Oxbridge 2020 (thread number 9)

[DadDadDad]

What a year! Just as we've all become experts (at least in our own minds ) about how to write Personal Statements, Oxford admission tests and Cambridge STEP, the complicated dance of the interview process, and how to simultaneously boost our DSs' and DDs' confidence while preparing them for the possibility of disappointment, we have a new topic to learn: statistical modelling of expected grades.

Of course, like all those previous topics, we're not in control of teacher projection and OfQual rejection, but we have this thread to support each other through the coming months.

All welcome. For the record, I have a DS with an Oxford offer for a humanities subject.

Cross-posted with RoiseCap! It is certainly interesting to see different approaches to lockdown across the world. The tabloid press have heavily influenced policy in the UK during this time and the government seem to have bent to their will.

cherwell.org/2020/05/21/freshers-friends-and-feuds-the-instagram-world-of-oxford-offer-holders/
Here's an article from Cherwell about an insta for offer holders - seems there's a bit of Oxford - Cambridge rivalry
😁

@JulesJules

https://cherwell.org/2020/05/21/freshers-friends-and-feuds-the-instagram-world-of-oxford-offer-holders/ Here's an article from Cherwell about an insta for offer holders - seems there's a bit of Oxford - Cambridge rivalry 😁

Yes, that's the Instagram account DS is following.

Very late to this thread, wish I had found it a year ago when DS was dragging me to open days across the country. He has an offer for a humanities subject at Oxford, just hoping that Ofqual doesn’t sabotage his grades! Incredibly proud of him as he’s moved schools and countries a lot over his short lifetime and we are not from the UK so came into the Oxbridge application process without much institutional knowledge. Hello everyone.

Welcome, @LadyM0ndegreen, good to have you with us on the long wait until 13 August.

@LadyM0ndegreen - welcome! How is your DS feeling about everything? I'm lobbying DS1 hard to get a job as it's a long time until October.

Welcome Lady, sounds like you have a lot to be proud of. I do hope that come October we'll all still be on the board, complaining about parking arrangements at the start of term.

Thanks @DadDadDad and @sandybayley. He is feeling a bit nervous about his Politics A-level grade as that’s the one he feels isn’t a safe A but DS is trying not to think about it too much. He’s been reading loads and learning German, Latin and High Valerian on Duolingo 😂 He had some work experience lined up over the summer but that’s all been cancelled now.

Well done to your son @LadyM0ndegreen! I was also very confused by the admission because I moved to England after university. I think that England must be one of not many countries that gives places before final grades, based on final grades!

BBC is reporting 'Oxford intends to teach face-to-face'. No great detail but potentially encouraging

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-oxfordshire-52820449

Thanks @sandybayley, I do hope this will happen. For all of them, but especially those doing science subjects it will be so much harder to get a decent education without a lot of face-to-face teaching, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It's good to see a lot of universities are leaning towards online lectures but in person small group teaching from what I have seen. Even with that I know DD and a lot of her friends are debating deferring a year or withdrawing a reapplying next year if universities won't allow defferral. A few just want to get off but a lot are keen to wait until everything's more normal so a lot of universities must be concerned about loss of intake this year.

If anyone is interested, Cambridge have released the application statistics for this cycle.

In the college / subject combination where DS has an offer, the number of offers is within the range they have accepted in previous years, i.e. they have not over-offered.

DDs college had the highest number of applications in her subject for five years. So when she's in a better frame of mind I'll remind her that she's done very well to get to the offer stage.

At the moment, STEP is causing a great deal of stress and it's not looking at all certain that she can turn the offer into a place. And it's hard to know that there nothing much I can do to help.

DD struck lucky I think. There were fewer applicants for her college/subject combination than in the previous 4 years, and they appear to have under-offered, if anything. Won't help her get the grades she needs, though, and in the likely event that she doesn't get what she needs maybe being offered a place was unlucky!

Thanks Ironoaks. I find twiddling around really interesting. I'm amazed at the difference in numbers of applicants between subjects for say Trinity - Maths 320, Theology 4. Or am I making an error? And History - only 26. An excellent diversion from tackling the washing up :)

I'm guessing it's any day now for Oxford admissions stats. Usually they publish them in May. Either they are behind with the analysis this year (would be entirely understandable) or they're waiting for a slow news day before announcing good news perhaps?

Application and offer stats for some subjects at Oxford were published shortly after offers. I can't link as on my phone but for Maths there was a lot of information about numbers applying, MAT scores, proportions interviewed at each MAT score, proportions offered.

Some of the Oxford stats are already available - click through the subjects on the Merton College admissions feedback page to see stats from departments/faculties where these are available www.merton.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/admissions-feedback#:~:text=Admissions%20statistics,female%20and%201270%20male%20applicants.

18.1 per place for economics and management at Oxford! Wow! The itnerviewers must have had a nightmare trying to choose.

Not Oxbridge news but as this is my “home” thread as it were, DT2 has undeferred her offer for Manchester. I know this is counter to general direction for many DC but feeling was that waiting for “normal” is wishful thinking, embrace new reality and get going. I reckon it might be really fun for them , albeit different.
Elsewhere DT1 and I have been enormously diverted by Cambridge admission stats and permutations of what/where etc.
Hope everyone and their DC keeping well. It seems like AGES til August...

One or two of D1's friends are considering deferring, but she says she would rather go this year. There's no automatic right to defer, withdrawing to reapply next year would be very risky - competing with next year's cohort for places - and what would you do with the year off? No guarantees that next year will be 'back to normal' either. She's not at all fazed by the idea of accessing lectures on her laptop - school resources are routinely online and she's been completing and submitting homework online since year 9.

Just so @JulesJules. DTs havent been able to find supermarket or care agency work locally, travel is a concern. What happens if they are abroad in a country that has further problems etc etc ? Seemed better to accept that this is reality rather than holding onto an ideal ( not sure it was “ideal”) that may never return. That in itself it a good life lesson. For us anyway. If there had been a great plan that was still achievable that would be have been different.
Obviously all depends on the grades...

Agree with your daughter, JulesJules. What would you do with the year off? And the pressure on 2021 places is unbearable if too many 2020 people in the mix.

Was it here I saw that Unis May house students in same subject together so they exist in a "bubble"? Seems ok at DC's college, but what about elsewhere? Or if there are only 1-2 doing your course at your college. And how does that work at other unis where they choose accommodation based on other factors, so may not be easy to match up halls with courses?