Oxbridge Interviewees for 2021 Entry - The Journey Continues - Thread 5

[Baaaahhhhh]

New Thread from old one:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4088426-Oxbridge-Aspirants-2021-New-Thread-4

The bf (interviewed at a large Cambridge college for Economics and prior to that an old central Oxford college for PPE) said that at Cambridge the rank order rarely changed from that set by the paper application and that it was incredibly rare to get a stand out applicant. Very good when that happened of course, but the difficulty was to work out who to offer to between the large group who all hovered around the same middle level. That was only one college of course, with a good degree of autonomy and one which rarely if ever went to the pool. The bf preferred interviewing at Oxford, he said it was altogether more interesting

Hi everyone. It’s been a relatively quiet week here as no interviews. DS has his on Monday morning. He’s out now as school finished today. I must admit to feeling a bit daunted by the whole thing tonight.

Well done to everyone who has survived the week.

DS has a friend applying for English at Oxford and she has been called for second interviews next week as well. I must say, Oxford have been making an effort re- his GF (medicine). They have given her 2 mentors and offered her a mock interview. Even though it’s an independent school, they can obviously read between the lines and take into account wider circumstances, which is encouraging.

I think DS is fine, but he deals with these things better than me, to be fair.

The process at Oxford sounds so different, with all these second interviews (or not). I think at Cambridge, if they are pooled, they just look at you file and make a decision based on that?

I do wonder how they standardise at Cambridge. For his subject, there are about 28 colleges. 3 want two essays. About 6 require 1 essay. None if the others require any essay. Some do one interview, while others do two. Some ask you to read material beforehand. Some do not.

There is no pre-admissions assessment anymore. No AS levels anymore in most cases (though I guess that’s irrelevant to international applicants anyway).

But if they don’t go on predicted grades, or GCSEs, or the PS; and if interviews don’t alter the “rankings” - what DO they go on?

@Tenpastseven - yes, that will be the fourth interview , and they don't get any easier! Glad to hear your ds is starting to relax now - I hope your house is relatively stress free this weekend

@IrmaFayLear - a few prickles around here at the moment too, also a few rolling eyes and a few disparaging comments too … luckily I have quite a thick skin

@quest1on my DC had to do an at interview assessment for Cambridge (arts subject). He did it a week before his interview. However they never mentioned it at the interview. He also had to submit one essay

I hope they look at the application holistically...... I think they are supposed to. But who knows

[quote chopc]@quest1on my DC had to do an at interview assessment for Cambridge (arts subject). He did it a week before his interview. However they never mentioned it at the interview. He also had to submit one essay

I hope they look at the application holistically...... I think they are supposed to. But who knows [/quote]
DD also said her submitted work wasn't mentioned and nor was her assessment. They barely mentioned her PS even.

chopc - I’m just worried that everything will be dependent on these interviews on Monday because what else do they have to differentiate? They can’t really use the essays because only a proportion who applied to that course will have submitted any. And they will all have the required predicted grades and GCSEs.

How can it be incredibly rare to get a stand-out applicant? That makes no sense. A small percentage of young people are extremely bright / talented. A fair number of those presumably apply to Oxbridge. I can see that other universities probably rarely get stand-out applicants, but if not Oxbridge, where do these young people go? I think that something that differentiates Oxbridge is that you will occasionally meet brilliant students there, in addition to lots of quite bright ones.
My DC has started at Oxbridge, and is gobsmacked by the brilliance of a couple of other students in her "household". She says that one of them is really amazing, and not just in his subject - in a number of subjects.

@stationed I suppose definition of ‘stand-out’ isn’t clear. When they say it’s rare to meet such a candidate, perhaps they mean rare to meet a genius of Stephen Hawking-style proportions.

Lots of people are clever; true brilliance is rare. During my time at Oxford I met two fellow undergraduates who I felt were brilliant. Everyone else was just clever to a greater or lesser extent.

Thank you for taking the time to clarify the importance of the interview @irregularegular. It's always good to hear from the horse's mouth!

MidLifeCrisis007 on these threads things to do with Oxford and Cambridge are often conflated; sometimes they shouldn't be.

Yes I think the bf had quite a high bar for stand out. He was extremely clever himself, certainly in his field.

I had heard the opposite re interviews though; that because Cambridge interview more people and put less emphasis on GCSE results, then the interview is more important, because more weight is put on it, which would suggest there would be more movement within rankings.

Cambridge uses A levels as a post interview filter. It's put far higher emphasis on A level results than Oxford in recent years which is why it was so cross that AS levels were abandoned, since they were a reliable predictor of A2 results.

@goodbyestranger agree as Cambridge don't seem to have a standard offer they give evergreen. I have known some science / medicine students required to get 4 grades (even 2A*2A) even though you only need to take 3AL

Everyone not evergreen

Well, Jesus fuck. DD's interviews begin on Monday, and there I was blithely imagining school will sort out all the Tier 3 techy stuff, then she casually pops her head round the door to ask if she can borrow my laptop for the whiteboard bit, as she's not sure about the school's equipment ..! Tried out the stylus we have here and it's beyond shit. I am trying very hard not to say the bleeding obvious, but Oh My God. I mean, she did email the head of sixth form about it, and he helpfully suggested she did the interviews at home, so that was useful.
The whiteboard app sort of works with her fingers, so if she wants to look as if complex calculations have been done by a six year old prodigy, she's onto a winner.
See me? Calm personified. Oh yes.

Oh no, Dahlia! Can someone lend you a stylus before Monday? Put a shout out on a local Facebook group maybe? At least you have the weekend to sort out something

We're not on FB unfortunately, but I might be able to drum up support from elsewhere . It's not what I wanted to spend the night thinking about, though.

I can imagine! Cocoa and sleep?

Sleep, well, we'll see. Bed, certainly. That sounds more alluring out of context than its likely to be. Thanks.

Cambridge apparently says students should out their phone on top of two cans and then do workings with a pen and paper while the interviewers watch through the phone.

Put their phone!

This is all sounding rather Blue Peter @goodbyestranger !

DS came across the tier 3 instructions and was rather horror-struck, and relieved to be a humanities applicant . Really feel for all the DC wrestling with those tech challenges.

Just doing it by teams was bad enough - DS and his interviewer got caught in a very British “after you” “No, after you” wrangle after they each tried to talk at once, although thankfully it ended in mutual laughing. Very hard though to fire off one another, either to get a good spontaneous back and forth exchange of ideas or indeed for an interviewer to put pressure on. All to easy to be a bit grim though I guess, if that is the chosen style.

It is curious how much the interviewing process varies - DS had one 30 minute interview with two people, but I think some history applicants have had two and/ or have had sources to look at. I guess some colleges take the view that that has been covers by the HAT.

Agreed LaundryFairy but it works, all you need is a couple of cans, a phone with a camera, a pen and paper. Presumably the tutors demonstrate one they've made before....