Hi everyone. Just came in to say my DS was an Cambridge reject this year, but it’s absolutely fine and probably for the best. He was miffed for about 24 hours and then got over it. He had 10x9s and GCSE; all A predictions and an A in EPQ, plus other things (national essay competition winner, published work). The feedback was that he did very well in the interview too (above the average interview score), but there were only 2 places at the college he applied to and one taken up by someone who sat exams last Nov. He was pooled, but not taken out of the pool (but only 20% are in a normal year anyway and this was not a normal year). The boy who was offered a place there did have lower GCSEs (7s and 6s), but DS is not bothered about this because he has been chatting to this boy and he comes from a school where the average grade is a 5, whereas at DS’ school, pretty much everyone gets all 8s and 9s.
It’s common sense that if you are teaching a class in which the bulk are hoping to scrape a pass at 4/5, you will have to teach at that level / pace. Those who achieve 7s from that environment will be largely self-taught.
In terms of standardisation, I think Oxford is a more standardised selection process than Cambridge (where individual colleges seem more at liberty to do their own thing). They say it shouldn’t matter which college you apply to, but they would say that wouldn’t they!
It used to be that the “state school intake stats” at top unis were misleading as they were basically composed of grammar school kids. Now, I hear they are looking at how selective a school is (state or independent) rather than the sector, which I think is much fairer. Some independent schools aren’t particularly academic at all.
DS has many friends who he perceives are more academic than him who have also not got in to Oxbridge this year. All have top grades and all sorts besides. But some have got into even more competitive courses in the U.K. or the US. You never can tell.
Also, Oxbridge courses are quite traditional and so many of the most academic at his school don’t even apply because the courses they want are not in offer - eg, for finance-related courses like actuarial science they might apply to Wharton Business School or LSE. The US system is a whole different kettle of fish and do many exclusively focus on this (eg you have to have founded societies, got certain marks in SATs, be involved in charity work and all kind of hoopla that’s mind boggling).
What I do think is a little unfair is that his current school has a generous bursary scheme going into the sixth form. Many of his friends joined then (free places) and all had achieved 8s/9s at underperforming London schools. Some come from very deprived backgrounds or are fairly recent refugees. Anyway, despite having top grades (in the local newspapers etc) and top A-level predictions and beating the odds in so many ways, they now wish they’d stayed were they were because they probably could have got top predictions anyway and might have got places at top unis / medical courses if their grades had been contextualised. As it is, for medicine, there are some who have no offers at all, despite all 9s and A*s because they measure your grades against the average in your school and these, although very good, would not be scored as exceptional coming from this school. But what more could they have done? Nothing. So they have to be happy with that and know they did their best.
So having been through it with DS, my advice would be to spread the net widely and think of Oxbridge as a punt because top grades guarantee nothing. If applying to Cambridge, go for a college with lots of places for that subject! Also, just see it as one step in the HE pathway because most of them will end up doing at least a Masters anyway and who knows where they’ll be by then. Good luck!