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.

Our celebration/commiseration dinner is on the Saturday after results, time for things to sink in, be with friends etc.
Twenty six years of school goodbye.... wow. The academic year sets such a rhythm in life doesnt it ? Mostly good, some bad. I’m certainly enjoying not having to panic about whether I’ll get May half term in this year’s holiday bun fight for example, but I do love that stiffening excitement of September and a new books and timetables .It feels weird indeed to be set adrift from it all. New horizons !

New horizons indeed.

Ah yes, the Saturday following makes a great deal of sense. Now I'm a double meany!

The Saturday following results I'll be on a plane to Italy! And that's where we'll find out DD's results the following Thursday. For her our celebration meal will be rather more romantic...

We're going to France soon after results so I think a Provencal meal out which we'd have out anyway can now triple for DS4's finals results and DD4's A levels. Bingo :)

Bikes can be picked up cheaply on site, left over from earlier years. Anything decent gets pinched. There are businesses which sell students bikes then buy them back at the end of the year. Cambridge used to do a bike fayre and Facebook/Gumtree are full of cheap bikes.

By "on site" I mean in Oxford & Cambridge, not left in college bedrooms!

D1 has had to choose her first year options, sent them in today after much agonising. She's also been sent a book and been set two essays due in before the start of term - she's going to wait until after results...

Coleoptera sorry no I've never had a list. I now tend to buy a couple of large plastic boxes from Tesco (about £8 each but incredibly sturdy) and then point the DC in the direction of our local old fashioned department store which has fab bargains in the duvet/ towel dept and they pack the rest of their stuff. On the whole they've travelled incredibly light (this has been commented on a lot by the helpers). The three things I strongly recommend to each is bedding (having seen the shocking colour of the college duvets), mattress topper and lamp (for soft light). Nothing in the way of kitchen stuff has ever been needed in Y1. Some people do arrive with car fulls though - no idea what they can find to bring. Also, some mothers (so far, it's always been mothers) can be extremely pushy, literally. I resent this thing of being waved out of the way by mothers in big new swanky cars, so if anyone here was thinking of waving a bashed people carrier out of the way in central Oxford on drop off day, please don't, or I'll simply unpack the car much, much slower :)

Wow I am surprised about no kitchen stuff for oxford. Dd started last year and while she didn’t cook every night, she would have gone crazy of she had to eat at hall everyday.

None of mine have had lamps Coleoptera and a bedside lamp is cosy at night. I'm not sure that mine ate in hall every day. I think they mixed it up with going out rather than cooking. They started doing more cooking in second year, but still only needed the bare minimum of kit.

I can't see why a parent going in with their DC would be more of a risk than the DC on its own - same household.

Some colleges do give a specific slot eg Oriel which had the daft idea of giving slots alphabetically rather than by distance. I made DC cross by saying I'd move myself unilaterally to the last drop off slot since the drive is three and half hours and I wasn't getting up in the small hours because Oriel couldn't work out a schedule based on how far parents had to drive (the porters didn't bat an eyelid - I don't think I was the only parent with a cavalier attitude to the time slot).

Coleoptera I'm not sure they always look their tip top best at Matriculation (after several days of freshers'), so the photo may be no great loss.

Whether to take/acquire kitchen stuff might depend on your DC’s termly budget and whether they have sports training commitments. DD found Hall meals didn’t work particularly well with training sessions and it was obviously more economical to cook for herself rather than eat in Hall every day. She packed light for the first term but has gradually acquired stuff during her course!

DD rarely eats out in Oxford (her parental allowance/hard earned holiday money doesn’t quite stretch to that) but she enjoys cooking with her friends instead.
Ah - shame about matriculation but I’m sure they will still have formals?
Lamps definitely provided by DD’s college.

DD's college have told offer-holders that they are determined to hold a matriculation dinner, even if they have to do it in shifts, with a small number of students at each. Not entirely the point, but I admire their "it will happen" attitude!

I still have my matriculation photograph. And yes, some of us do look a bit wobbly .

DS college are going to release moving in slots over a 4 day period and as we dont live too far we can be flexible. He is determined to self cater mostly- he's a good cook and quite the skinflint and reckons he can live like a king on £20 a week.

HuaShan I have several packets of dried noodles I can post to your DS from our storecupboard if he finds £20 pw is a bit tight!

Hoghini not to brag but he cooks up a fantastic noodle dish with cheapo dried noodles, chorizo and peppers and anything else left in the bottom of the fridge!

Just seen this - it reads as a little bit of good news for A level results this summer. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53492283

Reassuring.

That is a very good and sensible article. Much better than some of the sensationalistic coverage seen in TES. I fear that it bc won't get widely shared on social media as it's far too sensible and reassuring.

That is indeed a reassuring read.

No matriculation at Oxford this year - I hadn’t heard that. It’s really sad. I still treasure my college matric photo. Our staircase did a ‘before and after’ pair of photos, to see if the ‘after’ revealed a difference and new maturity. Nope.

Just seen this re: grades this year - will be higher than last year, but not as high as the predicted grades submitted by teachers
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/EDUCATION-53492283

Ah, sorry for the cross post! I felt a bit more reassured after reading the article too.