Oxbridge Aspirants 2021 - New Thread (2)

[Baaaahhhhh]

Sorry posted last message on the last thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3757768-Oxbridge-Aspirants-Sep-2021

Here is the new one......

Quest1on,
DD realises she is behind the curve by not hiring an advisory service or working for years on building up her extra curriculars but she wants to give it a shot so we are agreeable to that.
I would really prefer her to be in the U.K. than the US but we will see if she gets anywhere.

quest1on I strongly suspect that your DC is at an independent from all you say. It's entirely possible that you therefore don't realise just how much work lands on the Ho6/ UCAS co-ordinator/ whatever the title at underfunded schools in the state sector. It's to do with staffing capacity to complete the forms. I'm talking basic here! Other half and all that.

ChimneyPot all Oxford colleges as far as I know cover the cost of travel to interviews where a UK invitee has financial barriers to attending. It's possible that this doesn't apply to Irish applicants though?

And places such as Yale and Princeton seem to conduct interviews in local coffee shops around our way, so not much expense involved there, other than the coffee! (South coast of England).

So if they come to a backwater like here, presumably they'll hold interviews in Dublin too - that's centre of the universe by comparison.

Well technically almost all secondary schools in Ireland are independent as the state here outsources the provision of education to patron bodies.
Schools are then split between fee paying with some state funding and non fee paying/fully state funded.

My kids are at non fee paying, fully state funded schools.

I have no idea if they are as underfunded as they are in the UK or not.

In terms of university applications it makes no difference here if you attend fee paying or non fee paying unless you are in a designated disadvantaged school which DD is not.
It also makes no difference to her U.K. application because it will just be irish rather than state school or independent.

I am not sure why you think I would make this up maybe it is just down to misunderstanding the differences between the irish and U.K. education systems.

DS’ mate is going for UPenn (because of their business school)? and then Harvard. He has been in summer schools at Harvard and Yale. His elder sister is already at Harvard and another one is at MIT. The family are Lebanese and both parents lived /studied there before coming to the UK. There is some kind of external advisor who co-ordinates everything they need to do - they need evidence of all sorts of things, it’s not just academic. To be fair, this boy is extremely bright. There is a US admissions advisor at the school, but it’s more a case of the family telling him what forms to sign etc. They definitely seem to know what they’re doing and how the system works. He hasn’t applied through UCAS at all. Obviously, some unis over in the US there are far more competitive than others though and not everyone has their sights set on Harvard. DS has another friend who is applying for less competitive US unis, but he’s going for some kind of sports scholarship set-up.

ChimneyPot nowhere in any of my posts have I suggested that you've made anything up. Have you mis-read something?

quest1on I thought I must have mis-read something myself in this Guardian article which I clicked on after my post to you, but no: twenty-one university applications advisers at St Pauls .

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/10/britains-best-universities-are-dominated-by-private-schools-could-i-help-level-the-playing-field

I expect you didn't take in the fact that my post was addressed to quest1on rather than yourself?

@goodbyestranger

I expect you didn't take in the fact that my post was addressed to quest1on rather than yourself?

That’s it exactly. Apologies.

Sure, I know how the US application system works quest1on. Some of my DC looked very briefly at it then decided to apply for Oxford only, if only on the grounds of faff (but also because they didn't want to go to the US for undergrad!). The one who was keenest applied for a place at UCL which had a year at UPenn (he's mad on NFL and supports the Eagles). That avoided all the faff and would have been a good insurance had he missed Oxford.

No problem ChimneyPot. And you're right that I don't fully understand the Irish system. It does seem to have some merits though, when it comes to uni applications.

“twenty-one university applications advisers at St Pauls”

Well that dissent surprise me. There a lot of Americans at SPS and to be absolutely honest, it’s probably harder to get into SPS than the unis . If you have 200 plus boys getting 11 9s at GCSE and whatever they get at A-level these days (ie a B grade is a rarity), it stands to reason that these tips of boys all be applying to certain unis. It’s not a normal school with the normal ability range so you can’t compare.

You can very easily compare intellectual potential/ ability (which is what the top UK/ Us unis are after) at the top independents and the top state grammars, even if not the ultimate results. And on that basis I'm comparing a staff of twenty one at St Paul's to three (two teachers and a university administrator) at the state grammar my own DC attended. Although St Paul's has around a third more pupils, so I guess a more accurate comparison would be twenty one: four point five.

Lurker breaking cover here. Ds applying to (in order of pref) Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Bristol, and Lancaster to read Geography.

He has received an offer from Bristol for AAA, which he is pretty thrilled about, as we didn't expect to hear for ages. I really don't understand how they can start offering so early, when loads of kids won't finish applications until January...

Sure goodbye. The thing is, with it being London, there are a lot more international / expat families to whom the US path is likely to seem the norm. So the market is there.

Also, grammars vary massively in terms of selectivity at 11 plus and results; as do independents.

Anyway, after going around the houses, Chimney's DD is applying for the same course as my DD, but the only other overlap was Durham, which DD eventually turned down as there was no wriggle room for an insurance offer at the same grades as Oxford.

Hopefully the TSA will go well for her, as a high score in that gives a very good chance of an interview slot.

I saw that link to a testing centre if having to isolate on admission test day - is there any official information out there?

Obviously in normal times if an applicant was ill then that would be hard cheese, but these are not normal times and, given that Covid cases are surging in many areas of the country, it is quite likely that a number of people will have to be self-isolating, even if they are not positive. At DD’s school one group has had to stay off for two weeks. I don’t think the hiding at home for three weeks plan is a go-er - dd doesn’t go anywhere outside college but still has to attend lessons.

Reflecting on the disparity of support. There seems to be as much disparity between, standard state, shit hot state, standard grammar, shit hot grammar, standard Indy, shit hot indie. Overkill, obviously, but you know what I mean. There doesn't seem to be much difference between my middling Indy and goodbyes grammer for example. The grammer is possibly even more selective. We seem to have similar staff, two Oxbridge co-ords, who are also full time teachers, and an exams co-ordination/administrator who does all state exams and ucas stuff. So only three staff, and not solely dedicated to Oxbridge. Also we only get a handful applying, and only one or two accepted per year.

In summary although DD is Indy classified and of course benefits from that, the difference for most Indys is not so great as some would believe when they hear of the likes of St Pauls.

That last paragraph isn't exactly right. Being at an Indy helps academically, but it can be a hindrance when applying for Oxbridge if we are all assumed to have the same level of support as St Pauls, when quite obviously we don't.

If you look at these stats, obviously independent school applicants are still over-represented compared to those from comprehensives, but so are grammar school pupils (given that hardly any regions have grammars anymore). But again, it’s not really surprising that more selective schools, state or independent, will field more applicants.

My DCs are in schools very close by to SP Boys and we know loads there. At DS school there are 200 in a year. 100 do “early applications” (medical schools or Oxbridge). Maybe 50 do US. There is one UCAS Advisor, one Oxbridge Advisor, one Medical Applications Advisor and one US Applications Advisor. That’s it. Same fees. Similar results. So what SPS are doing with 20-odd US Advisors, I’ve no idea!

[quote goodbyestranger]quest1on I thought I must have mis-read something myself in this Guardian article which I clicked on after my post to you, but no: twenty-one university applications advisers at St Pauls .

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/10/britains-best-universities-are-dominated-by-private-schools-could-i-help-level-the-playing-field[/quote]
The author of this article admits to reading an email while driving along the motorway.

What an idiot.

@IrmaFayLear

I saw that link to a testing centre if having to isolate on admission test day - is there any official information out there?

Obviously in normal times if an applicant was ill then that would be hard cheese, but these are not normal times and, given that Covid cases are surging in many areas of the country, it is quite likely that a number of people will have to be self-isolating, even if they are not positive. At DD’s school one group has had to stay off for two weeks. I don’t think the hiding at home for three weeks plan is a go-er - dd doesn’t go anywhere outside college but still has to attend lessons.

This is an issue close to my heart, as DS1 is currently at home isolating, along with over half this house. Rumour has it around half the school is at home.

[quote goodbyestranger]quest1on I thought I must have mis-read something myself in this Guardian article which I clicked on after my post to you, but no: twenty-one university applications advisers at St Pauls .

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/10/britains-best-universities-are-dominated-by-private-schools-could-i-help-level-the-playing-field[/quote]
@goodbyestranger. This 22 advisers at Paul’s thing is I am sure not true. My sons go to two very similar schools and I think they each have a part time American advisor (although all parents doing America complain they are little help) and everyone else is a teacher who has some element of university tacked onto their portfolio eg a history teacher is the contact for applying to history at university, alongside teaching history, coaching the under 15 F soccer team, and being a junior assistant housemaster, or whatever.
It is simply inconceivable that Paul’s have 20-odd full time university advisers, however spicy it makes a Guardian article.

@IrmaFayLear have you seen this on Cambridge website? Candidates can register if they are unable to take the test for Covid related reasons. It is a real concern though even so. Hope this link works.

support.admissionstesting.org/hc/en-gb/articles/360049903692-November-2020-Information-for-candidates-who-are-unable-to-take-a-test-