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......

@SeasonFinale thanks for that.

Cambridge have told those on a recent outreach q&a that there will be no fewer places in 2021z

Fwiw ds did not fill in the SAQ... and still got a place

I thought the SAQ was where you put college choice etc and was essential part of the process?

That's it! The UCAS form is completed and paid for, just waiting for the teacher bits now. I wonder how quickly we'll start seeing offers?

Ooooh exciting @calculatorqueen.

We are ready to go too but not been told to pay and submit by school yet.

Goodness. Somehow I hadn’t even allowed my brain to go as far forward to offers. When do we expect to find about re interviews for Oxbridge?

The SAQ is optional but provides an opportunity to say something specific about your subject. This is useful if the course you are applying for at Cambridge Is different to your other options.
General advice would be to pick a college you like but don’t over think it or over invest due to pooling pre and post interview, open offers etc.
DD (third year O) had an open offer so wasn’t allocated a college until A Level results day. She loves her college - and the college cat!
DS (C fresher) chose his college because it “felt right”. He took no notice of the Tompkins table or stats and that strategy worked for him - although I was a little concerned by the stats!

But if you didn’t do the SAQ how would C (or O) know your preferred college? It doesn’t go on UCAS does it?

It does for C at least, each college has a campus code as well as the general institution code.There’s a different one for an open application .

@Tenpastseven We entered the college on UCAS for Oxford. There's a drop down menu.

Ah okay! Thanks for that. DS probably knew that but I didn’t. I’ll double check. I think he still needs to do a SAQ though to specify which languages he wants to do.

What else do people generally say? Will it be okay to literally just put language choice?

Ignore me! I’ve just done a bit more research. He’ll do an SAQ to specify language choice and for the extenuating circumstances form.

DD just paid and submitted application, now just waiting for the school to send it off. If their usual speed of getting things done is anything to go by, we’ll be waiting quite a while

DS2 has submitted his this evening.

Woop Woop @mikeandike and @raspberryrippleicecream. Exciting!

Do we think that Oxbridge will make fewer offers for 2021 start because they don't know (and we don't know) whether it will be teacher assessed grades eventually. All these kids are likely to be predicted high and assessed high by their teachers, but not all get in to Oxbridge in usual years. But this year they might have to under offer by 20% to account for the fact that all of them might hit their grades...

Hi all,

DD is about to submit her application for Medicine (see other thread)

She could do with some advice regarding selecting a college. She did have one chosen but now has a very strong (and on paper stronger than DD) rival from the same school also applying to the same Uni for Medicine who has applied to the college DD was going to select.

Should DD now not put that college down and go for an open application instead to improve her chances of getting an interview in the first instance ? What do people think/know/have been told by their schools ?

I'm out of my depth and I think her state school are too although they do get a good quota of pupils into early entry courses (be it Oxbridge/or subject based early entry) each year.

Once the application is in we'll breathe a sign of relief until BMAT in November,

I’ve read here before that Oxford don’t tend to offer too as many as Cambridge usually (as in Cambridge over-offer much more). Perhaps Cambridge will err on the side of caution this year.

At a recent outreach event, Cambridge admissions tutors stressed there would be no fewer places this year. But I suppose they may still offer less places.

What do you think @ClarasZoo? I mean would we ever be able to find out?

@SATSmadness I have no idea (literally) but if your DD felt an affinity with the college she chose I’d encourage her to stick with it? I mean we have no idea how things will play out so I think it’s important that our DC go with their ‘gut’ feeling?

SATSmadness, unless your dd is dead set on this particular college, I’d choose another if her rival is so stellar! It’s annoying they chose your dd’s college, but if it’s one of the mega-popular ones (eg Worcester) your dd might be well advised to go for a different one anyway.

Not a mega popular one, but one DD feels would suit her personality which is a bit less "party animal" than many 18 year olds.

If they look back at GCSEs DD outperformed the other girl but I can see an argument for Uni's thinking "Rival upped her game to compete, good on her, and DD rested on her laurels".

I think we'll have to think long and hard this weekend and delay the submission until next week.

SATS - we had the same scenario. I’m not sure whether DS or the other boy would have been a stringer applicant tbh as I know nothing about him, but DS has changed college choice. The school said they have never had two students from the same school put into the same college for the same subject - even if both stellar applicants, one will be pooled.

It might be slightly different for medicine, I guess as greater numbers overall. But if you can go for another college, it’s probably advisable. Is this O or C, by the way?

DD didn't put too much thought into her college - but I'm pretty certain she's the only girl who's applied there from her year group.

Personal statement with school reference was submitted yesterday evening and she received a 3 A Exeter offer today which she's very excited about. Offer is reduced to ABB if she firms Exeter. It came as a real surprise as we didn't expect to hear from any uni until the end of October.

@SATSmadness. Both my sons’ schools very very strongly dissuade multiple applicants to the same course and college. Perhaps partly because between the two of them they probably have 200+ candidates, but for medicine, where the numbers per college are small, I think it would definitely be sensible to avoid it.

@Jano69. How exciting for her to have an offer - think that is the first in the thread ?

Thank you @Revengeofthepangolins - exciting and surprising. I expect it will be some months now before she hears back from any of the other universities. Durham and St Andrews are renowned for being slow to offer. So we expect nothing further to happen now until the New Year.