Oxbridge 2020 (6)

[Justneedatemporaryname]

New thread ready for when the old one gets filled up!

www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/alan-rusbridger-lifting-lid-oxford-admissions This is interesting by Alan Rusbridger on the admissions process at Oxford

JulesJules that article is fascinating and scary in equal measure 🤯

Coleoptera the early slot means precisely nothing! Mine would simply regard it as pretty bad luck (the girls especially!).

Jules thanks for the article. In a way it was reassuring to read that they are so thorough.

Grandson should have arrived by now after a 4 hour train journey, he's got to be there before lunch tomorrow so it seemed risky to travel in the morning.

After him being cool as a cucumber for weeks, there is a touch of panic now! He'll be fine once he's with his fellow candidates, I'm sure

DS is now all finished. He had a general interview and two subject interviews. He feels they went ok, despite being nearly half an hour late for one interview due to a mix-up. Argh! He is pretty relaxed about the whole thing so that is a relief. Interestingly they didn't ask a single "general waffle" question. It was all engineering problems from start to finish.

Now the waiting begins...

sergeantmajor very sorry your DS feels so deflated. You really can't judge on the basis of the candidate's feelings after the interview and there is a big element of luck. I honestly don't think you should reproach yourself for encouraging him. I very much hope that his assessment is wrong and he gets an offer -- and in any case that he can put the unpleasant experience behind him.

I'm reading everyone's updates and rooting for everyone but can't reply in detail. Was up coughing half the night with a horrible niggly cough and was in a state of complete nervous tension all day on DS's behalf. Good night and good luck to all.

You must be shattered PantTwizzler....hope you sleep better tonight!

Coleoptera good luck for tomorrow and Friday.

So much activity on the thread this week, and new people, I can't keep up but genuinely hope all the young people are backing themselves, enjoying the interviews, and really knowing that if they don't get an offer they are still brilliant.

I didn't go to university and nor did the vast majority of people I know. I wonder if our children know how amazing they are to have these chances and to be so clever and so willing to work hard. I don't think mine do, even though I tell them ALL the time! They gave up listening to me years ago.

Feel better soon PantTwizzler and hope all has gone well for your DS.

It's getting very real hearing about actual interviews now. Well done to all those who have already survived the experience. What will be will be.

We're off to Cambridge this evening for interviews tomorrow morning. DD seems as ready as she will ever be, apart from the fact that she has not yet packed! It's going to be a quick turn around after school if we're going to have any chance of a meal at a civilised time this evening.

Just spoke to DD she said she couldn’t answer all of the questions in her interview. She said the modern history one was v difficult. I’m so sad for her.

Grandson arrived late last night without money, toothbrush or deodorant! Hope the interviewers don't mind him being a bit whiffy.

@sargeantmajor - ds1 had his Cambridge interview (for economics) yesterday and feels exactly the same way. He had 2 x interviews and neither touched on economics, his interests or him at all. Both posed impossible questions, he felt and he just couldn't talk.

He's comp school educated, massively introverted and on the spectrum, so the whole thing threw him massively. He's gutted, although trying to say he doesn't care.

I'm completely gutted for him - maybe the interviews do give them what they want - and if he doesn't get a place, it obviously isn't the right place for him, but I'm still gutted at how disappointed and thrown he was by it all...

DS2 off to Cambridge today. He is insisting on travelling alone, despite never having crossed London by tube alone before, and despite the rail strikes at our end and disruption on the line at Stevenage. Also he is HFA which gives him the tendency to imagine a perfect scenario in vivid detail and then get thrown if real life deviates from it. But he refuses help.

And DH and I have come down with stinking colds we hope he won;t come down with overnight.

Not that I'm panicking for him

So I am arming him with cash for taxis and First Defence and leaving him to it.

Yikes.

His usually much more independent twin wants me to go to Oxford with him next week.

DS said the journey was straightforward and he arrived a bit early, but he got stuck in city-centre traffic on the way home. (Better that way round).

None of the interviewers offered a handshake. DS attributed this to it being cold & flu season.

He met a few other candidates (being interviewed for a range of subjects) and some current students.

To all the DC who think it went terribly, there is no correlation between the applicants perceptions of how it went and the likelihood of an offer. They have no way of knowing how other applicants fared with the questions. Here's a graph from the student room from where someone did a survey of people's perceptions Vs whether they got an offer.

So put it out of your minds now until January and have an amazing Xmas. What an exciting year

Just to clarify, the graph is posted somewhere on the first page of that thread.

I think this was posted on an earlier thread but this article is still a good insight to the other side of the table at Cambridge. A nice companion piece to the Oxford one

DD interviewed at Cambridge for maths this week and it consisted of two interviews with two people in each one.
Both of the interviews where purely maths questions didn't ask about personal statement or any questions about herself.
She came out quite upset as she was unable to answer most of the questions in the second interview and was made to feel quite 'small' by one of the interviewers.