Is anyone else guilty of feeling like this

[AmyWhiteshead]

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7148929

(first post)
Came across this thread on The Student Room. This hit a bit differently. Basically DS has gotten offers from Glasgow and Cardiff (insurance) for Maths but he was aiming for Cambridge Warwick or Imperial. I know that these are all Russell Groups and good unis but it feels anticlimactic after a lot of late nights studying, anxiety and
sacrifice from mum and dad'.

This isn't a traditional is uni x good enough thread, I just feel conflicted about whether it's okay to have such high expectations of our child. I appreciate that the pandemic has made everything harder and more competitive but I am a bit disappointed.

@TizerorFizz no I don’t think it’s just a private school thing (although she’s at a grammar school and is unhappy about how it doesn’t reflect society - basically just a load a privileged middle class children of which she is one).

She just doesn’t feel she’d fit - she’s gay, has piercings, likes parties, loves biology but not in an all consuming way, runs FemSoc, does drama, plays in symphony orchestra- just a pretty average 16 year old and Oxbridge presents itself as not being for the average. I say this in no way to disrespect the students who work their socks off to get in it’s a fantastic achievement and some of her friends will be very upset if they don’t get in but it’s not somewhere she can see herself and given the minuscule chance of an offer she has decided she won’t apply 😀

Just chipping in to say Glasgow is a great city.

Cont … sorry meant to say I think we gravitate naturally towards places which perhaps reflect ourselves back.

So not everyone wants to trade up regarding university, or indeed should have to. Only if your future career demands ir.

Of course not, that's why my last line said 'if that is an objective', with the implication that it might well not be!

I was merely pointing out that it is one possible course of action should a student (student, not their parents) wish to do so. You can take a good first degree, even from Scumbag College, and go to a world-leading university for further study if you wish to do so.

And yes, in her case her future career does indeed demand it, and probably more. There's no such thing as a graduate scheme in her area of interest.

@Darbs76 just wanted to say that Warwick is really, genuinely well thought of for undergraduate maths. It's one of the courses that maths A Level students are pointed towards if they're high achieving and thought to have potential. I know it sucks not to get Oxford or Cambridge if that is what he wanted - am Oxford reject myself so I know how it can burn - but Warwick is very much a strong and well-respected option for maths. I hope he feels better about it all soon.

"Actually as someone who recruits for medical roles, I would say this is one exception. If you want to work at some of the most prestigious hospitals, there is a real bias towards people who studied at the more prestigious academic institutions. Having said that, there is such a shortage of candidates in some areas of medicine so that interview panels can’t always be as choosy as they would like to be!"

@Dancingdreamer just wondering if you are yourself a doctor and if you are recruiting doctors? What kind of medical roles are you recruiting for? I'm genuinely intrigued as I've heard a number of doctors (I count Oxbridge/UCL/Imperial-trained ones) say that it makes no difference where you studied. We personally know senior consultants who studied at other UK Med Schools and who now work in prestigious London training hospitals. My DS had top academics but categorically didn't want to be spending the first three years of his course writing endless essays within the Oxbridge course structure. Is your view that he has made a choice that limits his future options?

@thing47 is suggesting a viable path for many DC who do not get their elite choice for undergraduate. I had a Year 3 project topic that turned into an excellent feeder for certain elite MSc’s, From there students went into a variety of PhDs and jobs; for the latter I have the impression that the Oxbridge degrees carried a lot of weight.

The OP’s DS will be a good candidate for any PhD programme in the country with an excellent MMaths from Glasgow. He and other DCs who earn first class three year degrees from RG or similar universities but feel that they need a degree from an elite university can move up with an MSc. A Distinction or Merit from an elite place goes a long way. But as @TizerorFizz suggests, at some point there is a need for excellence and initiative.

@opoponax

"Actually as someone who recruits for medical roles, I would say this is one exception. If you want to work at some of the most prestigious hospitals, there is a real bias towards people who studied at the more prestigious academic institutions. Having said that, there is such a shortage of candidates in some areas of medicine so that interview panels can’t always be as choosy as they would like to be!"

@Dancingdreamer just wondering if you are yourself a doctor and if you are recruiting doctors? What kind of medical roles are you recruiting for? I'm genuinely intrigued as I've heard a number of doctors (I count Oxbridge/UCL/Imperial-trained ones) say that it makes no difference where you studied. We personally know senior consultants who studied at other UK Med Schools and who now work in prestigious London training hospitals. My DS had top academics but categorically didn't want to be spending the first three years of his course writing endless essays within the Oxbridge course structure. Is your view that he has made a choice that limits his future options?

I have PMd you

Going to Oxbridge I do think gave my doctor sibling at least some advantage even just in terms of things like the academic side and private work and work in courts. However just as I can be a fairly good London lawyer despite not going to Oxbridge, it does not mean you have to be Oxbridge to all the best roles in the UK.

My 5 children did not try as they did not think they would not get in and did not think, having analysed the effort involved, and their chances it was worth having a go. I didn't try either.

What are prestigious teaching hospitals?

Thing is now there are many more universities offering medicine than before. The people dancingdreamer is talking about may be the older lot who would have gone to one of the old medical schools?

In the early 00's, getting a training post in most specialities including GP was very tough - hence the mass exodus at the time mainly to Australia . Now they are so desperate for GP's I am sure candidates can pick and choose their training posts

You need to be able to pass the tough post graduate exams in order to be a consultant/ GP - and I think those from a more academic medical school are more likely to find these exams easier to pass due to the rigour of their undergraduate training. However once qualified - as with all walks of life - people are not hired because of the medical school they went to. They are hired because they are the best fit. And these days with so many empty posts everywhere, I wouldn't expect any medic to struggle finding work.

And also Oxbridge medicine wouldn't appeal to all medics. It's a very academic course and they have very tough exams. I was helping a final year student prepare for his exams and I was amazed at the levels of scientific and clinical knowledge that was required. And I went to UCLMS. So it is not a surprise that Oxbridge would help if you want to go into academic medicine and I again I agree that a lot of the private practitioners or the "leads" have an Oxbridge background. Similar to going to private school. Maybe generally they are more ambitious as a cohort.

@LadyLazarus40
What makes anything you say about your DD think she wouldn’t suit Oxbridge? Or Durham?
The big issue teenagers have is that they think they are unique. No one at elite universities will be like then. They never ever are unique! Of course there’s people like her at every university! Including elite ones. Turning the issue on it’s head: How could she find one full of people like her? You might have a go at naming, say 4, but plenty of other people will then tell you that these universities are just like every other university! So how will she choose one she feels reflects heron the student body?

It’s also wise to get off the dislike of the middle class privilege bandwagon. In life, you tend to have to rub along with all sorts. No one has chosen their parents. They are who they are. Would she have issues with meeting people from other types of background or is her annoyance just targeted at the middle classes? What about at work? Most parents probably worked hard for their house and way of life. I’m being provocative - I know. But this is no way to choose a university. She shouldn’t deny who she is but maybe being more accepting of others might help her make an informed choice?

Yes @chopc that's the real paradox. DS is absolutely academic enough for Oxbridge but vehemently didn't want to pursue that academic course. He is already drawn to clinical rather than academic medicine although it is clearly still very early days for him. I am not so concerned about him coping with future exams. The question was more whether he was structurally closing down future options due to a choice made at eighteen. I am reassured by both your and @Dancingdreamer's (private) explanations. Thank you both and apologies to the wider audience for having taken the thread off on a bit of a tangent.

And my sibling and my late father were the same medical specialism and NHS consultants and did/do private work, court work etc and father went to Durham (in those days and the medical school was in Newcastle I believe then) and my sibling Oxbridge. In other words I don't think there was a vast different in what they ended up doing based on one being at Oxbridge and one not.

That's not a valid comparison Xenia, given that your father is likely to have trained in the forties and your brother in the seventies or eighties.

Yes, they were not exactly at the same time period (50s and 80s) although they both worked as NHS consultants at the same time as my father worked for the NHS to age 63 which is as long as they would allow him and then for himself until he was 77 so they did have a bit of a period of overlap whilst both working. Anyway my sibling - the Oxbridge one - has certainly not found the Oxbridge thing a disadvantage.

The OP asked about Maths, this thread has been a bit derailed onto medicine!
A 2:1 in Maths from Glasgow or Cardiff will open many doors for her DC and that is the thing to focus on now IMHO.

@Lightstoobright

Glasgow would be an amazing experience from for uni. It's one of my favourite cities. I wish I had gone somewhere like that. I went to a Russell group uni in a small city and it was dull.

I think Glasgow is great too. My ds had an offer from there (not for Maths) and was keen on going there. However, for various reasons he went to York in the end and is very happy there.

Cardiff is a great university and fun city too.

And how can anyone think Edinburgh is second rate!

By contrast when we were discussing Glasgow you'd get curt 'Ohs' and the conversation would change quite quickly. Felt like a slap in the face all that indicates is prejudice and ignorance

Two of DS2's friends started at Glasgow this year and both seem to be enjoying their courses and life in the city. One of them, at least, got AAA at A level and I'm assuming that Glasgow was her firm choice, because it's a bloody long way away from here to choose as an 'also ran' (and yes, she does appear to get on well with her parents, so unlikely to be that).

DS2 is at UEA; loves his course, the university, campus, accommodation, city. A A A at A level. Do we wish we'd told him not to be so silly when he firstly decided upon reflection that Cambridge (which the school had encouraged him to consider) was not what he wanted and then just fell in love with all things UEA and Norwich as an applicant day guest of his sister? No, not one bit. If either of us had hankered after Cambridge, we had our chance to apply back in the 1970s.