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......

As this is a support thread for the journey taken by Oxbridge hopefuls and their parents/guardians I'll refrain from debating further the statistics regarding the relative percentages of private/state educated that actually end up with an Oxbridge place, regardless of what offers are made and to whom in the first instance.

@quest1on there does seem to be a process in place, yes . DS was sent a very useful email by the college he’s applied to detailing timescales, deadlines and ‘what nexts’; and with a link to a survey to collect information about his experience of teaching/learning during the pandemic. It looked like a University wide survey.

I am sure that the colleges would like to make more offers to state pupils, but they need students who will cope with the course... and I think they probably take the view that in some circumstances it’s not fair on the pupil themselves to give them a place/offer that their study habits can’t support. In an ideal world every child would have a standard excellent education.. I will stick on this thread as son applying to C. Non selective state background but a school that has large number of Oxbridge applicants, and offers , each year... I also went to C... although my son could have gone private at sixth form with likely scholarship, we took the view he would have a better chance from state...quite a few private local kids switch out for sixth form for just this reason..

starter - well I’ve no idea about Oxford, but just looked at the stats for Cambridge which are freely available. Some variations between colleges, but overall for 2019, 72% of all applicants were from the state sector. Of all offers made, 71% were made to the state sector (so roughly proportional). And of offers accepted after results were published, just under 69% were from the state sector (roughly what you would expect given that, every year, a few will not make the grades in the actual A-levels).

Yes, there is an argument that the number of state applicants should be proportionally higher in the first place, but there’s no evidence of state applicants who do apply being disproportionately squeezed out, as far as I can tell. The uni can’t make offers to more state students than actually apply.

Also, not all independent schools are selective and not all state schools are comprehensives (grammars for instance, or selective sixth forms). It would be interesting to see the breakdown of applicants to offers for selective schools in both sectors in relation to offers made, but this is not available.,

I don’t know if this chart is visible, but you can see that success rates are higher for independents, but the highest success rates of all are for grammar school applicants. Given that there are only 163 grammars in the UK (according to Google) compared to thousands of comprehensives, the application numbers are also telling (4,000 odd from these grammars, as opposed to 8,000 odd from thousands of comprehensives).

I’ll try again!

www.varsity.co.uk/news/19783

This is an interesting read for Cambridge applicants.

I'm sure it doesn't take anything away from the real statistics, but
Finally, 17.6% of applicants attended a grammar school at L2 before transferring to a state school...

Um, grammar schools are state schools, guys...

Anyone else feel like their DC is an imposter for Oxbridge? My DS is applying to Cambridge, encouraged by school and parents. He's bright, as of course everyone is who applies to Oxbridge. But he's so lazy and doesn't seem to care. I feel like he doesn't deserve a place and almost hope that the interview process (if he gets one) weeds out the lack of drive or (in a ideal world) inspires him to really want to go there. Such a shame the interviews are going to be online because I thought a few days away would give him a taster of the privilege it would be to get a place at Cambridge. I worry that if he was offered a place, he would be shocked at having to actually work hard (something he has never had to do before) and might end up dropping out. Anyway, I'm probably worrying unnecessarily because he won't get an interview or if he does, his lack of drive will he apparent! But interested to hear if anyone else has similar misgivings.

The transfer from independent to state comprehensive for sixth form is quite common here (no Grammar schools). I can't help wondering if this Y13's former independent punters are regretting their decision, as the online provision from the comp has been somewhat lacklustre.

@lazyboysmum I haven’t got that issue with DS but I wouldn’t necessarily say your DS is lazy. He is just doing what he needs to do, efficiently! If he’s sailed through with very little effort so far perhaps he’s just incredibly gifted. But who is to say that he wouldn’t put his foot on the pedal when he needs to?

And not caring too much is probably a good protection from disappointment! Better I’d say that caring too much at this stage in the application process?

Such a shame the interviews are going to be online because I thought a few days away would give him a taster of the privilege it would be to get a place at Cambridge.

The Cambridge interviews aren't normally "a few days away" anyway, and afaik don't give much of a taste of what it's like to live or study there. He's probably not missing too much from that POV.

I think the sort of candidate who will/should be selected by Oxbridge is capable of looking at the A level syllabus and teaching themselves, to a large extent.

So you'd exclude the private school kids who've had full online teaching throughout lockdown Claras zoo?

• I think the sort of candidate who will/should be selected by Oxbridge is capable of looking at the A level syllabus and teaching themselves, to a large extent.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. A candidate for an engineering degree may be very able but not necessarily capable of teaching themself all of FM to A* standard, for instance, even if they can self teach some of the topics, for instance.

Thanks @Tenpastseven @ErrolTheDragon
I'm the one who's much more invested than him at this stage 😂

I will be honest, my kids are in 4 different schools and all had full, online teaching over lockdown. All but one (who, shall we say, wasn’t always engaging as required ) found it very intense. You had to be logged on at 8.15 or whenever ti register it you were marked as unauthorised absent. There was form time or assemblies. My younger ones (in years 7 and 9) were in the garden in PE kit doing PE in the form of online aerobics at 8.45 some mornings! I couldn’t believe it. They even had to do things like cookery and submit photos of all the stages and the finished product. The teachers weren’t always visible online as in face to face, but everything happened in “real time” in the sense that work had to be submitted at the end of each lesson for marking as normal. They even did choirs and music ensembles online (each recording their own parts).

DS (who is the one I’m on this thread about) did online exams in April with cameras enabled on the computer. He was exhausted that term, more so than normal. On top of this, he did a 15,000 word EPQ, an essay competition entry and another one for a publication. He also did online voluntary work which was 10 hours per week. Then, in last week of term, the school emailed to say there would be a formal exam week starting from the first Monday back in Sept for the purpose of reinforcing evidence for predicted grades, so they had revise through August for six two hour papers in the first week back. Then they had about three days between finding out their final predicted grades to the internal deadline for Oxbridge forms and if they were late, the school wouldn’t check them. So it’s been very full on and a lot have missed the deadlines because it all got too much.

[quote Tenpastseven]@quest1on there does seem to be a process in place, yes . DS was sent a very useful email by the college he’s applied to detailing timescales, deadlines and ‘what nexts’; and with a link to a survey to collect information about his experience of teaching/learning during the pandemic. It looked like a University wide survey.[/quote]
DD's head of sixth received a detailed questionnaire to complete regarding their Covid

Now, this holiday, the second DC who isn’t particularly interested in school and never was has “mini mocks” straight after half-term but it will be a battle to get this one to do anything. DS now has an NEA to do by Xmas which involves him doing a lot if data collection / research, so thank god he does not have to do aptitude tests (though he has friends who do have aptitude tests to prepare for an have also been hit with two NEAs which normally would have been done last year before the summer).

Omg, quest1on, I’m glad dd goes to a slacker school! Although I’m a bit worried now about her chances having read all the efforts some schools go to...

@Hoghgyni that’s interesting. Wow, what a lot of extra work the admissions teams are going to have.

@quest1on that does sound very intense indeed! Extreme at the other end of the spectrum.

@Pumpkintopf

I think the sort of candidate who will/should be selected by Oxbridge is capable of looking at the A level syllabus and teaching themselves, to a large extent.

So you'd exclude the private school kids who've had full online teaching throughout lockdown Claras zoo?

Not all the private schools have had amazing online lessons have they? I think the same comment applies to wherever you are.

....provision of lessons in the summer before her A level results. Oxford does seem to have a structured system in place for obtaining the relevant info.

I’m just chuckling to myself at your kids out doing PE in the garden. Y kids literally turned nocturnal. The plus side was lovely peaceful mornings for me 😊

*My kids