To think universities should state separate entry criteria for Indies?

[Wacamole]

DD who is on track for 3A*s at A’level, thought she’d give Oxbridge a go after being encouraged by her teachers. All very excited, doing super curriculars etc. Only just been told she doesn’t meet minimum entry criteria that would be expected from an Indy, which is straight 9s. She doesn’t have straight 9s, she has straight 8s (couple of nines), not only that, the course she wanted to apply for at Cambridge doesn’t require Maths at all, but school has advised they won’t even look at her if she doesn’t do Maths AND Further Maths. She is doing neither. Apparently an EPQ is also mandatory even though none of this is mentioned on Cambridge website.

All this second guessing, reading between the lines has been really confusing.
I have no issue with universities asking for higher entry criteria for students from indies for obvious reasons but wish they would be more transparent and state this on their ‘Entry requirements’ same way they state contextual offers?

What is his school background and what sort of GCSE grades Alexa? Classics II at Oxford could be a suggestion although avoiding the colleges with Classics tutors who are keener on the conventional. DD4 is a Classics II fresher and one of her interviews was analysing an unseen and obscure early eighteenth century English poem. So your DD's friend might be made for that (they'll mix it up on dates and type of literature obviously, but basically English/ obscure so requires raw talent at analysis). The Classics Aptitude Test looks for logic and linguistic skills.

Thanks @goodbyestranger, I will definitely check that out for him. He is at a fairly ordinary state comprehensive school. Currently in year 11, so no GCSE grades yet, but he is definitely capable of 9s in essay-type subjects. Not totally sure about French. Probably 7/8s in maths and science though. The problem is that his performance is quite erratic - he can swing between 9s and Us in his good subjects, but rarely gets anything in between. I'm not quite sure how the school will deal with this, given that it's teacher assessment. His home life is extremely difficult, unfortunately, and when things aren't good at home, he just sits and doesn't write anything.

My dd is a reader and I think she is pretty well read for her age, but this kid reads on a totally different level - he obviously has a great thirst for learning that his family just don't understand. He was like a kid in a sweet shop when he first came to our house a couple of years ago and saw our bookshelves. The interest in classics is more recent but seems quite considered. I'd love to help him if I could.

Also, to that aggressive poster (now deleted) who seemed to imply that I had no locus standii because my kids went to Oxbridge a decade ago, can I point out that while my eldest was indeed a fresher a decade ago, I currently have three DC still there. As I type. I'm not clear how much more current the particular aggressive poster is herself but three kids currently there doesn't seem massively out of date to me, or any kind of remembrance of things past.

Ok so too young for the Wadham thing Alexa, but possible for next year? I completely get what you're saying about erratic performance. It sounds to me as though a pincer movement would help the most: encouragement from you (his eclectic interests certainly look a good match for Classics) and strong support from school, in the shape not just of a good reference but an additional reference sent direct to the college of choice explaining his home background and the difficulties he's faced. Hopefully the school will be sensible with their assessment. His grades shouldn't reflect what's going on at home but what he's capable of.

Thanks @goodbyestranger. The current school only goes up to year 11, so will have to hope that the place where he ends up for a-levels is suitably supportive. I will continue to encourage where I can, though I can only do it through dd at the moment as dd's friends aren't all piling round our house at the moment as they did before lockdown. I will look at the wadham thing as a possible option for next year, and at the summer courses suggested earlier. He is a nice lad, and I would be very sorry to see his potential go to waste, so I just hope that he can hold things together from a mental health perspective in the interim.

Sounds as though a positive escape plan from home could be helpful to that end Alexa. Good luck.

Yes definitely @goodbyestranger. Thanks for your help.

@AlexaShutUp: if his language abilities are not as strong, then I would suggest looking at Classical Archaeology and Ancient history or Ancient and Modern History at Oxford rather than Classics.

Thank you @Ellmau. I know he does French, but can't recall whether he is any good at it, so if it looks like he isn't a linguist, I'll suggest that he checks out the alternative options that you have suggested.

@goodbyestranger thanks for the laugh to wake up to. You are a miracle worker. You can get from Devon to Krakow in 5 hours, which is just so amazing I bow to your superior skills as a teacher (you must be one or wouldn't be covered by school insurance). What with your 1.5 hour drive this side and the half hour one the other, oh and the 2.5 hour flight, this means you managed to check in to an airport and get out of one and count kids on and off coaches in, well under 30 minutes. Impressive stuff. This must be why you have 7 children at Oxbridge, the ability to stop time.

Apologies everyone else, but this dig at me was pointless and as usual just a bit pathetic. Have no clue why this person always feels the need to be unpleasant but it seems to be a hobby of there's.
Off to stick Ferrari stickers on all the school minibuses as I'm sure this will help them go faster 😊.

That's right he would need to be a very strong linguist to tackle Classics II.

Five hours to Krakow is admittedly our best time mumsneedwine and the point was illustrative. My brother nips from Warsaw to Scotland and is on a golf course on one of the islands teeing off in five hours too (admittedly without excitable sixth formers). I guess that coming from a rural area it irks a bit when I know full well just how difficult the journey to see unis can actually be, even without any drama. I was merely picking up on an obviously highly questionable point (and wasn't alone).

The eighth DC is now also at Oxford, for completeness.

If it helps, the drive to the airport is usually an hour and a half but the flights to Krakow have always been early morning and so the roads are deserted, as is the airport, if that helps. Perfectly possible and never lost a single student to date.

For so long kids at normal
Schools were excluded from posh universities in favour of independent school. I think it's fair now that tables have turned a bit.

It's nothing to do with 'favour'.

It's to do with making sure that the largest number possible of high potential students feel confident/encouraged to apply.

Obviously if you increase the available pool of talent, those who would have been towards the bottom of those selected in the past will no longer make the cut. I was probably one of those in the late 80s - and I got in. My DS was probably one of those last year - he didn't.

But that's how it should be! I have no doubt that there were more brilliant students in my A level cohort who did not feel able to apply - hopefully those in the same situation now would have a better chance of coming across the outreach/mentoring opportunities.

@KingscoteStaff

I agree with what you said but with increasing applicants (good thing) and a finite number of places the competition becomes fiercer. I think one consequence is that there any be more people of Oxbridge calibre turned away and no selection process is perfect.

I think from a private school perspective (and some state schools) there will be more applicants with near perfect (or even perfect) grade profiles not making it and the question asked is 'what more can we do to show the applicant is capable?'. I think that was part (possibly) of the original post in that private schools are now under the impression (rightly or wrongly) that the bar is now extremely high for private schools.

With defined goals for universities for uptake from disadvantaged communities this invariably means fewer places for those from advantaged communities and I think this is where suspicions of positive bias may creep in.

I think it would be interesting to see where those rejected by Oxbridge go eventually and will there be similarly fierce competition elsewhere.

@mids2019 As I said earlier in the thread, this is where cohort position is relevant.

DS went to a super selective indie, but was probably in the lower 50% academically. But that is all relative, as they say - he was in set 8 of 8 for GCSE Maths and French but still easily got a 9 and an A*.

He ended up with 2 A*s and an A at A level, but this still put him in the lower 50% - most of his friends did 4 or even 5 A levels plus an EPQ, while he dropped his 4th at the end of Year 12 and decided he'd rather spend time on music and sport than on an EPQ.

I think it is important that his teachers mentioned his cohort position in his Oxbridge reference - it identified a pretty bright boy who had benefitted from amazing teaching and astounding pastoral care, as opposed to a child with exactly the same grades who had achieved them with far less support.

Totally agree with @KingscoteStaff.

@mids2019. I'm guessing that the other top universities will have the cream of the Indie Oxbridge near misses and more and more students are looking further a field. It will be interesting to see how this fairs when it comes to graduate employment. One of my friends DC who graduated from Cambridge (economics) last year stated that the lions share of the graduates recruited on her scheme (global management consultancy) were from UCL, Warwick and LSE whereas previously Cambridge graduates had faired much better.

@KingscoteStaff

I think that goes to show how many excellent candidates are in the running.

Your son has fantastic grades by the way.

@AlexaShutUp: Your DD's friend could teach himself Latin. That will go down very well indeed on his PS, as it demonstrates independent learning. It will also be useful if he chooses classics. The Cullen and Taylor books x2 are good for independent learning for GCSE and one of the language apps also does Latin. Once he gets to Oxbridge a lot of the kids do refer to Latin (and Ancient Greek), so he won't feel left out. He may well end up knowing it better than the kids whose parents paid for it, which is always great sport.

I think one consequence is that there any be more people of Oxbridge calibre turned away and no selection process is perfect.

I get where you're coming from @mids2019, but I guess the point is that there were always people of "Oxbridge calibre" being turned away, or being deterred from even applying in the first place. It's just that the balance has shifted a bit as to where those students are.

I do agree that the admissions process will never be perfect, and sadly, that means that some very "worthy" students will miss out, but again, I think that's always been the way.

@KingscoteStaff and @mumsneedwine :MNW, please can you start using this on your references - I'm telling you it is important. DD's tutor also didn't put this, but a polite request from DD resulted in her adding DD's A level rankings.

I agree with cohort too. In dd's year two pupils got all 9s in a large medium-rated comprehensive. This past year 20 did. Now, was the cohort particularly brilliant? No. The school didn't even publish the results as the head said they were obviously "covid results" and to trumpet them would be unfair on the previous/future years. It's even unfair on the two or three students who, in that year, would have been the stand-out achievers.

Rather embarrassed to admit that dd is annoyed at the cancellation of A Levels for this reason....

I think it is ridiculous to say that Warwick, UCL and LSE grads were somehow lesser mortals but are now being favoured over Cambridge grads. They may well be just as good as Cambridge Economists and possibly always were. Especially LSE! Hardly a back number! These young people might have even chosen these universitites and not Cambridge. The idea that these universities do not have the pick of very high calibre students is also stretching credulity. They are also very elite in their way. They would not feature highly in the destinations of deprived area DC. Especially the two universities in London. So one suspects all the new recruits are from relatively similar backgrounds.

I also love the idea that MN posters seem to be happy with a low paid job they love (and implore others to do the same to be happy) but depend on their husbands to provide the standard of living they aspire to. I would want young women to aspire to earning well too. It is very possible to earn very well and like what you do. No-one should assume they will marry someone with a better paid job. These days, finding lots of parents who did not go to university, and no-one in the family had, would be a rarity at Oxbridge I think. I am not sure if the figures bear this out, but I think the Sutton Trust DC are still a tiny minority.

The difficulty in getting very ordinary DC to apply is the issue. We did not have anyone go to university before my Dsis. My parents had no clue about what, or where. My other DSis had AAA at A level but decided Oxbridge was not for her and her grammar school did not care. Another girls with the same results was not pointed in Oxbirdge direction either. Back in the 80s, lots of schools seemed to think Oxbridge was for genius type DC. The ones with top class grades were not good enough and no-one even tried where we went to school. Even when it was a stone's throw from Oxford.

I think family background, jobs attained and education received in the family make a big difference. Being comfortable can lead to not needing to try too hard. SXeeing no-one like you in a family can lead to medicrity if no-one bothers about you. I do think careers educatgion should start much earlier. Definitely year 8 - prior to GCSEs.

@PresentingPercy. I did not mean to indicate the LSE, UCL and Warwick students were lesser mortals than Cambridge. Many of them like you say may well have chosen those universities instead of Cambridge. However, less students were taken on this particular grad scheme from Cambridge this year.

@PresentingPercy if you are referring to me as doing a job I enjoy but depending on my husband for the lifestyle I aspire to - I am a NHS Doctor. However my husband who works in a different field in the private sector earns much more. So we are able to afford a certain lifestyle mainly due to his job. I can see how it would seem like I depend on him to fund my lifestyle and I really wish it wasn't this way ......