come free at a parents' evening at school (another parent was looooooooooooooooooooong overdue on their five minute time slot) and there was a poster behind us and no-one else waiting to talk at/ to and the poster was a Cambridge poster which had some Greek guy on it and simply said 'Do you enjoy language, literature, history and art? If so sign up for Classics at Cambridge'. And I pointed it out to DD and she went ah well maybe yes and she took it from there. She went to the subject specific open day (joint Oxford and Cambridge) to push her one way or the other but it pushed her firmly into the yes camp.

Or rather, we were waiting (does an omission count as yet another typo Hingle?).

I mean I do realise it would be much better to simply read my posts before I press the post button but the habit of not doing that is quite firmly entrenched :)

Ha! I am not the typo police stranger as god knows that I make enough - I only enjoyed ribbing you as you have a heightened awareness of them... admittedly after the fact!

As for my ruling on omissions, well, that is an interesting aetiological debate. I mean, if you’ve not written something, I guess it’s not really a mistyping is it? So, no, not a typo - go omit every second word with my blessing, goodbyestranger.