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......

@Pythonesque my DD is also recording her piece today. She has had to learn a new one in 24 hours as the piece she wanted to do and had prepared as it was her grade 8 singing piece has a fiendishly difficult piano accompaniment, and now her accompanist is isolating due to Covid 😔

But at least she can have a few goes at recording, and her school music department have given her a graduate assistant to help record and things.

I think her audition is on Monday. She's going for soprano at Somerville.

I had to post her hair straighteners to her yesterday for the recording and then audition 😆

Good luck to your Dd!

pourmeanotherglass Hi there fellow Worcester applicant. DD's criteria much the same as yours. Loves the grounds, and the general feel, they have a really good rep for student support, and also kitchens. DD isn't a vegan, but is lacto intolerant, and also generally quite fussy in what she eats, and enjoys cooking for herself.

Her other choices are Warwick, Exeter, Southampton, Kent.

Haven't visited any, but the Warwick virtual days were excellent, and she got to chat with tutors and students, who were all very positive. She even got an email from head of department, with a fellow tutors seminar notes, as she mentioned she was interested in that part of history. Were impressed.

Exeter, we have booked for virtual tour in October. DD likes the course, and actually really likes the looks of the Cornwall campus, but it is far, far, away. Actually Exeter is far, far, away too..... but loads of people from local schools go there. Bit Surrey by the sea but seems popular.

The other are just bankers.

Can anyone point me in the direction of an explanation of how the contextual review Oxford do works in practice (I e. the ref Oxford make to performance of the student against their particular school cohort as a whole)? My DS is looking at medicine; looking at the stats we can see the average successful applicant has over 10 GCSEs at A or equivalent. My DS has 8 at that grade (with 2 further @6* ) from a very standard non selective state school (got the highest results in the school). He's now at a state sixth form college again with pretty standard results and wondering if worth applying. We can't work out what if any contextual review is made or what effect it has in practice given the GCSE profile of successful applicants?

I have a question: I have seen on TSR that applicants are divvied up pre-interview. That’s fair enough so that good applicants are not eliminated because the college they chose was oversubscribed. But it also said that they were re-allocated so that some colleges did not get all the best applicants. Surely that’s not very fair?

Is that for Oxford Irma? Or Cambridge as well?

Lega - A "standard" state school would probably not fit in to their contextual data. If you look at their reports on improving access, they are much geared to low performing schools in deprived areas. That's not to say your DS hasn't done well in the context of his school, and if they don't have a record of Oxford applicants I think that also helps.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data

www.admin.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwadminoxacuk/localsites/educationcommittee/documents/accessagreements/University_of_Oxford_Access_and_Participation_Plan.pdf

www.worc.ox.ac.uk/applying/access-and-outreach/making-access-fair-some-thoughts-year%E2%80%99s-admissions-cycle

In summary - It seems quite complicated!

Thanks for those links Baaaahhhhh (I've just name changed btw!); it certainly looks like quite an opaque process from the outside!

DS's college does not have an Oxbridge admissions person in post so he feels somewhat at a disadvantage as other applicants in other schools seem to have more support/steer on where best to apply (and probably had more actual teaching than he has since March!) but he is also not within the disadvantaged criteria in terms of v low Polar quintiles etc so falling between the two extremes really...

Yes, same here. No disadvantages, but certainly no advantages either!

Dd sent her ps to her tutor, whose feedback was that it had too much about her subject and not enough devoted to hobbies/achievements etc and she should change it to be more proportional . This was the same person who had said dd was a snob for her university choices. Oh, dear. It is slightly concerning that this person will be writing the reference... Dd may be doomed !

It is slightly concerning that this person will be writing the reference... Dd may be doomed Same here, DD tutor also one writing her reference, sigh.

@IrmaFayLear - DS1 was reallocated from the Oxford college he chose at interview stage. My understanding is (and I may be wrong) is that the strong candidates are randomly reallocated to other colleges. The initial college doesn't get to choose which candidates it 'keeps'. As it turns out DS1 got an offer from the college he was interviewed at and he starts there in a couple of weeks.

I think the reallocation of strong candidates is fair because it's random. It wouldn't be fair if strong candidates list out on an Oxford place because they applied to an oversubscribed college.

I don’t think Cambridge do any pre-interview reallocating though? Not unless they make an open application. I thought everyone is interviewed at the college they apply to and then, if one college has more “strong candidates” than they can take, they will put them in the pool - but once in the pool, the odds of a place are around 20%.

Some colleges have a more consistent record of getting applicant successfully pooled elsewhere than others. I’m not sure if this is because they make more effort on this; or if it’s because they tend to get stronger candidates on average?

I think Oxford has had to reallocate candidates in the past in part because of the practicalities of putting up candidates for several days. DS1 was there for four days I think and ended up being interviewed by the college that was hosting him as well as another college. We think the 2nd college interview was a 'standardisation' one.

The issues of physically hosting candidates for several nights won't apply this year of course but colleges will still want to avoid their tutors having to interview huge numbers of candidates when other colleges have capacity to interview.

Irma my DC have tended to go along with particularly emphatic but questionable teacher suggestions on the face of it, then revert to their original PS immediately before pressing the submit button to UCAS. It saved hassle.

The advice at DS school is to use this “Unifrog” site which is very useful in the sense that if you put your subject in and predicted grades, it lists all the unis for your course in terms of “aspirational,” “solid,” and “insurance.”

However, the stats on the Oxbridge section that were also recommended to us are very dubious imo - eg. the admissions rate at certain colleges for DS subject was stated as 80% , when it really isn’t at all. This stat was reached because they were including students pooled to that college from other colleges - so not representative of ratio of applicants to offers. Could be quite misleading to some students, I think.

Also, the school are more concerned with making sure there are no clashes between pupils applying to the same colleges for the same subject (or too many applying to a college from the same school to a college), rather than actual advice about which college might be preferable for your subject. But at least the advisor is someone to talk to and bounce off, I guess.

Yes, goodbyestranger, dd is ignoring the advice, but unfortunately it is the school that submits the applications so no sneaking past the pesky tutor.

Mmmm, it's DD's housemistress who doesn't the reference. She asked DD what she wanted in it, and I told her to request lots about academic ability, her resilience during lockdown down, how hard she works and that she thrives in tutor groups.

I bet it also mentions being a prefect though 🤷🏻‍♀️

@pourmeanotherglass

Dd is struggling a bit with picking her other 4 universities. She is applying for maths and philosophy, so not available everywhere. She also wants to avoid very big cities ( london, birmingham, manchester), and not Bristol because we live here. Current possibles are Warwick, Edinburgh, Southampton, Nottingham and Liverpool. Any experiences of those unis on here?

I cant speak much for Nottingham but I do live here :D Nottingham uni has fantastic transport links and there is a tram which goes directly opposite the entrance of uni. Its got a lovely lake too. Lentons a half decent area for second years, and the city itself had got some great areas. You have the lace market which is quite trendy, and then there's Victoria shopping centre which is quite a large one.You have the cornerhouse which is near the theatres and its gorgeous all lit up at night. And the market square which we call 'slab square' as its all paved, and this has a great christmas market and ice skating rink. not to mention nottingham castle, the caves, galleries of justice which are great attractions. Now Nottingham is not big like the likes of Manchester or Birmingham, but still a decent size.

If she wants to avoid big cities I do have a perfect place www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/mathematics-and-philosophy-ba-hons-gv15/ . My daughters starting at Lancaster in a few days time, and the city is perfect. She hates big cities too and loves Lancaster. Its about half the size of Nottingham, and takes about 20 mins to walk from the north to the south of the city centre. Campus is also 20 mins on the bus away from the city, and buses run very frequently as well as go to Morecambe for some time on the coast. Comes with castle and Williamson park and 2 shopping centres. 3 clubs and plenty of bars and a canal which runs through it. They did an open day on you tube recently so if you type in lancaster university, it should come up on their channel

Ah not so easy over in your neck of the woods then Irma. My DC pressed the button and paid their twenty odd quid and then the school attached its reference - but clearly didn't re-check the PS.

Is that really how it works, in the independent sector? Kids/ kids' parents telling the housemistress/ master what to shove in the reference? I'm kind of puzzling here as to what calibre of housemistress would not include lots about academic ability in an Oxbridge (or indeed any uni) reference!

“Is that really how it works, in the independent sector? Kids/ kids' parents telling the housemistress/ master what to shove in the reference?”

No, not at all. I don’t think DS will even see his reference and definitely no consultation. There’s 200 in the year and maybe 80-100 Oxbridge applications. They have to submit to the school today to give 2 weeks for it to be checked and the reference added before it gets sent off at the end of September. That's how I understand it anyway.

Nearly half of the school apply for Oxbridge? @quest1on. WOW! How many usually get in?

Thanks @sammyjoanne that is useful. She has also added York which looks like an attractive small city.

Good to hear that quest1on!

Tenpastseven in answer to how many get in, I'd bet that numbers have declined this year and will decline even further given the direction of travel, especially at Oxford, and especially in a squeezed year which 21/22 promises to be. I'd much rather be a state school applicant in the current environment.

@goodbyestranger well, I hear what you are saying there, but I'd rather my DS had been given access to some teaching over lockdown which his state school wasn't able to provide. Swings and roundabouts. The strategy for remote teaching is patchy at best and I fear state school students are going to fare much worse.

Having said that, we feel very fortunate as his state school has had some experience of Oxbridge applications before and seem to know what they are doing. They are being very supportive and encouraging. He's getting some feedback on his PS from his form teacher and subject teachers and has an internal deadline of Monday.

I do find it a bit intimidating that schools have been giving advice on which college to apply to. DS has chosen his Cambridge college on the basis of good food and location but it would seem not much else (in part given he can't visit). I know we could look at statistics but I'm not entirely sure how to make sense of them. I suppose I worry that if he got rejected someone would later say 'oh you applied to x college, the was a a mistake in your circumstances'. Am I making sense?

Tenpastseven all state schools will have been capable of providing remote teaching during lockdown. It's very unimpressive if your DS's school chose not to.

I'd say that your DS's method of choosing a college is spot on! Don't overthink it, especially given that he's not an applicant from the independent sector (and even then, food and location seem very wise criteria).

DD (international applicant) been to an online Q&A this week with an Oxford admissions tutor who said that he feels the fears about deferrals are somewhat unfounded. Apparently, this year, Oxford only allowed 60 more deferrals than usual, and only around 200 more students were admitted (1,500 compared to the usual 1,300). He feels that applicants will be no better or worse off this year. Not sure how much I believe that but I do hope that's the case