Re-applying to Oxbridge

[AFingerofFudge]

I was hoping someone would have some recent experience they could share with us regarding re-applying.
Short bit of background- DS was hoping to get into Oxford to do Maths but didn't get an offer. His school is an average city school and could offer no extra help so we were very much on our own with applying etc. He was gutted but has moved on. However he is now talking about either re-applying to Oxford or applying to Cambridge and spending this coming year preparing for the STEP exam. He's partly thinking of delaying his university start anyhow because of the uncertainty around what'll be happening in September.
Does anyone know if this is even possible?

For Maths it would be extremely difficult as most unis do not like "gaps" in Maths education.

My DC didn't get into Oxbridge. Her rejection letter said they believed she was good enough and they had evidence she was Oxbridge material, so she was put in the Winter Pool but not fished out as there were no spaces left in her subject. Her school have said she should reapply, so she's going to do that.

Goldenlillies - I assume however your DC did not apply for maths. Unfortunately it is not the same kettle of fish at all. Humanities in particular where standard offers are AAA have a higher chance of success when reapplying with grades in hand if they are A* x 3 or 4.

Ok so generally it's not a good idea to re-apply for Maths or it's not a good idea to have a gap year for Maths? Or both?

Times aren’t normal, so a re-application would not be a definite no, BUT as with any re-applicant, you can’t apply with the same application. You have to show that you are that much “better” than the herd applying behind you. You need more evidence that you are worthy of consideration.

Also, for both O and C, consider what any aptitude scores were and also if you achieved a second interview/were pooled. The latter indicates a near miss.

And you must exceed the standard offer. No good applying for a humanity with three As, especially if they were CAGs. To be in with a shot you need to ace those A Levels.

I know of someone who re-applied to Oxford (after being rejected) after getting straight A*s in their A levels and was accepted.

So it does happen. But it was a humanities subject, not Maths.

I would say it's worth a try - there's nothing to lose.

And for everyone’s mental health (especially mum’s!) an applicant must be realistic - the odds are still miserably slim. It is vital that they are excited or at least at peace with second choice university.

Ds’s friend applied for Maths with 4 x A* and was rejected again.

It is indeed worth a try again but, as I said, there are no certainties and whether to try I think depends on the resilience of the applicant.

Yes, I have a 6th form tutor group and pupils have had success in the past. Ensure you demonstrate plan to do something useful with the gap year!

Thanks for all those replies- at the moment his predicted grades are A* (Maths, Further Maths and French)
He does have an interesting (to him!) offer from Sheffield to do Maths with French and this would be his next choice

And thanks for the wise words, especially @IrmaFayLear - yes he is under no illusion that anything is likely to be different, I think he just needs to spend a bit more time considering his options and so this thread will give him
more to think about too.

If he does, can he apply to work at a school nearby as a classroom assistant or tutor to pupils studying A level and further maths? That way he will keep his skills current as well as having to work out how to explain theorem and workings to another person, which strengthens his knowledge. He needs to also be pushing himself beyond A level, maybe with a private tutor?

AFingerofFudge has he asked for feedback from Oxford. He should specifically ask for his MAT score if he does not know it and for general feedback including how his GCSEs were scored on a contextual basis. Then when the admissions stats are out he would have more of an idea of how "close" he might have been . That would be my first point of call.

But in answer to the question generally no gap year at all for Maths not just reapplication for Oxbridge. This is not the same as other subjects.

For maths, there is an idea that if you stop using your skills for a year they become rusty, similar to the way you might become rusty if you were to stop speaking a language for a year or stopped playing a musical instrument.

For this reason, gap years and deferrals are discouraged more than in other subjects and often will reduce the chances of being offered a place.

If someone asks to defer, top departments will often require or strongly suggest a series of activities for maths students to do during a gap year. These might include things like doing additional courses or qualifications, completing work set by the college / department, undertaking specifically relevant employment and so on. Obviously your DS is not deferring, but looking at their suggestions would give him an idea of what he would need to be doing to demonstrate that he is keeping his skills up, so he is disadvantaged as little as possible.

This is a couple of years' old, but if you look here: www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/admissions/files/admissionsguide.pdf you can see on page 14 each Cambridge college's attitude towards gap years for maths. They are specifically referring to deferrals, but it gives you a broad overview of how different colleges view gaps in studying maths.

• 11 colleges regard a gap year negatively and discourage it unless to do something extremely relevant. It would probably be pointless applying to these colleges as he is not asking to defer due to having some kind of special pre-planned maths-related activity that it is especially valuable for him to take part in.

• 12 say they are neutral on it (although obviously there is a question of theory vs practice).

• Just 2 colleges would regard it in any way positively, and again, one would only see it as a positive if it was spent doing something particularly worthwhile.

So if he was to take a year out and apply to Cambridge, he would need to research and choose his college carefully and also accept that he would have a smaller chance than other applicants of being picked up from the pool because almost half the colleges won't be interested.

I imagine it would be much the same for reapplying to Oxford.

This is all really helpful thank you, I'm very grateful for the opinions and information. We're going to chat about it over the next few days when we're all actually in the house together!

Yes, it is the same for Oxford. If you look at the outcome decisions which are published each year there is usually only 1 or 2 out of 200 or so made offers which are deferred. DS is a Maths student and was told by everywhere he applied except Warwick interestingly, that a gap year is a 'no' for Maths.
Has your DS applied to Warwick? Their Maths course is also flexible, with the option to study modules from other disciplines and when we visited quite a few were studying some language modules alongside as well as the 'predictable' CS and Economics

@HuaShan that's interesting about Warwick. He hasn't applied there because he's really into music and had heard it wasn't that great for music which put him off. But I'll get him to have another look as the language module idea will appeal. One of his offers currently is Maths with French in Sheffield.
Would it be too late to apply to Warwick for this year? (Obviously his ucas entry went in in the Autumn)

Don’t have a gap year with maths! I did Nat sci which has a lot of maths in it and the people who had gap years really struggled. Get onto the best maths course elsewhere that he can (Warwick is v high ranked) and look at Oxbridge for masters/phd

@AFingerofFudge I'm not sure if it is too late - Warwick usually scoop up all the Cambridge people who miss their STEP grade (Cambridge are brutal - you can achieve your offer but still not get a place on results day because of the STEP result). It would be worth phoning the dept. directly.

[quote AFingerofFudge]@HuaShan that's interesting about Warwick. He hasn't applied there because he's really into music and had heard it wasn't that great for music which put him off. But I'll get him to have another look as the language module idea will appeal. One of his offers currently is Maths with French in Sheffield.
Would it be too late to apply to Warwick for this year? (Obviously his ucas entry went in in the Autumn) [/quote]
Has he filled all 5 of his choices? If not then he can just add a choice in track.

@SeasonFinale sadly he has as he just "wasted" a couple as he presumed he had to fill them all up. Sadly he had no direction from school

Just wanted to add some encouragement- I went to oxbridge and loads of my classmates had applied twice. Usually to a different college the second time, or for a slightly different subject— is there a maths AND something else combo which he could try? (You can often do a modern language + another subject.) About half my year had taken gap years (including me.) so I wouldn’t panic, as long as he has a good justification (+ covid) & can use his gap year effectively. If it’s his dream to go to oxbridge, my view is that taking a second shot is very much worth it.

Good luck to him & congrats to him on getting to this stage!

Just to add a slightly different perspective to the "best-no-gap-year-if-applying-for-maths" argument. I know many working in university applications advice say this, and maybe many working in university admissions offices too.

But I spoke with the maths admissions tutor from one of the big Cambridge colleges - he'd done a lot of stats work on the numbers and told me that applying after a gap year resulted in better outcomes for all students, regardless of what they did on the gap year and regardless of the subject. I checked my understanding with him and he confirmed that even for maths, he found this to be true.

He said admissions tutors appreciate the extra maturity.

So while I totally get the rationale about a gap year not being good for maths, I also remember what this person told me.

It is definitely true that your son should ask for feedback from the college he applied to and use that to make a careful assessment of his chances second time around. It is painfully true that even if you were a near-miss first time (made the pool, for example, or was told by your college "you're very young but we really like you - please re-apply next year") even then, there is no guarantee that you'll be successful second time round.

I want to say very best of luck, and sorry that you were not given much help by your school.

PS, there must be loads of maths-related MOOCs that your son could get involved with were he to choose to take a year out and re-apply. It would certainly be important to do lots of maths during the year out, notwithstanding what I said above about "regardless of what they did on the gap year". I think doing a meaningful gap year must surely improve your chances, and this is a game where every little advantage must be snatched at greedily.

DS had a gap year for Engineering Science. That's very maths based.
He didn't get in to Cam, took a year out and got into Ox this time round.