Applying to Oxbridge for 2023 intake

[riverpebbles]

Not sure if there is already a thread on this? My son is hoping to apply to Cambridge for Computer Science for October 2023 start.

@Karmacat when I went to Cambridge for the open day with DD2 we planned it out first. We drove up the night before after she finished school and stayed in a Premier Inn. We then got up early & drove to the Park & Ride. There were student reps there who had maps of the location of the colleges. DD had a long list of colleges so we planned a route once we got on the bus. There was also a talk for prospective students so I went & got a coffee whilst she attended that before meeting back up. She had a notebook & jotted down her thoughts immediately after each college. We got the bus back then drove past a couple slightly out of the centre, one of which she loved and applied to.

It helped that one of the open days was my day off so I was able to go with her. Due to distance, our school doesn't do both Oxford & Cambridge open days; traditionally they did O only which is rather nearer but still a long way off.

Our school does neither unfortunately

@Cubangal are you able to get any time off to accompany your DC? If not, they could go alone.

In the summer of y11, DD1 thought that she was interested in Cambridge so we had a family trip there. We did the Premier Inn/P&R bus thing again but as tourists for 2 nights. Although it was the summer holidays and the centre (Kings Parade) was rammed with tourists, we were able to go into some colleges. The magic words are "I am a prospective student". As long as you are polite and smiley, the porters are generally very helpful. However, they get very fed up of entitled tourists wanting selfies or a nosy around and back in 2015 they charged tourists but allowed prospective students and their families in for free. It gave DD a really good idea of where the colleges are in relation to her department(s) and how busy or otherwise it can be.

Of course, when she did apply, she chose a college where she had been to a women into STEM event. They interviewed her but pooled her and her current college picked her from the pool. We hadn't ever visited that college, so ended up going in the Feb half term to check it out. She has had a blast and although is now living out as a PhD student (could live in but fancied a change), they asked her to stay on with them for her PhD.

We're wondering how many colleges you can realistically make it around on an open day? DD has a shortlist of 8 to look at on the Oxford open day but thinking that may be too many if there are talks at each one.

My DC went with friends (school took a bus but then friends got together and joined up). I didn't go but they had to book talks at colleges and I know that co-ordinating even two of those was tricky. I think the best plan is to go to assumed favourite college general and subject talk and then go and wander around the others on the list. The general and subject talks won't make any real difference to a choice but just going and seeing what a place looks like may well do. Eight may be a push, even wandering....

Thanks for that. She's reduced it down to a possible 5 but there are 2 main ones that have really caught her attention so will prioritise those. We were in Oxford last week and had a wander around. It suddenly feels more real and I'm equal parts excited and terrified to see her so focussed on it.

They'll most likely have to go alone because my job doesn't allow days off for that kind of thing.

Selwyn College Cambridge has opened applications for its Residential Summer Schools on Twitter. There are seven, grouped by subject. Free, open to y12 state school students only.

That is, I read about it on Twitter. The post was made by the head of the college.

I'm not a mother of an applicant but am ex Oxbridge student (undergrad and postgrad) in English, so just dropping in to say let me know if you have any questions for someone who went through that system, did English interviews as an applicant, etc. Also have extensive experience of Oxbridge as a disabled / chronically ill student so always happy to chat about that to anyone with questions or concerns.

Hi all,can I join in too. My dd is planning to study economics and management at Oxford. Any pointers on colleges, how to select, etc. This is all new and thank you starting this thread. She has all 9s at gcse and on course to meet entry requirements. She's taking Ecomics, Maths, Chemistry and Psychology.

Hi all,can I join in too. My dd is planning to study economics and management at Oxford. Any pointers on colleges, how to select, etc. This is all new and thank you starting this thread. She has all 9s at gcse and on course to meet entry requirements. She's taking Ecomics, Maths, Chemistry and Psychology.

hiltz a good starting point may be to trawl through the Oxford website and see which colleges take the largest number of E&M each year. Most of my DC did this, simply because it can be surprising how few students some colleges take for different subjects, and mine felt they'd prefer a larger peer group.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/colleges/which-oxford-colleges-offer-my-course

That's where you can click on the colleges offering E&M.

apply.oxfordsu.org/colleges/suggester/

this is also useful and informative

@goodbyestranger and @OnePlusOneEquals , thank you so much.

@Innocenta I would love to hear more about your experiences with an English application. My DC is applying from a state comp (tends to get a few into Oxbridge each year) with 10 9s at GCSE and is on track for A Level grades. She attended an English masterclass at Oxford recently and absolutely loved it! Any insights you have would be amazing 😊

My daughter wants to apply for medicine at Oxford. Any pointers would be good, I didn't go to uni myself! Her school do seem quite helpful, but anything I could be doing to help?

@buckleten - my DD has a place at Oxford this year. The no 1 thing your DD needs to is excel at the BMAT.

The other thing I'd suggest is wide reading. DD looked at lots of medical journals regularly (BMJ etc) and kept notes of interesting things she'd seen. Remember the Oxford Medicine interview is very science based, much more than other medical schools.

Thank you @HoneyMobster, that is very helpful. Is there a good way to practice for BMAT?

@Posie23 Happy to chat about English. The most important thing is wide reading with the development of an analytical approach, i.e. starting to read with a somewhat more 'critical' hat on, as opposed to ordinary pleasure reading. The Very Short Introductions are often recommended as a good way to get a taste of specific ideas (especially literary theory if she's interested), but it's fine to start with her real interests and work out from there, if you see what I mean. She doesn't need to try and survey all of English literature to get in!

It's a good idea to get comfortable reading poetry, across a few time periods, as there is often a poem to look at and discuss during one or more interviews. She might be able to ask one of her teachers to practise this with her if they're supportive? It isn't about right and wrong answers so much as thinking aloud, not panicking, and letting the interviewer hear how you develop ideas and see how you react to being (gently) pushed.

Do you know what her main areas of literary interest are?

I've been studying the various YouTube videos by Oxford university and some tutors do say they don't give much weighting to extra circular activities,

If your ds wants to learn more, I'd say YouTube the video's on what the university's want that are made by the tutors at those university's.

BMAT is essentially science and maths. DD hadn't done any physics since GCSE so needed to brush up on it. You need to practice past papers but probably wait until the autumn and concentrate on UCAT in the summer. You also need to write a short essay, if you're not still doing an essay subject that might require some practice.

I'd head over to the Medicine 2023 thread if I were you as the Medicine advice is all there!

@Innocenta thank you so much, that’s really helpful info! She’s massively into Austen and Dickens, but also enjoys more contemporary fiction. She could probably do with reading more poetry, as her English lit syllabus is a bit light on poetry I think. I’ll also look at Very Short Introductions - thanks for the recommendation!

Hello everyone, may I join? My ds is considering Oxbridge for a 2023 start reading computer science. I feel we may be a bit behind in our progress as he hasn't really definitely decided on Oxford or Cambridge. I've prompted him to look in to the course details for both. He's taking A Level Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry and he is doing an artefact EPQ programming something which looks quite fun! I think his school plans to get EPQs out of the way quite soon, as he's been doing a lot of work on that over the Easter break, but this may also be because he finds it really interesting. To put a spoke in the works, he's also taken the SAT exam and is thinking of applying to MIT (he knows it's a long shot). It seems like we need to be on top of a lot at the moment. He got all 9s in his GCSEs and an A in the FSMQ. All tips on compsci, colleges, MAT gratefully received.