Oxbridge Aspirants 2022 part 3....Will they or won't they make it to interview? Our Mum nerves are in tatters!

[TangoWhiskyAlphaTango]

New thread for us, lots of lovely support whilst we wait. Some of our lovely DC now have interview dates whilst the rest of us hold our breath and try not to hassle our teens into checking their SPAM folders at least several times per day .

DS2 applied to Queen's for History and got pooled to Oriel (which suited him perfectly and which he loved). DS3 applied the following year to Queen's for History and got an offer from Queen's. They get on very well those two but it does allow DS3 to keep boisterous DS2 in his place, a little. Meanwhile DS1 was already in the next door college situation, for the duration of both brothers' degrees, because he was on the six year Medicine course. They always shared a bedroom at home those three and so no real problems with proximity - a college each was a luxury given how squashed home has always been.

Fortunately my three eldest girls also overlapped but mercifully were more spread out across the town: Magdalen to Wadham with one inbetween. Just as well - they're far less peaceable than the brothers.

Goodness @goodbyestranger you must have some small age gaps! You have six children at Oxford? That’s amazing. You just be the proudest mum ever.

You must be the proudest mum ever I mean!

I front loaded with the DC. Posted to the Mojave desert so not much to do there. The last two - another DS and another DD - were at more sensible intervals, like two to three years apart. But thank you yes, they've turned out well.

DS was sent login details for Moodle a few days ago but still no interview email, has anyone else had this? The at interview assessment for his subject is next Friday, the stress of not asking him to check his emails every five minutes is bloody killing me

I am acutely aware how fortunate DD has been to have had notification early. Wishing you all who have not yet heard, good news on interview dates this coming week.

DD now has 2 offers from Leeds and Manchester and is awaiting outcome (should be mid Dec) from an early decision US application. She is visibly more relaxed this weekend.

@ealingwestmum

I am acutely aware how fortunate DD has been to have had notification early. Wishing you all who have not yet heard, good news on interview dates this coming week.

DD now has 2 offers from Leeds and Manchester and is awaiting outcome (should be mid Dec) from an early decision US application. She is visibly more relaxed this weekend.

It is a bit of a killer i have to say! It is a shame each college doesnt send them out all together. I realise they have to gather test/essay info but for DD course she did not have to submit any work or do an entrance assessment. Hey ho I am sure we will know by the end of next week one way or the other. Feel slightly sorry for her as its limbo and I think they have to mentally gear themselves up for it.

Also doesnt help me stalking looking at TSR and seeing students with much better GCSEs than DD not getting interview. I absolutely know it won't be the end of the world but a shot at it would be good.

I wondered how much Oxford would rely on GCSEs this time around, given they are the first pandemic cohort with the shambolic results debacle.

That said, what else can they use in subjects with no entrance exams? Predicted A levels and personal statements are also pretty unreliable, given the vastly different levels of support that candidates get from their schools and family backgrounds.

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango

Also doesnt help me stalking looking at TSR and seeing students with much better GCSEs than DD not getting interview. I absolutely know it won't be the end of the world but a shot at it would be good.

Happy to reveal DS's GCSEs are 9888877775, I think (music teacher sacked : nightmare!) and he has interview. What college are you OP? I think some are being a bit slower.

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/contextual-data this is interesting on how they are weighting GCSE results depending on school performance (scroll down to section on school data). I've just checked DS's school & it would be flagged up using this criteria.

Apart from, weirdly, physics. For some reason the physics department at Oxford has decided to abandon the contextual weighting for GCSEs this year. They say it's because of TAGs/CAGs stuff.

In previous years a contextual GCSE (cGCSE) score was also used, based on the number of standard deviations the applicant is away from their ‘expected’ number of A*/9/8 grades. This will not be used in 2021 due to the particular Covid-induced circumstances of how GCSE grades were awarded in summer 2020.

From Oxford physics

Interesting that Oxford seem to have taken the opposite tack to Cambridge on GCSE weighting Sandy I'm assuming Cambridge added this last month in response to fee-paying schools bumping up the GCSE TAGs for this cohort. I remember reading about it last year but can't recall if it was ever proved.

It's only the physics department from what I can make out.

I don't accept that all independent schools bumped up grades. At DD's school the grades were in line with previous years. Same for DS1's school.

Thanks for alerting us to the removal of contextual GCSEs for Oxford physics - DS was relying on that to give him the remotest chance of an interview (high GCSE grades from not particularly high performing state comprehensive). Sounds like we might have come to the end of this particular chapter :(

Ah sorry @foodledoff - I was surprised by it to be honest. I don't understand why it seems to just physics though.

Also doesnt help me stalking looking at TSR and seeing students with much better GCSEs than DD not getting interview. I absolutely know it won't be the end of the world but a shot at it would be good

I’m stalking both Oxford and UCL threads and both seem to be entirely populated by students with 10x9s and 4A* predictions. Hoping ds isn’t similarly stalking.

It makes sense that GCSEs will need to be looked at differently this year, because different schools will have had different approaches to TAGs, because of the shambles the government created. I wonder if they will use more of a 'position within individual cohort' approach (I believe they do this anyway in normal times - if you are at the top of your school cohort that will be looked at favourably, rather than being in the middle of a cohort, all of whom perform better). They would have an idea how schools tend to perform, so this data would enable some sort of academic background to be discerned.

With respect to state/independents, I'm sure it is true that on an individual basis not all independents bumped the grades up more, but across the board this is absolutely the case, with grade inflation far more prevalent in independent schools than in state schools. More state schools allocated grades in line with previous years' results, as directed by the DfE, but the independent schools tended to go with more aspirational grades - this is borne out by the stats. Plus, of course, the online teaching experience was (on a macro scale) different to state schools, especially in the 1st lockdown.

Thanks for that Bilberry that's pretty much my understanding of the situation.
I don't want to get into a state v private bunfight on this thread but I think there's a good case for competitive universities to acknowledge that the 2020 cohort is even less of a level playing field than usual.

At least Oxbridge are doing their own assessments and interviews - far more useful than any teacher assessments or predicted grades anyway!

I’m stalking both Oxford and UCL threads and both seem to be entirely populated by students with 10x9s and 4A predictions.*

But they might not perform well in the University assessments? I'm sure the admissions teams can look through these (not very meaningful) grades.

Bilberry
Do you know that Oxford actually has information about where individuals are placed relative to the cohort at their particular school? Or did you mean the national cohort across all of that type of school?

At my DCs school, we are never told about a rank in year. I mean, it's possible to work out who the few standout kids are, but it's never actually articulated as such and I don't see how Oxford would know. The school reference is glowing but it doesn't actually say 'best in year' or whatever.

Our school references often say 'X is at the top of a very competitive cohort'.