Oxford aspirants part 5......the wait is over the results are in!!

[TangoWhiskyAlphaTango]

Thought I would start a new thread as its likely to fill up quick now.

So here we are after many months of applications, assessments and interviews. The wait is finally over for those with DC who have applied to Oxford. Those with Cambridge applicants have another 2 weeks to wait until the 25th Jan (bummer!!)

You have all been a lovely bunch to share this journey with and I wish your dc nothing but the BEST OF LUCK for tomorrow (and the 25th).

This doesn’t make sense. Going to a “lower tier” university in the USA is expensive and won’t have much name recognition in the UK. In most cases the students would be better off going to other good universities in the UK with capped tuition and better traction with UK employers.

The calculation may be different for foreign students of which there are many at private schools in England.

I’m not sure the international universities route is really a thing outside of London and a few posh boarding schools - maybe will become so - plus I just googled admittance rates at NYU and Virginia and they are around 20% - not exactly a walk in the park either.

Interesting discussion. I do think the US university focus is mainly a London phenomenon. DD is at a very selective independent outside London, with about 20% each year getting Oxbridge offers. Looking at leaver destinations over recent years, US universities are few and far between: 1 or at most 2 a year, mostly to Liberal Arts courses. Certainly none of DD’s friends have applied.

The school is pretty realistic about Oxbridge applications, and generally discourages applications they don’t think have some chance of success. If other schools do similarly, that would explain lower numbers applying too.

On the girls v boys issue, my reading of the Oxbridge admissions analysis was that there didn’t appear to be any strong bias. For example, for maths the ratio admitted IIRC was about 70:30 boys to girls, but this was because the ratio of applications was similar.

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Any individual person may choose to go abroad, of course, but it's far from generally agreed upon that Harvard > Oxford. Most academics I know (largely in humanities and social sciences) prefer the undergraduate education in the top UK universities by far, and think it leaves students more prepared for graduate work thanks to the earlier specialisation and absence of requirements outside the declared major.

Absolutely @Innocenta. There's a reason a module like geology which can be done by an Arts major in the US is known as Rocks for Jocks. Any British Earth Sciences undergrad would look at the content and view it as akin to GCSE geology.
I really do think money helps get a British Student to an elite US university, or (as in w couple of cases I know) sporting prowess - they love our private school rowers).
(Not a geologist by the way but married to a working geologist)

I have DC at a London independent that sends quite a lot to the US. It’s hardly surprising really, as many (probably most)? families in the school have at least one parent who is non-British. If parents themselves were educated in the US, then it seems like the most obvious and well-trodden paths for their DC. Not all families have the mindset that they are going to be permanently based in the U.K. anyway.

Basically, it’s a different demographic applying to the US. Also it’s a totally different system and skill set these unis are looking for. Totally different. This is why the school advise (generally) to focus on one route or the other. Otherwise it’s just too much and it’s beyond exhausting for the student.

At Oxbridge or for LSE the PS needs to be purely academic. They don’t care if you were captain of such and such sports team or a prefect or whatever. For US universities, on the other hand, they must definitely DO. Students almost have to ‘brand themselves’ - make themselves unique, ‘tell their story.’ The way the PS is written would seem bizarre to anyone focusing on Oxbridge etc. And yes, there is a trend for applicants to feel the need to base their narratives on some woke issue, struggles with gender / racial identity; mental health challenges you have overcome - I’ve seen it all. The more boxes you can tick, the better. And you also have to prove your ‘community engagement’ - so students are all developing their own online charities in about Year 11. They start early! Plus sporting engagement / prowess has to be proven, so they also have to start early with that. They also like you to have founded a society within school and have a fancy title, like Vice Chair of the Society of blah blah blah. It’s so very different to an Oxbridge application where this type of thing just wouldn’t wash.

We have American friends / family and the extra-curriculars, societies and community engagement hoopla is being carefully planned when the child is about 9! Frankly, it all makes an Oxbridge application look like a walk in the park.

You can apply to as many US unis as you want, just pay the application fee. But they will all have a niche ‘application essay’ which is key to the process. So if you apply to ten unis, you could be writing the equivalent of ten targetted personal statements. There are, of course, companies who ‘advise’ on these US personal statements to fit your target colleges. Even well known educational consultancies will a strongly advise families to focus on either Oxbridge or Ivy League Because doing both is just too much.

So, to goodbye strangers assertion that school are now advising student who wouldn’t get into Oxbridge to apply to the US - this is not the case. It’s the parents who tell the school what they want. The schools can only react. These parents are telling the school what to do! A higher concentration of international families using London independents will inevitably mean higher demand for international uni applications - because this is the mindset and it’s what these families know. It’s not just the US. It’s also certain European unis too.

Also, the other reason US applicants tend not to be doing Oxbridge as well is the focus and practise required for the SAT / ACT. They have to have a high SAT and there are classes for this. Sometimes they take it several times to improve score and this can be a lot on top of A-levels as it is. Timescales are also different. You also have to have two references - a ‘counsellor’ reference and an academic reference.

Some of the most academic apply to Harvard, MIT or somewhere like UPenn for Wharton Business School. A lot of families are very career-minded and wouldn’t see the point of a traditional course like Classics or Anglo-Saxon or something. If they are paying money they want a clear return in terms of the highest graduate salaries possible. They are very business-minded people with clear pathways in mind!

That’s interesting, @an0ther0ther . I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls in which the Uber competitive Paris was freaking out pre-college admissions that she hadn’t done enough charity work to tick that box so was having to rustle up a community project pronto.

I have seen some MNetters say their dc is going “the US route” as a kind of “they didn’t want to go to stupid Oxbridge anyway” thing. I think the whole thing sounds a nightmare - probably because my dcs didn’t have one single extra-curricular . Also the costs are horrific: all the free fees in the world still involve you in multiple flight and travel costs etc etc etc.

I think the “rounded application” for the US is ridiculous as obviously it’s a race to what is seen as desirable, whether that be wokery, mh issues, good works and so on - all of which will be exaggerated or lied about (eg the College Applications scandal). I believe in the UK our cynicism does us proud in this regard as “building an orphanage” is seen as what it is: a holiday for the privileged.

So, to goodbye strangers assertion that school are now advising student who wouldn’t get into Oxbridge to apply to the US - this is not the case

With respect, it's more than an assertion. This is precisely what is happening in a number of quarters.

@an0ther0ther Yes, well. What you describe is a system that quite obviously measures things other than pure academic excellence.

Masses of generalisations flying about re the career mindedness of the entire parental cohort at big name independents. For some, there's the primary issue of social cachet, and of course it helps if the family is sufficiently well off that the DC don't need to fret too much about a high income going forward. Dinner parties in say Oxfordshire can evidently become quite awkward without a suitable boast about the DCs' education. Education seems to have superseded the smartest houses/ the best china etc as an object of competition, and we do see that on MN too - for some parents t's about far more than a mere career.

Actually there’s a story in The Times today about a call to scrap personal statements. I am on the fence: for some places and courses they are necessary. In the whole I doubt they’re read. The fact that ds received some offers literally hours after submission does lead one to suspect that no one had read his ps.

Obviously some people have a lot of assistance with their ps, and I remember my hair standing on end a few years ago when a poster wrote about the “personal statement team” moved into their dc’s school to “help” write them.

The dcs received no help at all from their school but any student with any nouse (and they should have nouse if they are fit for higher education) could google examples and follow their style. If someone can’t find the student room then one has to question their commitment and independent learning ability!

goodbye stranger - I was replying more to your suggestion that independent schools are steering certain students towards US applications as some sort of ‘face saving’ exercise. My direct experience in recent years is that the school have basically little to no influence whatsoever, particularly where the more sharp-elbowed parents are concerned. It’s the parents telling the school, not the other way round! Anyway, you can’t steer anyone towards a degree course where the fees are that extortionate!

Many of these parents will have been working on their kids’ ‘extracurricular profiles’ since they were about 6! It is what it is and I’m not criticising them, by the way. Not at all. If you yourself, as a parent, were educated at an Ivy League - maybe you spent a large proportion if your working life over there as well - then obviously, the process would be more natural and familiar to you and you would know how to navigate it. I don’t mean just American-born families either. There are many parents born in say, the Middle-East, who were educated in the US and do see that as the natural course for their DC due to the opportunities it has afforded them. It’s a particular demographic basically - international and sometimes ex-pat and there are a lot of these families in London, obviously. No idea about rural Oxfordshire or what goes on there though!

What!!!!

We paid for education only because the state provision was so poor. (Admittedly we made our decisions before inner London state schools started improving.) Use of the private sector in London is much higher than elsewhere, and part of it is because there were then, and still are, essentially large pockets where somehow finding the money became the best option. The most popular option if I look at my NCT cohort was to move out of the area, after this it was to rent in another catchment during Yr 6, discover religion or to tutor excessively for 11+ and have kids commute to Kingston, Sutton or Bromley. Paying was then an alternative option. I worked two jobs, and believe me had no time to give, or go to dinner parties. Even then we were probably better off than some others who somehow found the money to pay, particularly at my daughter school which picked up a number who narrowly failed the 11+, and who I am glad to say then went on to good universities including a surprisingly high proportion who gained places at Oxbridge.

London houses the very rich, but there is also a band of "squeezed middle" who do their best to support their children's education.

FWIW, both mine failed the 11+. Life would have been much easier if they, like the DC of some others on this thread, had had the option of Grammar school. I recognise that they are educationally privileged, as a result of our decision to prioritise our finances on our kids education. We accept that this means that other students will benefit from contextualisation, and mine won't. Neither of mine went to Oxbridge. All fine. They had a good broad education which they enjoyed, and which has set them up for University study and hopefully employment, along with an understanding that they have been lucky and have a responsibility to contribute to society.

I saw a friend at the weekend who I have known for a very long time. Neither she nor her husband went to University thought they now run a successful business. I have not doubt that her kids are just as bright as mine. However when I asked about her 17 year old's plans she had no idea other than she doubted he would go to University. Neither of his elder brothers did, preferring to go out and earn as soon as they could. It turned out she was not sure which A levels he was taking. Education seemed to be a matter for the school and the boy.

If I look back to the kids who my DC knew at primary, and it was a school with a reputation for having a lot of arty parents, the real predictor of what the children are doing now is what their parents do. Their parents ability to pay has not greatly changed these outcomes. Children of professionals have taken sensible degrees, public sector workers, like us, have DC aiming for the public sector, and creatives have children who have tended to leave formal education earlier even if they were very bright. (One thing I noticed was that many of the very brightest kids had creative rather than professional parents.)

We all do what we can for our children, depending on our own backgrounds and circumstances. The judgmentalism that creeps in can verge on offensive. We have never bought a car, and currently drive a 16 year old family hand me down Toyota. Some people presumably judge us on that. Others judge us for having used the money saved to pay for education. I really don't understand.

Of the top of my head, I would say all of DS’ friends who will be going for the Ivy League, are using external consultants and have been ‘in a process’ for some years. The school is neither here nor there in their decisions. They just inform the school what they are doing and when they will be needing the references. That’s it.

But what also happens is - schools with a high proportion of international families and overseas uni applicants will have to respond by having a specific teacher with the title of ‘US advisor (actually schools may market themselves as having a ‘US admissions department,’ but in reality, it’s one teacher ). Nevertheless, the fact this exists in a school, will inevitably attract the attention of some students who wouldn’t have otherwise thought of the US as an option. Because US universities look at the ‘rounded individual’ and what they will contribute to the university in a broader sense (not just academics), the US route may well start to look appealing to students who happen to be very high-level sportsmen / women or whatever. There are all sorts of scholarships to attract exceptional performance in areas other than academics and the prospect of these may well hook some in. And why not? They may as well use their talents to their advantage and try their hand in a system that recognises and values the more rounded candidate.

I agree @Needmoresleep although I do think that Oxbridge should take into consideration that not everyone has a school or parents behind them, cheering them on. When I applied many years ago I was shocked at the interview that the private school candidates knew exactly what to expect and were so prepared. My school did nothing. Nobody in my family had been to university. I really started off on the back foot. I hope that has changed now though.

I have recently enrolled my younger children in a private school because the only local state school my older son went to is awful - he had such a miserable time there that I couldn't face it for the others. It's funny how some people judge you for spending money on schooling though and not on expensive holidays or cars (neither of which we have!)

@Needmoresleep Well said. Us too. The notion that we made all these sacrifices in order to boast about our children’s academic attainment at the dinner parties we have neither the time nor the inclination to attend is as ridiculous as it is offensive. @YellowBees234 our DC is on a huge bursary at a top indie and our circs were addressed by school. We are not in POLAR quintile 4 or 5. Was rejected by Cambridge without an interview.

Does EVERYBODY have DC in independent school on this thread? I am feeling completely out of my depth here so going to bow out as I cannot relate to anything that is being said anymore.

Thank you to all the regulars for your support and the very best of luck to your DC for their future wherever they end up.

Don't go @TangoWhiskyAlphaTango - could I ask the posters on this thread to maybe take the chat elsewhere?

Tango started this thread for this years applicants and it's disappointing to see the thread taken over with an interacting but diverting discussion.

How is your DD Tango?

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango I'm only on these threads because I want to be available to parents with children who are not at independent schools, and/or who may be disadvantaged by something like a major medical issue. I applied from state school and had a really great time, but I remember feeling very intimidated by private school applicants.

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango, agree, please don’t go. Even though my DD is at a private school, a US education would be financially unaffordable for us, as for most other people. Indeed, my only knowledge of the US admissions process comes from US TV shows like the very enjoyable Gilmore Girls.

Sorry! I was only lurking this morning as I have a DC in lower 6th. I didn’t think goodbye’s depiction of US applications as a ‘face-saving’ exercise was accurate or fair. It’s just a different route that some choose to take for all kinds of reasons. Oxbridge is not the be-all-and-end-all in an international context. Why would it be?

Tango - I’m sorry, but please don’t be alarmed about anything. It doesn’t matter where your DC is applying from - admissions look at grades and everything in the context of where it was achieved (as far as possible). 10 grade 9s from a comprehensive will look like more of an achievement than the same grades from a top grammar, or somewhere like Westminster. Everything is contextualised! They have applicants from all over the world anyway. Whether you went to this school or that in the U.K. is probably neither here nor there in the scheme of things and when you’re up against international applicants in all kind of circumstances.

The fact is everybody’s DC in this thread already has a massive advantage regardless of their school in that they clearly have highly engaged and informed parents who are interested and going through the process with them at every step. If not underestimate the advantage this gives them. This is far more valuable than anything a school can do. There will be loads of kids whose parents haven’t got a clue where they’re applying and are totally out if the loop.

Good luck to everyone!

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango I know what you mean about both the politics and the privilege. When DD was applying last year, I felt at the chippier end of the scale, having sent my DC to an ordinary provincial non-leafy comp from what is very much the cheaper end of town. It's the nature of these threads. You won't relate to everything, but it would be a shame if you were to retire from something that's been broadly about mutual support at a tense and sometimes overwhelming time.