Oxbridge 2020 (8th thread)

[DadDadDad]

A thread to continue discussing entry to Oxbridge in October 2020 (less than nine months away ). All welcome, although this obviously will be of most interest to those with DS or DD holding an offer, and wanting to find a bit of support.

All too soon, 13 August will come over the horizon. Until then, ask questions... share experiences... discuss news and stats... write a poem... (we did briefly have some poetry on a previous thread).

With huge thanks to @HugoSpritz and predecessors for previous threads.

Oxford stats below. The ratio of acceptances to offers is over 80% - that will include those who decide not to take the offer (eg international and go somewhere else), but I imagine most of the c15% are those who don't get their grades in normal times.

public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics2018ByCourse/AdmissionsStatistics-Counts?%3Aembed=y&%3Adisplay_count=yes&%3AshowTabs=y&%3AshowVizHome=no

They will have to sort extra accommodation. But it’s not the end of the world and anyway, what is the alternative?

Friends of mine who are Oxford academics were speculating in a group chat over the weekend that some colleges (especially smaller/newer ones without extra buildings to bulge into) will ask for volunteers to defer, from those holding 2020 offers. There would then be more 2021 deferral offers, and so on, to help them spread the load over some years rather than absorbing all the extra numbers this year.

I do highlight though - absulute speculation as they'd had no more information than the rest of us. But it's the alternative you asked for.

They might ask for some to defer, but it’s only kicking the can down the road really because then 2021 applicants will be more likely to defer and so on.....

The other thing they could potentially do (though it would no doubt cause outrage) is, supposing for a Humanities course at Cambridge eg History that would require AAA (but no specification that the A has to be in History), they could specify this, eg if your A* is in Mandarin or something you would be filtered out in this way?

I don’t think they can retrospectively alter an offer. Unless they’ve specified A* in a particular subject at the time, I don’t think they can legally or morally change it now.

No I don’t believe that unis can retrospectively alter offers either. Nor do I believe schools can reduce predicted grades in their “assessments” because it would appear that they have set students up. If there was 100 places on a course in a normal year, but they offered 140 conditional offers, they surely couldn’t ask 40 to defer because that would mean only 60 places available for the following year and this would be equally unfair to that cohort. And how would they decide which 40 they would ask to defer anyway? They could ask everyone I suppose, but what if nobody takes this offer up? So maybe the govt will have to give extra funding for extra accommodation for this year group. To be honest, if you can fit 100 in a lecture hall, there’s probably space for 140 in most of them. And it might mean just having 3 in a supervision, rather than 2, for instance.

Also somebody on another thread says that unis have now been given a two-week window to turn conditional offers into unconditional. This may be very tempting for some candidates, especially if they don’t have much faith in their teachers? Maybe if places like Durham or LSE or Imperial start trying to snap up the students they thought were their most promising candidates now, it make take some of the pressure off Oxbridge by July?

My apologies - ignore that above! Looks like they are trying to stop unis making unconditional offers at this time.

Except it's not being done on predicted grades but on teacher assessments mocks etc. Not all students predicted top grades last summer will be performing at those consistently to now. That's why every year people miss grades.
I get that more students will meet them, but I am sure it won't be all. They have not said it is predicted grades.
Colleges also have finite accommodation and will not be in a position to take all their offer holders.

They could tell second and third years that they can’t live in college as expected. Won’t be popular but could be done...

Ok so I'm doubtful about this poaching idea. They're not so desperate that they need to poach. I suspect this is apocryphal.

Although I suppose the Cambridge version of Adjustment could be seen as a form of 'poaching'...?

There’s no excess houses for the second and third years in Oxford or Cambridge.

So where would they live? These are current students who they have an existing commitment to.
I really don't think it's a given all the offer holders will achieve the grade using this method of assessment which I am sure will be moderated In some way to ensure it's giving correct assessments.

If there really are few excess houses then I don’t know. I was at Oxford in the mid 1990s when first and third year students lived in college but most second year students lived out. Now lots of colleges seem to provide accommodation for the whole course. I really don’t know. Somewhere further out of the city maybe?

They are going to assess the number of students from past cohorts and compare. If they do that surely the same proportion will get in?
Teachers will have rigorous guidance to follow to do this. This year is no brighter than any other year statistically as far as we know. As every year some of these students will be disappointed and go elsewhere I am sure.

I teach at one of these universities. I think what's going to happen will be clear pretty soon, but right now it's not clear to me if we're going to be admitting any new students next year or repeating the year with our existing ones. It depends on whether staff are able to teach and examine next term to get the finalists out of the door, and the other years into the next year. I personally am unclear how I'm meant to do this (especially as the method of assessment will change) without any childcare. Maybe university staff will be classified as keyworkers. If not, I think we're looking at students going without services in the same way that customers of restaurants, shops etc are going without those services.

The question of which students to admit may also be difficult because this is the first year since I've been teaching that we've over-offered (more offers than places, though only very slightly). This is a consequence of changes to A-levels which led to a couple of years of undersized groups of freshers because an unusual no or offers were missed.

Please encourage your sixth-formers with offers to pile the pressure on up calling colleges up directly. For everyone's sake, decisions need to be taken quite quickly here.

MarchingFrogs yes but the clear implication was that this was informal.

hopsalong and so what is the proposed position re student loans - finalists expected to suck up an additional year of loans? The uni to write the year off, financially? The government to cough up instead?

GS, what do you mean by informal? Outside UCAS?

This is such a good opportunity for universities to change their admissions.

Third/final term taken from Sept-Dec 2020. Universities from now on have a January start to their school/university year.

A levels from now on taken in June to early July (so more teaching time). A level results out last week of August. All young people apply to university with grades in hand. No lengthy personal statements. All applications in by 1st October. Selective courses have a 2 week window to set on-line exams or ask for a motivational letter. (This happens in Europe) All offers made by 1st Dec. University starts Mid Jan each year.

Thoughts?

I suggested something similar, olympicfan, probably on another HE thread. I very much doubt the universities, UCAS, schools, A level exam bodies can coordinate that sort of change whilst simultaneously dealing with the current crisis, unfortunately.

@goodbyestranger, that was my assumption, too - and @ofteninaspin, yes, it would have to have been outside of the UCAS rules, since afaik the only formal ways that Universities can approach students who have not firmed or insured them (rather than the other way round), post results, are where students have signed up in advance for the notification service within Clearing and the new Cambridge version of Adjustment. The latter only since the 2019 cycle, the former available last year but I'm not sure whether also the year before.

Olympic - I think that sounds like a great idea. Even in normal circumstances, it’s such unnecessary prolonged stress between Jan and Aug to find out if you’ve made the conditional offer - especially if it’s a course that needs two A* and so on. It would be so much more straightforward for everyone if they could have an “application term” as you suggest, in which the know their grades and could make applications appropriately.

The only problem I could see with this would be the long summer break in the middle of the uni academic year?

'The only problem I could see with this would be the long summer break in the middle of the uni academic year?'

It would be great for academic research, travel overseas, dissertation writing/research. Do Australian and NZ universities have Jan-Dec years?

Are anyone’s DC still waiting for an offer from
Durham?!