Oxbridge Aspirants 2022

[TangoWhiskyAlphaTango]

Hi not too sure if there is another thread started as could not see one. May be waaaaaay too early but wondered if any other parents out there who have a child applying for next year?

Dd would like to apply to Cambridge to study History and Politics in 2022. She is at a state A-level college doing History, Politics and English Literature. I have never had to push her towards studying she is a very motivated child and wants to give Cambridge a shot (a very long shot as we know!). Her GCSE results were good but not top notch (9s in History, English Language and literature and the rest 7s and 6s) so not sure how much this will affect her. So far her A-level essays are coming out at As and A* and those are her predicted grades so if she continues on track that should meet the criteria.

She reads a lot of extra curricular stuff and has a genuine passion for politics, has joined the local Labour party youth group. She has applied for the summer programme at Cambridge & is part of an Oxbridge group that the college puts together.

It feels like a such a long shot and the stats of actually getting in are very low only 18% of applicants successful in 2019 so I am trying to tell her not to get her hopes up whilst actually supporting her!

She is my first born so I have never been through this before. Anybody else out there? Would be lovely to hear from you.

@Horace123 I don’t think not having Greek would count against your DS
as applicants enter with either 1or 2 Classical languages as well as ab initio
So far, for DD she’s interested in UCL and Exeter.
She much prefers Greek as she thinks it’s ‘much cleaner’ than Latin and ‘a much more beautiful language’
She is open to look at Glasgow and that’s as far as we’ve got
One of her teachers, wants her to look at Cambridge - so that’s another conundrum
I’m so pleased to have another Classicist in this thread - they’re ‘rare beasts’

Hello Horace123; good to see some more prospect DC on this thread. And another with top predictions across IB, well done to him.

@pantjog there are loads of stats on Oxford acceptance rates per college and per subject, in fact more than for Cambridge - from my research to date.

You can look at three year averages or per year. You can interrogate by college or by course and by college and see how many are transferred to other colleges

They are on Oxford's public tableau website: General Data here: public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics2020ByCollege/AdmissionsStatistics-Counts?%3Aembed=y&%3Adisplay_count=yes&%3AshowTabs=y&%3AshowVizHome=no

and also here for more detailed sorting by each college for each subject:

public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-CollegeSuccessRates2020/CollegeSuccessRates?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no

Ooh thanks @Juja. I've been on this merry-go-round a couple of times before but I seem to have forgotten that resource.

@ProggyMat and @Horace123: my eldest DD has just finished her second year at Oxford doing Classics. She had A-level Latin but not Greek. The tables above will give you a good idea of the biggest colleges for Classics. FWIW she applied to Merton and was interviewed there, and at St Benet’s and at the college she ended up at.

She did an intensive Greek course in the summer after A levels which was a big help in getting her up to speed.

@pantjog thank you for your insight !
DD is yet to decide which college to apply for and I may well seek you out via PM once she does decided which one to ‘go for’- if that’s okay with you?

@ProggyMat do feel free to PM if that would be helpful.

Thanks @pantjog and @Juja. DS was booked to do a Greek intensive course last summer but it was cancelled because of covid. This summer he has decided to a Latin residential course (2 weeks! - could think of nothing worse) - I'm unclear as to why he decided to do the Latin rather than Greek one.

And hi everyone. I forgot to introduce myself! I was on a train juggling work with Mumsnet hovering My daughter is applying for Modern Languages at Oxford this autumn - deferred entry so for 2023. My son is starting at Oxford in October to read Geography so second time of supporting the journey. He also fortuitously applied for deferred entry and has been abroad since September 2020.

@pantjog Thanks and will do once she’s come up with some ‘potentials’
@Horace123 DD is hopefully doing a 2 week Greek residential course this summer- fingers crossed!
DD did Greek to GCSE as extra curricular as it wasn’t taught on timetable. They used the John Taylor books. Perhaps your DS could look at those and then a Greek residential next summer?

Hello Juja, another languages applicant here for 2022 entry, DD looking at Cambridge course. Hope your DS is looking forward to Oct, from what sounds like a worthwhile year out!

Hello. I'm crashing the thread as my DD is about to graduate from C with a Masters in NatSci (Physical). She has been involved in outreach/mentoring since year 2 so I know a bit about the process.

She applied to a smallish central college, was interviewed by them but on offer day, a letter (yes, back in 2017 it came by post) came from a completely different college. She has had the most fantastic 4 years there and is staying on for a PhD.

I'm happy to help if anyone has any questions, but bear in mind my info is 4 years old. I teach in a secondary school - one of my y13s had a similar experience to DD albeit for BioNatSci and was pooled to Churchill. She is now excitedly waiting for her results.

@ealingwestmum

Hello Juja, another languages applicant here for 2022 entry, DD looking at Cambridge course. Hope your DS is looking forward to Oct, from what sounds like a worthwhile year out!

Yes - he's really looking forward to October after 10 months volunteering in pretty intense conditions. Fortunate though not to have had his first year last year.

My daughter looked at the Cambridge course but she is really literature focused so has decided to apply for Oxford. So important to be happy with the course.

Congratulations to your DD Malbecfan, your sharing of experiences will be very welcome here!

@ealingwestmum

Hello Juja, another languages applicant here for 2022 entry, DD looking at Cambridge course. Hope your DS is looking forward to Oct, from what sounds like a worthwhile year out!

Hi @ealingwestmum and @Juja Definitely good to examine and compare the courses closely. My DD chose the Cambridge course, and thought she would like the translation, linguistics and culture/film aspects best, but has fallen in love with the literature. They've done a lot of female authors, including for a medieval reading (not sure what it was). Either way, exciting times and hope your DD's have a good experience with applications and (fingers crossed) with their language studies at Oxford and Cambridge!

Thanks so much FingernailNibbler, good to hear your DD is enjoying her course! Looks like their interests clearly expand over the entrance process and then evolve more during their UG years.

DD is interested in the AMEL course, combined with Spanish. All her prospect uni options are Middle East & European studies type courses that include Ireland (Trinity) and a couple more overseas.

@ealingwestmum

DD is interested in the AMEL course, combined with Spanish. All her prospect uni options are Middle East & European studies type courses that include Ireland (Trinity) and a couple more overseas.

Sounds very interesting @ealingwestmum and double the potential friends, from the AMES and the Sidgwick sites. You inspired me to have a look at the AMES page. So many interesting languages to learn. Best wishes to your DD!

Even last year the new grades were what, only 3 years old, and the distinction between 8 and 9 must be tiny, and often come down to performance on the day. How can any teacher be confident, especially in humanities subjects, of the exact difference between an 8 and 9? Oxford and Cambridge don't distinguish between them for admissions and I guess there's good reason for that

The distinction between all the grades is only one mark and comes down to performance on the day. The thing people didn’t seem able to grasp with the 2020 Grades is teachers could only give predictions based on the data they had collected over the course and not account for exam day variables like vomit or periods or bad luck. Lack of nerves, headaches and sleepless nights led the cohort to better, seemingly inflated, grades. I believe the principal reason for not disguising between 8/9 is to treat candidates from all 4 home nations the same, rather than give credit to an English student for their 9 that couldn’t be given to a Scottish one for their A*.

I know sandy knows a little about this course but has anyone got any more insight on HSPS? The website gives virtually no info on possible modules and DS is frustrated. he thinks Cambridge is just relying on people wanting to go there, regardless of actual course content.

Compared to other unis, Cambridge is not selling itself to him at the moment, other than the food menu at, I think, Fitzwilliam!

There is one YouTube video that absolutely savages the degree and its organisation but otherwise very little 'spilling the tea' type things.

Goodness knows, I'd like him to give it all a go, but the course does seem rather dry and theory heavy compared to similar courses at Birmingham, York or Durham.

Also, another question. How remote does Homerton feel from the rest of the university community?

DS can't ride a bike ( I know! Bad parent alert!)

@Piggywaspushed Homerton seems really distant in the weird Cambridge mindset but it’s really not far at all in the real world … and there are buses. (Or an adult cycling course?!)

Yeah, I mean I know Cambridge : we aren't far away. I guess I just don't know how much time they spend in college. I went to York myself and it is probably the same distance and that was no barrier at all. But then , I could ride a bike...

Its not a big concern. More put off by the lack of info on the course really!

He definitely wants one of the more down to earth colleges.

[quote pantjog]@MareofBeasttown there's a really useful graph generator here where you can see how many applications and acceptances there were for each subject at each Cambridge college. I wish there were the same thing for Oxford!
www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics[/quote]
Thanks for this link. I've looked at the stats on the link about a hundred times and still can't see the graph generator you mentioned that shows applications by subject and college. Please, if you could direct me.

Boatie scroll down to the bottom of the pages and tick various boxes and then click show graph.

Eg select a college (let's say Homerton) and then a course (eg English) and you get a bar graph showing how many applied and how many got a place.

Piggy Seen it now. Thanks