Oxbridge-Aspirants-2021-New-Thread-3

[Baaaahhhhh]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4016760-Oxbridge-Aspirants-2021-New-Thread-2

New Thread !

So the interview invitations Have begun to be sent out? shock I’m not sure if I’m relieved or worried....

Try not to worry @MatureStudent21 it's only the very start of the process, I imagine they will start to come over the next few weeks.

@IrmaFayLear

Just skulked on the student room and saw that Cambridge colleges are indeed sending out interview invitations, but apparently Oxford will not be doing so until the 27th.

Thank you for letting us know of this *@IrmaFayLear* us with Oxford dc can relax a little for the next few weeks!

Best of luck to all those waiting for Cambridge, I'll keep everything crossed for you.

Yes bendmeoverbackwards. I know that interviews in the medical training world have been cut back radically because of the online format, so I wondered if these ones might be the same. There hasn't been any explicit mention of it though, and a ratio of three interviewees per place isn't huge anyway.

Irma that's a bit later than usual, if true. Was that official, from Brasenose Admissions or similar? Biology and Music and a couple of others are earlier too on the whole, invites sent around the middle of the month.

DS has just received an amended offer from Exeter for economics. They originally offered A*AA reduced to AAA if firmed. It's now been changed to BBB. Although it doesn't mention contextual, I think it is, because when I've checked, his college is on the eligible school list. I'm quite gobsmacked because it's a selective 6th form but must qualify for Exeter's criteria, probably due to it's wide catchment area. Anyway this will now be a great insurance should he get in at Oxford because the revised offer doesn't mention firming. He also has a CCC offer from Birmingham but that is only if firmed. I'm hoping this will make him a little less overwhelmed by it all.

That’s great news calculator, but I wonder why they didn’t notice that about his school in the first place?

bend - I’m. Not sure when the law interview is, sorry. I think he said he has another friend who has heard about an interview date for Chinese.,

I think Cambridge interview a lot more than Oxford though (as a general rule)? Maybe they’ll cut back a bit this year; though arguably, the logistics of Zoom probably make it easier to interview more, without all the coming and going?

I know on the current applicants' page for Ds's chosen Cambridge college it lists which subject applicants have been invited to interview so you can see when it begins for the college.

Ds has an offer from Warwick today.

They did say in their thanks for applying email that for competitive subjects they wait until after 15th January and you should hear by 31st March. So this came out of left field and was a lovely Friday surprise.

I have no one else in real life who has a child in year 13, they are either parents of 25+ year olds or have children in secondary school so this is the only place I can talk about it so I appreciate the supportive network of parents on here. I am genuinely happy for anyone who has either had an offer themselves or a parent of a child who has had one (unless of course they are applying for the same subject to the same college then I would begrudgingly congratulate them) .

The way I see it we are all in this together, all hoping that our children get what they most desire. We all know it is a long shot, but this isn't the lottery, every year people do get into Oxbridge.

Couldn’t agree more about this being a place to release the tension that is held in our hopes for the DC. DS would be flabbergasted and probably a bit disdainful if I knew that I was on such a thread. He’d call it very ‘extra’. So I shall save all my ‘extra-ness’ for you guys and act all nonchalant around him.

Congrats on that reduced offer @calculatorqueen and for the Warwick offer @OnTheBenchOfDoom.

@Tenpastseven thank you. Ds1 wants updates from this thread! None of his mates have gone for early entry and half of them aren't sure they want to go to uni as they have no idea what to study. He likes hearing about other people's offers etc and is pleased for them. He now has 4 uni offers but obviously wants Cambridge the most.

Thats so lovely @OnTheBenchOfDoom. My DS is incredibly private so i’m well jel!

PS 4 offers! Wow. We are still just on the one.

I agree on the utility of this thread. What I've had from it is better ideas as to what questions to ask DD so that I don't drive her mad asking about irrelevant stuff. DH knows more about the process but in totally different subject areas and I think is just getting more nervous if he thinks about it at all ...

@Tenpastseven DS2 is quite closed but I am working on him. He is only 14 though.

@Tenpastseven. I love the “extra” comment. So evocative of teenage boys and heir views of fussy mothers :-). Also “it’s not that deep”.

Evening all.

DS has also just received an amended offer from Exeter but not sure what it is amended to yet. The email says they’ll confirm by email ‘shortly’.

Excellent to hear about all the DC with offers and here’s to the interview offers coming in.

I too find this thread really supportive as I’ve nowhere else to chat about it all and DS has only so much patience with my ‘questions’.

Just made a further foray onto TSR, and it appears Oxford have just started sending out invites to the practice interviews, so no chance of the real ones being imminent, I would have thought.

Dd didn’t know anything about any interview practice. I am not discussing anything to do with her application [knocking knees] . I did tentatively suggest she re-read some of her ps stuff but that was met with a look . I think she thinks it might be tempting fate.

Yes ‘it’s not that deep’ is a favourite of DS3 (14 year old) @Revengeofthepangolins.

Oooh an exciting cliffhanger @Crikeyblimey. Do let us know.

Yes exciting @Crikeyblimey. Have you looked on UCAS, DS's amendment for Exeter was on there.

Hi.

Just checking in again. A big congratulations to all of those with offers.

Can I ask if anyone else is still awaiting a response from Durham? I can see that there have been quite a few offers but DD has heard nothing.

It wouldn't be a first choice for her but it may be an omen 😕.

@Tenpastseven and @Revengeofthepangolins yes, you are spot on with that I think - I too have no one to discuss this with IRL and it's lovely to have supportive knowledgeable people to talk to here!

@whiteroseredrose - DS has had an email from Durham but only to ask which languages he is applying for. Nothing else yet.

@calculatorqueen - he’s checked track and the Exeter offer hasn’t been updated yet. So, guess we / he just need to wait.

Can I ask a question about Exeter please? Dd has applied there and received an offer which is good news. However since applying she’s heard some quite negative things about the university thats it’s very white, elitist and has some similar problems to Durham. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Can I ask if anyone else is still awaiting a response from Durham? I can see that there have been quite a few offers but DD has heard nothing.

We haven't heard from them yet (apart from the email confirming his application for Maths).

Fortunately for us DS has decided it's not for him and favours Lancaster for the course and location (who he has got an offer from) so thankfully we're now only waiting on Cambridge with any degree of nervousness .

whiterose - DS applied on 28th September and still hasn’t had any acknowledgement from Durham. He phoned up a few weeks ago. He left the phone ringing on speaker for about 40 mins. Someone finally answered and said she couldn’t tell if they had his application, but if he wanted to send an alternative (Durham-specific) PS in, he didn’t need to wait for any confirmation of receipt of application (as it states in the website) - he should just do it. So he did a few weeks ago and he’s had no confirmation of that either! So he sent a message to them via the internal messaging system to try to request confirmation. Tje was an automatic reply there which said they may take up to 5 working days to answer your query. It’s now been more than that. So who knows? Maybe they’ve just put him In the trash folder straight off?

@whiteroseredrose. For Durham, one shouldn’t expect offers until jan, feb or even, ludicrously, March. Quite why they think it acceptable to not finish the process before starting accommodation allocation in Feb, I can’t imagine, but waiting until after jan 15th for the main wave is not unreasonable (like St a).

The offers you can see trickling out now are almost all contextual, post qualification or international.

Some subjects will get going before Christmas but basic rule of thumb is to not think about it until the new year.

quest1on’s DC lack of acknowledgment is a different case.