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.

A sometimes lurker just dropping in again. What ds1 is worrying about is that 1 (or 2) of his potential As might be 'shared out' by subject teachers and given to classmates in danger of not meeting their offers - not just for Oxbridge but Imperial, Warwick, Durham etc. He is pretty confident of ranking in the subjects he needs (external competition awards) but will be quite cross if someone obviously performing below him in his non essential subject/s gets an A and he doesn't. Is this going to be a thing?

Hi all - there has been an update about STEP on the CAAT website, see: www.admissionstesting.org/campaigns/coronavirus/

Oh dear, hope I haven't offended anyone - didn't check on individual stories. Perhaps I should have asked, do you think teachers will be tempted to 'share out' grades relevant to offers?

I hope staff do “share out” according to what they need, TBH. DD needs 3 A for Oxford humanities and she just wants those. She feels that if she gets A stars alongside her classmates who need 2 Astar 1 A then it puts all of them at risk of being moderated down and all missing offers. They’ve all been doing what sounds like game theory on the various permutations of this on their subject Whatsapp group this morning.

Absolutely not to the sharing our. Teachers are professional individuals and should give what individuals deserve. It is their responsibility to ensure individuals get what they deserve, not to meet their offers.

If DD doesn't get in on her merits, so be it. I don't want her teachers to share out grades.

While I am sure some Maths and Economics teachers are enjoying thinking about the game theory / allocation challenge of optimising everyone's outcomes, I think in practice they will need to just play the straight bat of their best judgement of the likely grade with a ranking. Anything else carries a risk of it unravelling if there is a challenge or a spot-checking of evidence, or even a student taking action against the school when they find out how they've been ranked.

We have to trust teachers to do it professionally, and the consolation will be they know the students and will hopefully look for all the evidence they can to support their judgement.

Thanks @Pallando

Thank you for the replies. We have probably been overthinking that the school will want to please the parents of some of ds1's classmates who are likely to miss their offers (academic private school) - hopefully they will 'play the straight bat' as you say.

Somerville - boys are probably more competitive than girls - ds1 is not as generous as your dd!

Well given that all of ours had to work hard & do well last year to get them the predicted grades to get them on the first step of the Oxbridge ladder, along with all the extra work they put in on top, I'm sure they have proved themselves to their teachers. The ones who will be more worried are those who were planning to blossom next term after frantic cramming over Easter.

I think in practice they will need to just play the straight bat of their best judgement of the likely grade with a ranking.
Problem is with a highly able group and a niche subject. An average of the past 3 years in the subject DD is worried about is 1 A, 2A, 2B. This year they have three taking it, all predicted A, all love it and and have Oxbridge place to read closely associated degree subjects. 1 needs an A* in it, two need As... It feels agonising to the three of them, knowing there’s some mathematical model being written which will decide their fate.

But, Somerville, they are taking into account the prior performance of this cohort, ie how they did in their GCSEs, as well as the historic performance of the school in each subject. If they are doing any half-decent statistics building this model, then for a niche subject with a small dataset they will factor in low credibility (in the statistical meaning of the word), and recognise a wide confidence interval if the number taking a subject is small. Maybe they will use correlation with other subjects to support their conclusions.

I'm pinning my hopes on some statistical sophistication, because as I mentioned above, my DS is doing a subject where there are only two of them taking it, and one subject with only three!

I reckon DadDadDad knows his stuff! I'm going to run with it anyhow :)

@Pallando about STEP, does that mean that students can only take STEP 2 & 3 if it's an offer requirement? DS has an Oxford maths offer, but was considering taking STEP, but doesn't need to. Does this mean he can't choose to take it? Totally understandable if that is the case, but wanted to check!

@Pepermintea that is my reading of the info as well - sorry I can't be any more definite! Your DS can keep working through past papers, which will be great prep, just not take the exam.

Thanks @Pallando. Please could you let us know if you anything definite at any point!

Pepermintea if the need to run the exams with remote invigilation or if Pearson Vue can be persuaded to run them, they will need to limit the numbers. I believe your interpretation is correct, no voluntary candidates.

@goodbyestranger - I hope my optimism is warranted. Big health warning is that this is all speculation on my part!

It would certainly be interesting to be working at OfQual on their model. I fear that the reality might be that they under-funded government body, with staff under a lot of pressure to deliver something workable in a very short timeframe, and when it’s implemented it may have a few rough edges.

And I wonder which headline their political masters are more worried about in August: “Universities left with headache of too many students after bungling civil servants hand out too many top grades” or “Chaos as students already reeling from exams being cancelled, no school and months of worry are left without uni places as cruel bureaucrats tell them your teachers’ predictions were too high”. (I could be a headline writer for the Daily Mail... )

I genuinely think that DS would have achieved his offer if he had sat the exams. He is clever and can work hard when necessary. He just doesn't feel the need to over-exert himself on a daily basis... His last school report indicated that he was underperforming in FM and chemistry. He didn't do very well in mocks.

His older sister followed a similar pattern but managed to achieve her (lower) offer from Oxford.

Does the Ofqual algorithm include some weighting for "lazy toad who will somehow do what's necessary for the real thing"? I do hope so. I've got two of these.

Anyway, with DH starting work with covid patients on ICU next week, these worries do pale into insignificance somewhat.

Hope everyone is keeping well.

Gosh pantTwizzler! Hope your DH stays safe. I have so much admiration for all the NHS staff.

PantTwizzler both of my DC are working with covid patients at the moment and neither quite understands how they haven't contracted it yet. Hope your DH keeps well.

Yes it seems very clear that there can be no voluntary candidates this year.

Well, thank you for your optimism DadDadDad! Warmly welcomed by me at least in these testing times :) Agree about working on the Ofqual model. I'd most like the job of moderating dubious or careless results (dubious = probably too high, careless = possibly too low).

To @PantTwizzler DH and@goodbyestranger DC - thank you.

Part of me thinks that this year's results could actually be 'fairer' than ever before. Limited potential for random results that no one expected. No rogue papers and no
potential to have a bad day.

One unexpected positive is that DD (who would have been taking GCSEs) is absolutely chilled. She is a perfectionist and worked her socks off for her mocks and did very well. Now she is embroidering a cushion cover, doing Pilates in the garden with me and reading interesting medical books (she wants to do medicine). It's a joy to behold.

Apologies for not optimising my alliterations earlier: of course, I should have said "bungling bureaucrats" and "cruel civil servants".

@DadDadDad love those Mail headlines! And don't worry, parents/grandparents/MPs will use one of those two reasons to explain any random chaos in the UK over the next six months just like my DH is still blaming Gordon Brown for everything