Oxbridge Aspirants: Sep 2021

[funkysatsuma]

Not sure if it's too early to start this thread in Nov 2019 :)

DS would like Cambridge Economics as the first choice. Would like to know where can we get some help to prepare for the ECAA test - appreciate any pointers/links. Thanks in advance

Curious to find out if it’s just Cambridge that are allowing applicants who fail to meet this year’s offer, to defer automatically till 2021. Can anyone advise?

I didn't think they would get an automatic place, but would have the chance to improve in the autumn retakes, and then get a secure place if they made the grade.

As far as I understand this will not be the case for Oxford, as they are quite generous in their offers and offer to fewer. So more hurdles to jump in the first place in order to secure an offer, but then it's the student's to lose, rather than the Cambridge system of offering to many but with the knowledge that a fair proportion won't achieve the grades.

Dd had a bit of a meltdown yesterday as rumours are rife that 2021 will be half full with 2020 deferees (is that a word?) not to mention those who will be applying again as they have a chance to retake in the Autumn.

I think 50% deferees and late offer makers sounds about right unfortunately. I think a high proportion of those who retake in October will be private school (because Cambridge is going to give first dibs to the state schools that just miss their offers this year). Hence I am hoping that Cambridge overcompensate by offering more 2021 state school pupils places.

To explain my "first dibs" comment. Cambridge are going to look very carefully (I would imagine) at the super clever kids who have been screwed by the algorithm, due to the performance of their school. These are likely to be state. Hence, effectively, state will get first dibs of any places left over, if any, this year.

How will they publish places available - in time for Oxbridge application deadline - if half at least of those places are going to be unavailable next year?

As discussed upthread, it's bad enough if 9 places become 5, but if 2 places become 0 that's a game changer for the current year 12s.

Do they ever publish places available though?

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiflbmjzpDrAhWSQEEAHWzwAkkQrAIoAHoECAcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thestudentroom.co.uk%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D6627062&usg=AOvVaw1Ravvk9jYUog8TndjiMAGH.

Messy link ; some useful information about how Cambridge will be making their near miss decisions this year @ClarasZoo. Nice to see emphasis on making a balanced judgement on the entirety of a student’s application.

We know how stressful and emotional it can all be. We all get quite invested too, particularly in cases where we have applicants who we've seen in school, have come to our events/open days then the offer-holders open day or applicants who we know have had to overcome some seriously tough times. There's honestly quite a bit of air punching and excitement or swearing and disappointment when the results come in. It isn't us spouting clichés, we really do view each applicant as an individual and we're rooting for them!

This for instance; well worth a read down the whole thing, what leeway they might give for specified A* subjects for example (even though it’s a way off for your DC as aspirants)should give a sense of how carefully they make their decisions and try to be fair.

I think they need to read through their info though. It says that Cambridge do Adjustment and then later it says they don't!

It's good that they're taking a holistic approach to near misses. I think, however, it's a bad mistake to have promised places to October re-takers. That is obviously going to swell the numbers massively. If they over offer by, typically, a third, they will potentially have that many students entitled to a place. As I remarked earlier on the thread, the only way to deal with this is to set extremely high grade thresholds for the October exams.

The university website has an Adjustment 2020 page...

Irma - my DD’s thoughts too..... she wants to study medicine, so only having 4 choices makes it that bit riskier.

The thing is I don’t suppose they will know numbers until after the autumn exams have been marked, so it will be January before it transpires how few “new” places are available.

I think they will be duty bound to offer the same consideration to year 12s, ie ask if some will defer, even if this pushes the problem on for ever! Otoh perhaps they don’t care about losing any year 12 talent in the grand scheme of things. It’ll just be the cohort that is sacrificed.

I wish an admissions person could shed some light on this!!

From a thread on the Med 2020 post, Keele and Newcastle have contacted applicants saying they will hold their offers for 2021 if they don’t get their grades this week. I don’t know if this is for all applicants, but some have had such emails.
Whilst it’s reassuring for this year’s cohort, the knock-on isn’t great for our DC 🙄

Just saw on the 2020 thread one poster say that 10 out of her dd's 12 friends are deferring their Oxford offers. If that's a true sample then there will be no places at all for the year 12s!!

I am not sure that Oxford are really going to let them do that are they? They won't have full numbers this year! I think, but maybe someone else can confirm, that Cambridge have said that anyone deferring will have to take their chances with next year's cohort.
As far as this year is concerned, you can search by college and course to see how many offers each makes each year and how many then "get in". Of course not as many get in, but taking a popular subject like Natural Sciences, say, about 2-3 kids don't make the grades each year in a typical medium popular college. Perhaps sometimes they get in some where else by adjustment. The main problem area is maths, where are massive over-offers, but STEP would still sort that problem - or was STEP cancelled too? If so, I can see that the maths department might have a problem with fewer places next year. The other subjects do not seem to be much of a concern.

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics

So if you look at medicine at Caius for example, which is a popular subject there, they nearly all get in anyway....

The pandemic has changed things for many students, those currently at Universities and years below. Yr 13 has to be the priority right now and it may be more Y 12 students will also need to be flexible and defer. In the next year or 2 there are expected to be a lower number of international students as well to add into the mix.

@IrmaFayLear, dipping in from the 2020 thread where we are holding each other up as best we can.. I didnt think Roisecap’s post was suggesting that 10 deferrees were all Oxford, just that they were a friendship group. Dont panic now, its a marathon...

Sorry, being a little selfish here, having a yr 12. I must have misread that post... as it was I was a bit goggle-eyed at having twelve friends who all got into Oxford!!

IKR! I did a 360 on the very same post! I wish I could say you’ll know more on Thursday but thats not looking likely is it? You’re not selfish, you’re invested , thats why we’re all here! So much uncertainty.By the same token, am reminding myself that sitting the actual exams was also a bit of a lottery. Ofqual’s own report in 2018 suggested up to 40% English and History A levels were incorrectly marked... ( both better and worse), compared to only a tiny % of eg Maths... it’s never been completely fair. Ugh.

ClarasZoo STEP 2 & 3 went ahead this year for those holding offers that depended on it. DD is currently waiting for results with bated breath and quite a lot of anxiety. But Cambridge have been quite explicit that the grade boundaries are being set so that the "right" number of students get in this year. So there won't be a bumper crop of maths students in 2020 entry. And they also don't have the same guarantee of a deferred offer for autumn exams if their STEP result is below the offer requirements.

Hi everyone. I have a DS set to apply to Cambridge (humanities subject), but just wondering what people think about this total shambles with this year’s grades and what the implications might be for next year.

To be honest, I just hope all the Oxbridge 2020 applicants get their predicted grades and go this year (though I do wonder how Cambridge will fit them all in because I heard they over-offer by up to 30% every year).

This nonsense about using mocks as an alternative to moderated grades won’t fly and I’m expecting an imminent announcement that the teacher assessed grades will be used after all, as in Scotland. So if the percentages of A-A are up by a massive margin this year, might this not encourage the ones who would probably have missed the top grades but end up with the more optimistic A or A predicted grades, to defer and reapply at Oxbridge next year with top grades already in hand?

I’m probably over-thinking this, but it just seems to me that the way they have dealt with this year’s missed exams is a shambles yes, but equally, it’s the Year 12s who are the ones who, in many cases, have missed a whole term’s teaching - 20% of the A-level syllabus. Yet there is no allowances for them. Yes the Year 13s missed their exams, but at least they had finished the syllabus and were basically on study leave anyway when lockdown stated.

T’s not fair for anyone, really.

I just hope that Oxbridge aren’t stupid and don’t prioritise grades in hand people who will be applying for 2021. It was always the case that you weren’t a shoe-in, even if you were applying with three A*s , but next year I should think (fervently hope!) that the 2020 cohort will be judged on stricter criteria than the normal cycle applicants.

As for other universities who don’t interview/have admissions tests... heaven help the year 12s

The admissions test for DS’ subject at Cambridge has now been scrapped, as has been the case with some other subjects I think; and it looks like Oxford have also dropped many admissions tests for this autumn. Interviews will also all be online.

My DS is one if the fortunate ones with online school last term, but he has friends who were just given a few pointers and told to get on with it. Many don’t have predicted grades yet, so don’t even know what unis they can be realistically looking at.