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).

@HoneyMobster ohhh that's great news on the interview

@Panicmode1 ditto for us .. double ..or poss triple joy of Cambridge decision.. mocks till Feb and keeping on the horizon LSE .. see this is why we need this support @TangoWhiskyAlphaTango !

Well done to your DD on Bristol interview HoneyMobster

@doubleshotcappuccino sorry to hear you are also in late mocks camp...I know Jan is always a long month, but it has been interminable this year!!!

@honeymobster that's fabulous news 😊

Long mocks camp here too. Not until after half term hols.

January mocks impact on Christmas and DD could have done with a break to be honest.

The stress of her Oxford interview and waiting to hear back about medical school interviews was really tough. She's feeling much better now (for obvious reasons) but as a parent it's tough to see your child struggle.

Good grief @DottyHarmer I am not sure I could keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself if someone implied my DC had only got a place due to widening access!

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango our DCs are going for the same course (though different colleges). I'd really like to hear how she gets on. I don't have high hopes at all for DD, and sadly her other choices are mainly as hard to get in to, apart from one (Leeds) that she has since decided (or said, who knows what she actually thinks) she doesn't want.

DDs non-C options are all late to offer as far as I know (LSE and UCL x 2). She is calm as calm can be about it but I am queasy. Her two siblings had a full set of offers by now, and I am not handling the waiting very well. Her mocks are not till March, by which time who knows what will be on the table.

She is at an independent for sixth form, but only because she was desperate to try the subject she has applied for at A Level before committing herself to a degree. Her state school stopped offering it for her year, and the only other state in the area still doing it said they would be full of their Y11s staying on so she couldn't get a place. Her siblings managed a set of a* from the state school, so we would have had no problem at all with her staying there if they hadn't cut the subject offer so brutally.

I'm sure the majority of people don't have an investment in USA unis. My niece and nephews are at uni there, but only because that's where they live. I am staggered at the cost. DD1 has two American friends at uni here, who are both saving an absolute fortune by studying in Scotland (I think 23k p.a. v's double or more that in the USA). They are both heading for firsts, and one plans to stay here for masters, the other returning to the USA for a law conversion.

Basically, what I mean is that it isn't one template of who goes where or does what. I am sure that there are as many different stories as there are students.

Only a week to go.

@eightytwenty DS's school do GCSE mocks in the last week of the Christmas term so they get a break. I wish they did that for A Levels. I think the past 18 -24 months have been relentlessly difficult for the current Y13s, 12s and 11s.

@Panicmode1 totally agree - it's been uphill for a long time now for our DCs ..

DS just finished his mocks ( state school). I was glad that the Cambridge results were not out until after them, as I know that he will be upset not getting in, but at least the result will not interfere with his mocks. Sooner we find out , sooner he can move on and work on his next options. I didnt realise what a long process applying to Oxbridge is. Regardless of result I think that he has benefitted from working hard last term, as his mocks have not been as challenging as he thought they would be. Hope he sees it that way!

Yes it's been a long haul for our DC since that awful day when GCSEs were cancelled. I look forward to the summer of fun DD is planning when it comes. There is a lot of fun planned.

Inter-railing takes up the lion share of fun planned by DD this summer.

Summer. Sun. Warmth. Can't imagine it.

Well done to your DD HoneyMobster especially if that's the fourth interview/ four.

It is 4/4. Medicine is tough but she got good advice from some very helpful posters and made strategic choices. Whether she gets offers from them all is another matter. But she has an offer and for that I'm very grateful.

Aren't her choices fairly conventional HM? Oxford , Bristol, Newcastle plus Another? That's quite a standard suite I'd have thought, for an Oxbridge applicant. Perhaps more usual to chuck in Imperial or UCL I guess.

Agree it’s been a long, hard slog for our DC. DD will be very relieved when her mocks are finally over in a couple of days’ time. I have a second DC currently doing GCSE mocks and a third doing entrance exams and interviews for senior schools, so it’s been a tough start to the year.

Hope those still waiting for C get good news - O coming early has definitely helped stress levels in our house.

Well done to your DD @HoneyMobster

Also, given her stats, she really didn't need to make strategic choices, it was always going to be wide open (I know I've said that repeatedly, but I think you'll concede that I'm being proved right!). This stuff about strategy can be a bit precious tbh.

In that it makes medics feel they're a little bit special, which they actually aren't. Medicine is no more taxing intellectually than any other degree, there's just rather a lot of volume.

@goodbyestranger, admittedly it was a long time ago, but I shared a flat with someone doing medicine at university and “just rather a lot of volume” is something of an understatement. They worked consistently harder than I needed to for my Maths based degree.

But @goodbyestranger If she'd applied to Edinburgh she'd have been rejected without an interview! That was a contender until we worked out a strategy.

@MFLMum2022 - feel for you! Not thinking about DS2 university application next year just yet. Putting that on one side for now 😬

MFL yes, DS1 read Medicine at Oxford. There was certainly always a reasonable volume. DS1 has always been a cool customer; I'm not sure all my DC would have managed as well.

Yes fair point HM about Edinburgh but you know, just read the website, spot the red flag and substitute.

You've possibly picked up that I find the whole super emotional stuff about medics pretty grating :) But then part of that is that I find the idea of these TSR and MN demi gods dispensing wisdom - which is merely, actually, the dreary collating of statistics - pretty weird. They seem to become somehow dependent on the online reverence. I'm sure a psychologist somewhere has analysed the phenomenom, with particular reference to the number of bunches of posted (is there a TSR equivalent? I barely ever stray on to TSR. I am not confining my comments to MN at all).

I'm not sure that's quite fair about medicine.
There will always be students who have everything (fab UCAT, perfect GCSEs and perfect A levels) who maybe don't need as much strategy but 4 of my DC's friends applied last year. None had any idea about strategy and applied where they wanted.
2 of them had 10 X 9 at GCSE, all A* predictions. Both had 2900 ish UCAT.
1 got 3 interviews and 2 offers, the other got 2 interviews and 1 offer.
2 others had a all 8s and 9s (bar one 7 for one of them), A* A A predictions and 2850+ UCAT. One got 1 interview and no offer; the other had no interviews.
It is very different from other courses because a majority of students applying to other courses get 4 or 5 offers, without really having to put any extra work in for that return.
If I had a child applying i would be enormously grateful that someone had bothered to collate all that information. As it is I stole the information and disseminated it to everyone I know applying - including the two who were unfortunate last year and who now have 3 interviews apiece.

It's pretty weird that success in selecting doctors stands or falls on the collating of stats Chilldonaldchill.

Also, it doesn't. Our school has an excellent record of success with med school applications and the Ho6 certainly doesn't attribute his success to a gnomish collating of applications stats.

People get sucked in, that's all.