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.

That's where I found it MillicentMartha. Have been keeping an eye on that page as it's from the horse's mouth.

New advice from the government on A Level grading: www.gov.uk/government/publications/gcses-as-and-a-level-awarding-summer-2020

I've seen the new advice, not sure about it tbh. Won't it potentially disadvantage students on the borderline between grades? Also, say that the school considers this to be a 'good year' for history and thinks 20 students will get A or higher, but in previous years it's been around 15, doesn't that disadvantage the 5 lower ranked students who might well have got top grades if they'd actually sat the exam?

My DD has a Cambridge offer and is at a very small non-selective school. They have the best cohort in history with several Oxbridge offers for the first time.

Cannot see how they are all not going to massively disadvantaged. I don't think GCSE's are even being looked at.

I think the grades their teachers predict for them will be based on GCSEs/ coursework/NEAs/mock results, so GCSE performance may be a factor there at least. We have been told all the way up the school that this current Y13 are a very good year - borne out by Sats and GCSEs - so unfair if their grades would be moderated down.

They say they will partly base their standardisation on "the prior attainment of students at each school and college (at cohort, not individual level)" - so if that cohort did well in their GCSEs that should be recognised in calibrating their A level grades (but if an individual did particularly well or badly that won't be picked up in the statistical standardisation).

At the end of the day, DD would probably have got her A, but might have got a B. So I wouldn't consider her losing her Cambridge place to be massively unfair. Just one of those things. She'd better not lose her insurance place though.

For one of DS's A level subjects, there is only one other candidate in his school, and for another subject, there are only two other candidates. I'm a bit nervous that even if he gets assessed at the grade he needs, the ranking will make him vulnerable to being moved down. As you might expect in these subjects with fewer entrants, the school's past results are a bit more volatile and hard to build into a statistically credible picture.

I think it will be harder to rank students at Hills Road & Peter Symonds where in intakes of 2000, they have say 600-800 taking maths & sciences. I'm sure your DS can justify his place, it's not as though they will say no. 1 gets an A*, no. 2 gets a B and no. 3 gets a D. His school will have a lot of supporting evidence.

But he is the number 2 in those subjects (his very clever classmate also has an offer from Oxford). Actually, I feel reasonably confident he will get an A, it's more he might miss the chance to prove he can get an A*.

As for Hills Road, I'll let you know once my mole there reports back...

As long as DD gets those 3 magic As that she needs, I think the lack of A*s will fade into insignificance. All she wants now is the Oxford place She worked so hard for.

@DadDadDad my Hills Road mole is currently playing mine craft on his friends server and reminiscing about when they first did it at age 9

@TerfTerfTerf - My mole is on the staff, but they have not been told much more than the students - it's a question of deciding next steps in readiness for the start of next term, although it sounds like there are some senior staff starting to crunch the data...

@Hoghgyni - I reckon a 3A offer is not a bad place to be in now. I'm thinking DS1 could reasonably be assessed as 2 x A star and 2 As but not necessarily in the right subjects🙄 for his Oxford offer.

His Chemistry and History are very sound (top of cohort) but we need one of Maths or Physics to turn into A star as well. Just one please.

TerfTerfTerf DS has started playing Minecraft again. It's as if we've gone back in time several years.

sandy I wouldn't be at all surprised if that requirement wasn't waived on the day by Oxford. If he's top of a very smart Chemistry cohort then Oxford probably won't want to let him go, and it's unprecedented times.

Hoghgyni DD4 has the same approach. Three As will do fine regardless of A* projected grades. She says she'd only take the Autumn exams where less than an A came through.

@goodbyestranger - I reckon the lack of international students is going to ease pressure on numbers. And the school did get 45% A star physics and 46% A star maths last year. I'd like to think DS1 will rank high enough in one of those subjects to get the needed grade.

Question re arts subjects.
Many (even at Cambridge) have a similar number of offers/acceptances. Like 3/3 or 7/6. For those, I wonder if a student gets an unpredicted B in a subject that is not related to the offered subject, whether (in these extraordinary circumstances) they'd refer back to their interview notes, submitted work and any entrance exam scores to see whether they'd keep the offer?

Or is each college under pressure to make room for a bulge year in sciences, since they won't have the winnowing effect of exams and the STEP 1 exam (and how are they going to fairly administer STEP 2 and 3)?

And sorry, @sandybayley I hadn't realised you'd published a link to the Ofqual info yesterday on another thread. Doh!

The Ozford bods are (hopefully) in a hood position as they have their admission test results in hand along with several days of interview behind them. The university had made a conscious decision to offer them a place, so I'm hoping that common sense will prevail. Let's face it, our bunch could be the jammiest bunch in the recent history of the university by securing a place without sitting their real exams. Fingers crossed, what will be will be & many will face even greater trials & tribulations along the way to put this into perspective.

Oxford...good...

I don’t know how DS will rank within his cohort. He (like DD1) is not typically academic in that he focuses on his sport until the final run up to exams. Homework is done on a “good enough” basis. DD1 got mediocre mocks (clash with gymnastics comp) but 3xA* in actual A Levels. I can imagine much debate in virtual staff rooms!

DD1 is at the top of some extremely small classes, at a school which has been brilliant for her, but objectively has quite a patchy record on As. Feeling quite stressed in case her results are moderated downwards, as a result of genuinely being a bit of an outlier. She needs A in maths and FM.

Yes @ofteninaspin. I'd like to be a fly on the wall to overhear and definitely feel for them.

And yes, I understand there are worse things in life than not getting your Cambridge place (in part) due to a pandemic that is killing thousands of people around the globe.
Meanwhile, DD is cross about whether she might be ranked #2 instead of #1 in one of her (uni subject) courses (in a cohort of 20-30). I said you won't ever see it, so pointless to think about it!

@FingernailNibbler - I said you won't ever see it, so pointless to think about it!

Our school specifically acknowledged that under Data Protection legislation, a student could make a subject access request for their rankings (once the results have been published). I wonder if they will keep quiet once results come out and hope not too many ask, or whether they'll bite the bullet and tell everyone their individual rankings. I bet they are not relishing doing that.