Oxbridge-Aspirants-2021-New-Thread-3

[Baaaahhhhh]

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

New Thread !

I have to confess I am getting a bit anxious.

DD hasn’t had any offers.
Oxford, St Andrews and Durham she didn’t expect to hear from yet but her other 2 are Exeter and Bath.
It could be she isn’t good enough or it could be that there is a delay because she is an Irish applicant and the status of Irish students as home students for 2021 has not been fully determined yet( thus should only impact her St Andrews application though )

Or she could have done something wrong in her application. The teacher involved does have form for doing things wrong on applications. He has sent on blank forms or the wrong students results in the past.

I am trying not to pass on my anxiety to her.

What subject is your DD applying for @ChimneyPot

Tenpastseven Yes, subject specific to History, but one of the interviewers had so many degrees he pretty much covered everyones courses!

ChimneyPot That's sad to hear. Did your DD get email confirmations from all the universities? If she did, I would have thought they would have let her know if anything was really badly amiss. I am intrigued by the teacher mistakes, as I thought it was impossible to send off a UCAS unless all the sections are completed...... how odd. Of course, it is still possible to attach someones else's reference I suppose. How disquieting to not have heard anything yet. Exeter is the most surprising, though still course dependent. Have you ventured on TSR? That may give you a wider set of experience with offers for your DD's subject. Don't linger there long though, as we have said before, it is a pretty scary place .

Best thing I have seen so far on TSR was a Chinese student applying to Cambridge, who was so incensed she hadn't been offered a local interview in Shanghai, her post was all in capitals and listed her many internationally acclaimed awards and achievements. How very dare they not offer her an interview .

@Baaaahhhhh

OMG - I saw that one too. It was scary just thinking that in addition to all the UK Oxbridge hopefuls our DC have overseas students wanting places at the Uni's too and of course they bring in higher fees for the Uni's.

Oxford have updated their interviews page with more details on the format:

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/guide/interviews

She has applied for PPE or economics and politics depending on the uni.

She had acknowledgements from all of them and an additional email from St Andrews saying they are waiting for a decision whether “Home” for Irish applicants means treated as Scottish or treated as other U.K.

Her junior cert ( GCSE equivalent) are the highest possible and her predicted grades are 8 H1s which is the equivalent of 4A stars. Or at least they should be if they were input correctly.

As for the teacher not all of those errors were with UCAS. But he did have to get Dd to withdraw her UCAS application and redo it because he submitted the reference before he finished it and as the school are not registered with UCAS he couldn’t just change it himself. This was before she had submitted it though.

I know I sound like “that mother” who thinks her child is wonderful. I do know Oxford is a long shot and Durham and St Andrews can be difficult too, so not getting an offer from them or even an interview with Oxford is totally understandable. But I had hoped she would get offers from Exeter and Bath.

@ChimneyPot. Am not sure if the details but I gather from pp that one can do something with Ucas for a small charge to see the reference - can someone else jump in to confirm? Perhaps worth doing to at least confirm there was no dramatic error there? I don’t know if that shows what predictions were put in

Am so do understand - one doesn’t assume a child has a right to a place but seeing one come through at least shows that the mechanics/ basics are working.

@ChimneyPot If you've had acknowledgements from all of them then I'm sure it will be fine. DS applied for Economics on the 5th October, he heard from Exeter on the 6th Oct which was then amended on the 13th November but he only heard from Bath on the 10th November. I'm sure that they are just working through the applications and you will hear very soon.

Hi late joining this thread , my daughter is applying for cambridge she sat her exam last week too, came back with mixed feelings as to how well she thinks she did. Applying to study english, has submitted her ucas and has had offers from Durham, Royal Holloway, Aberystwyth and Lancaster, I think has to wait until january to see if successful with cambridge! Is anybody else's child studying English?

Yes I was just going to suggest asking UCAS for a copy of the form. There's no longer a charge. The applicant phones UCAS and UCAS will send it to the applicant (usually very quickly), password protected. Then ChimneyPot's DD can check the entire form, including the reference.

Oh my word @Baaaahhhhh, those with tier 2 and 3 interviews really need a hope and prayer that all their technology works! Seems very complex, with lots of room for error in terms of accounts, devices, screen sharing etc.

DD has a hunch that Oxford interview invites will be sent this week (on Thursday, apparently). In terms of more definite interview invite statuses, St Hilda's has a table which shows which subjects have had interview invitations sent (none so far): www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/content/current-applicant-information

Should be a good baseline for general expectations even if not applying to Hilda's specifically.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Will the universities she has applied to know she has seen the application and if so that is a negative?
In the US it is not advised to request to see the reference etc

@par05 that's amazing she has four offers already! Especially from Durham as in previous years I knew students who were waiting way past Jan. Her application must be strong!

Durham did offer 2k to defer and apparently it was mostly state school kids who took it, leading to criticism that it was misguided social engineering. So surely that means fewer places avail or waiting to see who takes the places or reapplies (with good grades in hand now). There is a lot to sort out isn’t there.

I wouldn't worry @ChimneyPot, the issue with Irish applicants obviously needs sorting out first, I assume as the unis have a ratio of home students to international ones. I would go down the no news is good news front for now. Easier said than done I know.

@Newgirls that is the same for a lot of unis this year, either deferred entry or already have grades. Ds's Durham offer is AAA rather than their usual A*AA or a contextual offer of AAB if he makes it his first choice. His other uni offers are the standard entry grades. I can't figure out Durham's reduced offer but I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth

Thank you @chocpc she has done well and was in the cambridge summer school and had applied for another thing for cambridge not quite sure what it was called, where they gave her a mentor too, @OnTheBenchOfDoom same with my daughter is she makes Durham her first choice it will be AAB.

@summerlovinn Just looked at the interview stuff. Thanks to @Baaaahhhhh for that heads up. If my DS gets an interview it will be Tier 3 (Engineering). All looks a bit horrendous to me but he'll be able to suss it easily, I'm sure, and actually all the faffing with technology might well distract him and set him more at his ease than in a face-to-face interview in some hallowed hall.

It does make me raise an eyebrow, though. We are not poor, but we don't have any touch-screen tablets or laptops, and would have to source one if he got an interview. It does seem to assume that everyone has access in their homes to a myriad of gadgets ..

I thought they were in school unless you were an independent candidate?

@IrmaFayLear
My DS has left school and is applying post-A level (well, between A levels and results, as he sat them last month!) His ex-school have not been any help with his autumn exams and did the minimum with his Oxford application, so we'll figure it out ourselves ...

Just delurking to say thanks for all the info and hopefully be of help too.

My DD has applied to Oxford, it really is an outside chance, however I am proud of the work she has put into her application and how hard she is working on her subjects. She already has 2 offers and is waiting on Oxford, Exeter and Edinburgh.

@ChimneyPot my DD is applying for combined honours and hasn't heard from Exeter or Edinburgh, but neither have any of her friends applying for combined. Could this apply to your DD too?

Re the interviews via Teams - the academics will by now doubtless all be well aware of the things that can go wrong with it because of using it for tutorials. I'm a bit surprised by the requirements for touch screen devices with a stylus for some subjects - I've not heard any mention on the current oxbridge thread of anyone who is there needing them.

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6785302

The thread was started by the parent of an English and Drama applicant specifically, but the gist of the posts by the Exeter admissions person is that the university is generally a couple of weeks behind with the process this year, plus balancing the numbers between the departments involved means that joint honours applications can take longer to work through anyway.

@ChimneyPot, DS applied to the exact five universities listed by you! This time last year he had no offers but went on to get offers from all five. Some were very slow, obviously Oxford in January, also Durham in January and St Andrews not until late February. Don’t worry, I am sure offers will arrive.

I'm sure the offers will start coming in soon @ChimneyPot hopefully @Flyonawalk's post will put your mind at rest