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’m getting a lot of anecdotal scare stories about putting Durham second.

These seem to run along the lines of...
‘Any Durham applications that are put in before the Oxbridge deadline are ignored until after Oxbridge interviews.’
and
‘Durham allocate colleges as soon as firm offers are accepted, so if you don’t get an offer until post Oxbridge interviews you are much less likely to get your choice of college.
and
‘There’s no point in putting Durham as your insurance after a firm Oxbridge offer as the grades are the same and they never accept a missed grade.’

Anyone have experience of this?

@KingscoteStaff - all that Durham stuff sounds fair enough to me. They know if you apply early it's because you've applied for Oxbridge. They know they are almost always 2nd choice to Oxbridge so are making it clear that non-Oxbridge applicants are likely to take precedence with college choice etc, which seems only fair.

May also be anecdotal (or utter nonsense) but DS told me Durham has a special counselling service to help students get over being Oxbridge rejects because so many of their students tried for Oxbridge. Seems a bit far fetched but good on them if they do.

My DS received his Durham law offer with his first choice college on the eve of Oxford interview outcome (8th Jan). Sneaky.....

Mille you should try to encourage them to look more broadly then for their 5th slot. It's a very risky game to apply to all 5 which make the same standard offer. DD is putting in an application to at least 1 uni which drops a grade off their standard offer if she gets A or A* for her EPQ. That gives a little wriggle room as few can guarantee top grades across the board.

"But LSE, Durham, St Andrews, UCL etc all ask for Oxbridge grades and some stats say they are as hard to get into."

Also some non Oxbridge offers are actually higher - eg Durham History A star and 2 As (I think - just tried to check but couldn't get on to website) versus Oxford 3 As (obviously after HAT and interview).

Interesting that Durham allowed a dropped grade as a pp said - it may depend on the course whether they do this.

@milliefiori , I agree with what @Hoghgyni says. It's a very risky strategy to apply to all competitive courses even if high grades are predicted.

DS1's school advises 3 'competitive' and 2 'safer' choices. DS1 is going for Chemistry at Oxford, Imperial and Durham as 'competitive' and Bristol and Manchester as safer. Strictly speaking Bristol is competitive (A star A A) for the MSci but DS1 will apply for the BSc which is AAA.

My dgd is aiming for Cambridge ( AAA) then kings (AAB) then Bristol for a masters ( AAA) then Manchester Masters (AAA or A*AB) then Nottingham ( AAB). They are the only ones where she would be happy to study because of the degree courses are a mix of what she wants. Lord knows what she will do if she doesn't get offers from those 5. Its such a worry. she did consider Durham and Edinburgh but felt they were far away.

There are lower offers but the courses are say just for psychology whereas she wants to do cognitive psychology with cognitive neuroscience or behavioural sciences. In other words she wants a far broader degree.

She doesn't want to go down natural sciences route.

Thank you all for your advice. I wish I could get DC to listen to me. They are incredibly strong willed. The 'lowest' DS2 will apply for is Kings. But he does absolutely love Kings. It is easier to get into than LSE, I'm sure and possibly easier than UCL. DS1 says he'll just take a gap year and reapply if he's turned down. As I'd love them to have a gap year anyway, I don't really argue with him on that.

DS would prefer a university that's not in London, within 150 miles of home and where everything is located in fairly close proximity (not scattered across a large city). Once he'd narrowed that down, the list of possibilities was not that long. For the course he wants to study, the typical offer is similar everywhere.

The shortlist was:

• One aspirational (might get an offer if he's lucky).
• Three realistic (very likely to get an offer; likely to get the grades).
• Two safety (very likely to get an offer, they were undersubscribed this year and in Clearing accepted grades well below his predicted grades).

He's eliminated one of the safety choices which brings it to five.

With his GCSE grades and predicted A-level grades, it would have been feasible for him to apply to at least one of Imperial, St Andrew's, Manchester, Durham, UCL etc, but none of them met his criteria, and it's important that he is happy with where he's applying to.

@Coleoptera - wow - Durham use GCSE results as a decider? No point in DT2 even applying there then, as his GCSEs were uneven. Great humanities, mediocre STEM.

It's my non-ASD son who is more set in his ways. It's Oxford or nowhere. The other one is more philosophical about his chances in some ways, though his heart is pretty set on Cambridge. On the bright side, it means they are very self-motivated and DS2 in particular is working his socks off and has made massive improvements this summer.

Millie it may depend on the course at Durham - some are more competitive than others! I too was startled by competitors all having "at least" 9 A stars, wow.

Also might there be any contextualisation for your dc? - attitude to GCSEs may depend on the school's overall performance (this varies quite a lot by university so may be worth looking at Durham's website.)

Coleoptera I remember your earlier threads - amazing results that your dts got, and good luck to them this year with applications!

Coleoptera- they said his competition all had at least 9 x A Stars????
Wow. Not seen that before! Lots at DDs school got offers (English, History, Law, Maths as far as I can remember) with far lower than that. They also wouldn't have qualified for contextual offers. What course did he apply to? It was on DDs list but perhaps it shouldn't be!!

Kingscote is your DC applying for History?

Mine got offers after January for History but two of the DC got Autumn offers for Law/ Science.

My elder DC all blithely put Durham down as insurance. But one of the younger DSs (2015) asked the History Dept by e-mail what their policy was on missed grades and they said: we look at firms but never insurances (then explained why - perfectly reasonable). It was very helpful so he Bristol down as insurance instead - their response was far more positive despite the offer being the same. Another poster knows a student who insured being taken on for Theology with missed grades, I think in that same year. So clearly policy differs.

The college thing used to be correct but now isn't:
www.dur.ac.uk/colleges.se.office/allocations/details/

Goodbye - any views on the 9 x A star thing?
As an aside I heard something v similar. They consider missed grades for people who put them as firm. If they still don't have enough only then will they look at insurance and make a decision (which is a long shot!).

Yes so for History they gave the numbers in the e-mail. The numbers who missed their grades but had put Durham as firm way, way exceeded the places available.

My view would be that 9A even for English is on the steep side. The History Dept back in 2010 or so had a note on the website to say 7A at GCSE including an A in History was the minimum requirement but they took that down because it was so clearly anti access. I think a high number of A is still required for the most applied to subjects but I can say for certain that even for History, recently, 9 is clearly still not an absolute! :) I also think the less applied to subjects will have a far lower threshold.

Might have been 2009 taken down in 2010. Having claimed to have this great memory I now find it's suddenly failing :) Pride and all that.

@HugoSpritz Is 2020's low birth rate really going to effect applications to the top grade unis? I can imagine it having an influence on clearing but I'm not holding out hope that fewer people will apply to the top unis.