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?

One of my daughter's partners was an Economics tutor at Cambridge who said that while the website couldn't ask for FM, since not all schools teach FM, the reality at his (large, old, grand) college was that no-one without FM would be made an offer. He conceded that other colleges might take a different approach.

@Curioushorse Thank you. I have derailed the thread inadvertently, sorry OP. I will start another thread.

When I write references I make no mention of where a student is within the cohort. Why would I ? Universities can not say one thing and do another with admissions as they would find themselves in v hot water as to future funding.
There are not different rules for most state schools and private whatever anyone says. Contextual offers are based on criteria of disadvantage which the majority of state pupils are not.

At our school when a student is top or near the top of their year in the subject applied for, the reference always specifies that.

It's a selective state school, and therefore top means top within a usually very able cohort - it's relevant.

I cannot help but notice that many of you are trying to argue the toss as to why Oxbridge should accept your kids and shoehorn your idea of a good candidate should be into the general discourse.

Oxbridge don't care about about: D of E, rowing, being a prefect, volunteering in unrelated roles, your sport (unless your UK/world ranking in high), indeed any extra-curricular stuff unrelated to your course.

Oxbridge is no longer a finishing school for the rich. It hasn't been for a while. Like, I know they churn out loads of prime ministers, but they do need to do useful stuff too, like discover stuff and make things. They can't do that if they fill their colleges with Norman Rockwell types with good orthodontics and shiny hair, who aren't actually exceptional. What is exceptional?

You need 9s, A, A^ at GCSE. Some 8s are Ok and you'd better be special in your chosen subjects (like rainman special) if you've got 7s or go to the type of comp where the teachers lust over pritt sticks and the kids use the empty cases as missiles once they've rubbed them all over the seats. You need to be top of your cohort, no matter where you are educated. So if your kid is at the top, or very near the top, that's good. If your kid gets the same grades as everyone else in their cohort, that's not special. Even if you paid for it.

What else? Be able to talk about your subject, or your chosen area within that subject. Not with aplomb. Just talk. Hesitantly, looking at the floor, stuttering, pausing. Waggling hands, sitting on hands, without engaging head tilt. Just talk and then when you're offered new info, or asked about an alternative perspective be knowledgeable enough to assimilate, or make links and talk some more.

So: Be smarter than your peers, be knowledgeable about your subject and be able to demonstrate this to the extent that your interviewer feels that you'd turn your Oxbridge place into something the university can put into a journal or into someone's arm

We don't mention it. Because we have so much more to say about each student and who they are. What does top of cohort mean ? Each cohort is so different. We have 22 offers from Oxbridge this year, 12 medics and 4 vets. From our lowly little comp. So we are doing something right with references 🤷‍♀️.

mumsneedwine - please start doing the "top of the cohort" thing. It is important. I have this from the horse's mouth

For Cambridge GCSEs are less important than Oxford. We have plenty of students with a range of 7-9s getting places. What they say in the prospect is true ! I attend several outreach seminars every year with both Unis and they are very open about their procedures, and also that any student who wants to apply should give it a go. We have had some get in over the years who didn't quite fit the criteria but aced the HAT etc and are just brilliant at interviews.
Apply if you fancy if, it's one choice on UCAS so worth a punt.

@CinnamonJellyBeans and so have I. From the 29 Oxbridge colleges head of admissions I was on a conference with in October 🤷‍♀️. Missed the usual very good lunch as was virtual this year.

The year my sons applied to university from their fee paying school every boy who applied to Oxbridge failed to get in so 100% failure rate which vindicated my sons' decision not to bother applying.

Interesting.
I know someone who has been offered a 100% bursary for a private school sixth form. [After being in state all the way to gcse].
Maybe they should just go to the good state alternative nearby?
They see offer as an opportunity and have taken it...

To some extent at Oxford at least the contextualisation of their GCSE grades does already show where they are in a cohort. They know by seeing the schools' name that is superselective so a top 5% admission. However there is a not so hidden code in the references when referring to exceptional, outstanding and very good, good etc the same way there is when they give their feedback.

Yes for science and maths the interviews can easily avoid PS as there is a certain assumed level of education across all the applicants. For humanities they are questioned on the PS (whixh generally focuses in an academic manner on a specific subject/time period etc and submitted work because there is a wider range of subject modules that can be selected and each applicant would have differing "specialisms". It is also why the decisions seem much more subjective.

Oxbridge ....need to do useful stuff too, like discover stuff and make things. They can't do that if they fill their colleges with Norman Rockwell types with good orthodontics and shiny hair, who aren't actually exceptional.
Let’s be real here. The undergraduates have almost nothing to do with the ‘useful stuff’. Even those who are interested in doctoral and postdoctoral research quite rightly often go elsewhere and conversely many participating in Oxbridge research were not undergraduates there.
So Oxbridge undergraduates don’t need to be the brightest. That was true in the past and will also be true from a bit of positive discrimination, just the mix of students will be different.

Actually I think one of the problems is that very few people realise quite how ‘different’ an Oxbridge degree is from other universities. It’s not just about being the brightest it’s about being the type of person who responds to and in fact relishes the tutorial/supervision system.

If you are the sort of person who likes to learn in lectures and write one summative and one formative essay per term per module and polish them and spend time on them then you are going to find the write a lot of essays /solve problems and then defend your answers/ arguments in a 1:2 or 1:3 environment on a weekly/fortnightly basis very challenging and possibly frustrating. You might be just as bright but just not suited to their very particular method of teaching .

I think very few people really understand that the interview system is specifically designed to find the people who will thrive in this high octane , short terms actually pretty brutal at times environment . If you really hated the interview how on earth will you cope with several of those interviews a week for 24 weeks of the year .

If you really hated the interview how on earth will you cope with several of those interviews a week for 24 weeks of the year

That's a really interesting question, and I'm not sure what the answer is. I honestly don't know how good the interview process is at identifying people who will thrive in the tutorial/supervision system.

I hated my Cambridge interviews, all three of them. I cried my eyes out afterwards and even after I got my offer, I was determined to go to York instead, because I had hated everything about the Cambridge interview experience. If it hadn't been for the very firm words from my then head of sixth form, for whom I had the greatest respect, I probably wouldn't have taken up my place. However, I thrived within the supervision system once in Cambridge and consider myself to have been incredibly privileged to have had access to that kind of education.

So, perhaps the interview process itself was indeed effective, because it identified something in me that would enable me to thrive in that kind of academic environment. However, I'm not sure that the way I felt about the interview process was relevant at all.

it’s about being the type of person who responds to and in fact relishes the tutorial/supervision system

That system is actually akin to what some of the costly academic private schools provide and why their pupils can hit the ground running in that system including at interview and therefore have an advantage without bringing in positive discrimination. Less advantaged but bright pupils may not relish the interview process or tutorials because they are not used to that approach. That does n’t mean they should n’t access its advantages.

In fact almost all students would respond to and get a lot out of the personal attention from an Oxbridge tutorial system but only Oxford and Cambridge can afford it.

Agree with @sendsummer

I think you have hit the nail on the head @sendsummer

@sendsummer v well put. My students have A level classes with up to 26 students. Local private schools have about 5. No way can I give my students the same time and attention however hard I try. They need to get on with a lot of it themselves. Not a bad thing in the long run but means they would be less prepared for the interviews. Except we have buddied up with a v prestigious local school who prep our kids. It works. It shouldn't be needed but it is.

Hopefully as @AlexaShutUp has pointed out the system is able to identify those who may not be aware of how much they would thrive on it .

I disagree that almost all would benefit though , I have just finished an MA at a non Oxbridge university but had several peers who had done their first degree there . A couple commented that whilst they learnt how to marshal huge amounts of information in a short time and how to defend their argument etc and it was an amazing experience if they had their time again they might not choose that experience . One in particular said they felt regularly crushed by the need to be constantly moving onto the next thing, and that they might have done better somewhere better suited to their more reflective learning style. This person was very clever, their comment was about style not ability.

My experience of Oxford tutorials is from many years ago and may no longer be relevant - though I've never heard anything to suggest that they've become more brutal over the years - but they really weren't similar to my interviews at all.

The interviews were quite challenging and in one case the interviewer had quite a confrontational manner. I don't remember all the details but I was asked about far-reaching topics and knew nothing about some of them. I was asked to think on my feet about subjects I'd never previously considered.

I didn't much enjoy them and the feedback given to my school noted that I didn't perform as well in interview as I had in the entrance exams.

By contrast I loved most of my tutorials when I was actually at Oxford. They were focussed on specific subjects that I'd had the chance to read about beforehand. My views were often challenged, I'm sure, but in a helpful and constructive way.

I only had a term of one-to-one tutorials with the tutor I found intimidating at interview and, while he never really did small talk, he certainly didn't adopt the persona he had at interviews.

I don't think I knew anyone who found tutorials stressful on a regular basis (the exception being when someone knew they hadn't done the reading and might well be caught out bullshitting).

Oxford certainly doesn't talk about interviews as some kind of gladiatorial contest to see who can survive the brutality of the tutorial system: more that they're a chance to see how a student thinks, especially when faced with unfamiliar material/ a new philosophical problem/ whatever, or when pushed to go a little deeper into a question.

I don't know how effective they are and expect that partly depends on the skill of the interviewer. I've no idea whether I'd have got in to Oxford under the current system, with greater competition and without three full exam papers to speak for me as well as the interviews.

But I'd hate any prospective applicants or their parents to think that tutorials involve an interview-like grilling every week, or that hating an Oxbridge interview means they're not suited to the tutorial system. In my experience neither is true.

Agree with your last post though, glencora. On a joint course we usually had two essays and tutorials a week, sometimes covering massive topics in both subjects, and then moved on without a backward glance!

At some point, maybe in my 2nd or 3rd year, it started to feel frustratingly superficial. I wanted to linger on certain topics in more depth and there just wasn't the time. Back then my course was 100% exam assessment and the only option to do a dissertation was in addition to everything else, unsupervised, so nobody I knew did one. I think that's changed now.

Just apply. Don't worry about supposed requirements. Just give it a shot.

My daughter was convinced that she wouldn't get high enough grades and so didn't apply. She needed 39 to get on the course she wanted at Oxford (International Baccalaureate) and ended up getting 42. SO wish she had applied! She is quite happy at Bristol instead though so no matter.

So....the point of the interviews is to identify who will thrive in a particular education system which is perfectly understandable from a university perspective.

However given the doors opened through oxbridge degrees should the process award those that have consistently performed through their academic career (e.g. top of cohort, exemplary qualifications) or those that 'shine' at interview?

I think this is relevant as I expect a motivation for high achievers through secondary school is that hard work, application and endeavour will give a realistic chance of oxbridge entry as just reward.