Oxbridge Aspirants 2021-New Thread 4

[Baaaahhhhh]

And we are off:

Thread 3 link: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4070531-Oxbridge-Aspirants-2021-New-Thread-3

@FlyingSquid - musician here. Has she tried VocalZone products? They've saved the day on many an occasion for me.

@Chocomel he emailed today but nothing heard yet (and checked spam).

@LaundryFairy glad to know we're not alone!

DS has just had an invitation for an interview! He's been very calm about the whole process so far, but had a huge grin on his face when he told us the news.

Congratulations to your ds @carrythecan! They kept him waiting long enough, didn’t they?!

Dd also got an interview email for O this week but no news yet of dates or times.

He's been much more patient than I have Niam!

@FlyingSquid if she's no better tomorrow I'd insist on a GP appointment tbh - as @chopc said, if it is bacterial, antibiotics will soon have her feeling so much better. Sending healing thoughts!

That link from Pembroke- the candidate named on TSR who had posted on her twitter about her offer I didn't think had A-level grades in hand - but I could be wrong. That notwithstanding students on TSR were understandably linking to this -www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/interviews

I quote - Not all candidates who are interviewed will be successful/made an offer of a place, but all those who are made an offer will have been interviewed.

FWIW I think all colleges should stick with the standard process and timeline for offers - to drop the interview like this suggests the process is not as holistic as all the web info would maintain. But I suppose if the candidates' GCSEs, PS and relevant admissions assessment were so strong that no matter what they did in the Interview they were getting an offer, then I guess the college saved themselves some time.

@carrythecan brilliant news, congratulations to your DS

I’ll be on the case tomorrow if she’s no better! We do have VocalZones in the cupboard for emergency use too, good thought.

Same here for DS 321zyx and LaundryFairy Perhaps all applying to the same college!

...and same here...

This evening, DD received a Cambridge interview invite for next Tuesday.

It has been quite an intense wait.

Best of luck to all.

Gosh, that's been a wait. Congrats to your DC @TheFrendo

Dd got an offer last night from Imperial which we’re pleased about, but a bit annoyed that her offer is one grade higher than their entry requirements, especially as other unis are giving out lower offers this year. I had a feeling they might do that if predicted grades are higher, so phoned them before she submitted her application and they said they didn’t do that, would be the grades on their website. It’s actually higher than Oxford because they are specifying what the A* has to be in.

@Majaso12 that is annoying!

Oh that’s rough @Majaso12. Might it be in response to yesterday’s A level announcement?

I don’t know or whether it’s just what Imperial are like. She’s probably more likely to choose UCL now though out of the two.

Hi lots of interview invites since I was last on - congratulations all!

Majaso - Hmm, this is one if my concerns and I’m wondering if lots of unis might start upping grade requirements now, in light of this news that grade boundaries will be ‘brought in line with last year’s’ (whatever that means). I’m wondering if Oxbridge may be likely to add an extra A* requirement on, particularly to those from selective schools?

Like others, I’m not sure how these new measures are actually supposed to reduce inequality? In particular, what is the point of withholding info about what topics they need to cover for exams until the end of Jan? Bizarre. If they told teachers now, it gives those who have missed chunks of the curriculum the opportunity to focus on these now and know where they stand. Why wait two months? By the end of January, it’s basically half term looming which is revision for the mocks in most cases.

Also, I read an article yesterday that was basically saying they can’t possibly mirror last year’s grade boundaries again because apparently, the number of A* in Computer Science was up by 300%! So they have to mitigate against this kind of grade inflation happening again, or how would it be fair for the 2022 exams?

The info about what you ant in the exam being so late is indeed bizarre. I am picturing a teacher at a school that had a poor lockdown 1 and is really behind finding out in late jan that all the stuff they have been frantically teaching isn’t going to be in the exam, and instead it’s the material they still hadn’t got to. This measure reduces how much children have to prepare the exam but doesn’t help to reduce what has to be taught very much. And of course, it should have formed part of the exercise in the summer where one of the eng lot books was dropped etc

Sorry - eng lit

@quest1on. I wish someone would compile a league table showing GCSE and A level grade inflation by individual schools between 2019 and 2020. Yes, of course some cohorts are brighter than others and schools do improve, but I'd be surprised if it's by the amount many schools were greedily suggesting. I hadn't seen that stat about Computer Science..... pure comedy!

It’s just bizarre. Though when I listen to GW on the radio I suppose it’s what to be expected. Honestly I have started shouting at the radio at him of late.

I wonder whether other Unis will adjust their offers? I wonder they be allowed to increase offers already communicated?

I think music had a similar stat

@chopc

I agree the changes to AL won't level the playing field - but what will?

I think the only completely fair way is to make an individual adjustment for EACH student depending on how much teaching and time off school they have missed.

That's probably impossible though!

It baffles me how, out of millions of people in this nation, GW has somehow ended up in that job. He has no education knowledge, background or expertise. If he was a teacher, he wouldn’t last 5 minutes. Probably the reason they won’t announce exam content until the end of Jan is because they haven’t worked it out yet?

Tenpast - yes that’s right, it was music.