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.

We are the same EPQs haven’t been started yet.

@Posie23 She firmly has her heart set on Oxford. I did tell her to have a look at both courses and that we could go and have a look at C too but she very quickly dismissed it. Cambridge is DHs hometown, I'm not sure if that's why or if it's because Oxford is a little easier to get to from home. DD is a twin, so I'll take the slightly shorter list of possible Unis to look at! Are you looking at Cambridge too?
EPQ is only just started, I'm not being told very much about it. That on top of revision for exams is keeping her in her room. So much studying!

So many hours spent on the epq here but DS couldn't have picked a harder subject if he'd tried 🙄 he said about 50 started it but many dropped out.

@Cubangal you'll have to PM me about your name change as I'm singularly useless at working these things out.

In terms of students dropping EP, I started with 32 in September 2020 and 26 submitted in April. One dropped it in January, which seemed a bit of a waste. I had 31 in my y12 group in September. One has dropped it so far. I really hope 2 more do as their "artefact plans" are completely unrealistic.

@DTJ DD prefers the breadth of the Oxford course with the Lang component as well as lit, although C is closer. We also need to pin down where else she wants to look as I really want her to be enthused about her other choices and not be too invested, although with the prep needed, it’s pretty hard for them not to be I guess!

Wow - twins - you’ll have double the fun of the rollercoaster that is uni applications then? 😬

Oxbridge admissions: state v private doesn’t tell the whole story

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ddd254be-cbbe-11ec-a118-514c2c06bc05?shareToken=a002474ab631e9132cc52463d62a0db4

I know they’ve got a paywall, but this is an interesting read. DP and I didn’t go to uni, our older 2 go to a grammar in the North, we aren’t rich, but live in what is considered a good postcode for the area….so already there are extra barriers for him to overcome. The son of Jo Kessel in the article certainly had huge obstacles that stopped him from getting an interview.

That’s an interesting article @OnePlusOneEquals Does anyone know where you can see admission stats that break down ‘state’ into selective grammar and non-selective comp?

Possibly somewhere in this document….I know it’s from 2019, but still really interesting and has % of Polar and so forth.
www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/AnnualAdmissionsStatisticalReport2021.pdf

Sorry! That is the 2021 one, the previous one I tread was 2019

Thanks - will have a read!

Sorry @Posie23 it doesn’t break down any further into normal state and grammar state, but there is probably every other breakdown of applicant status!

Haha yes, I think there’s every other possible breakdown of the admission stats apart from that! 😂 It’s an interesting read though!

OnePlusOneEquals agree the article is interesting but the grammar school thing and 'positive discrimination' is absolutely nothing new. For years and years grammar schools have been regarded by a lot of tutors as bastions of middle class privilege and the fact that an enormous amount of work has been done in terms of widening participation (mirroring the work done by Oxbridge) hasn't yet fed through. It's also true that very few grammars have, until very, very recently, given anything of substance in terms of Oxbridge 'prep' (so no help with aptitude tests and nominal help with a practice interview would have been standard), also that all their success in terms of teaching and learning has had to be achieved on a shoestring compared to the independents, particularly the big name independents. This issue at Oxbridge is absolutely not new. Since students at grammars have a privileged education there's a lot of merit in what Cambridge is saying and it seems absolutely right to dig beneath the surface to find out whether a particular student might have disadvantage which counteracts the educational privilege conferred by their grammar school education. That would be an improvement for an increasing number of grammar school applicants, and to be welcomed.

Poor Jo Kessell kid though, with that stuff about him in print. Let's hope his surname isn't Kessell. Jo Kessell says that she should have sent him to a comp, thereby inferring that he would then have got into Oxbridge for sure. But that isn't in the least bit sure. She talks about the grammar in question being at the top of the league tables so it's clearly one of the very good ones (lots are super middling). The kid by definition got an excellent, privileged education. She simply can't know how he'd have fared at the local comp. He may well not have done well at all. I suspect that my own DC would not have fared as they did had they gone to the catchment comp, indeed I'm convinced of it. But it's just not a good comp, and hasn't been for decades (it's barely touched by having a single grammar seven miles away, since the grammar takes pupils from a radius of fifty miles, before anyone points the finger at the grammar. The comp is bad for different reasons primarily poor leadership, unfortunately for the kids in its charge). Even if the Kessell comp isn't as bad, Jo Kessell still can't know what the outcome would have been.

Also Jo Kessell is entirely wrong about the method of selection for interview. St Catherine's E&M tutors will pool candidates they think should be interviewed elsewhere. E&M isn't administered on a college by college basis, in that there's not a single silo for each college. Oxford is very different from Cambridge in that respect. The whole line that her DS would have been interviewed had he only not applied to St Catherine's doesn't stack up in any way. I think what perhaps Jo Kessell doesn't turn her mind to is that the university authorities will be as kind as possible to disappointed applicants as they can be, and other adults a parent approaches to share their disappointment or even incredulity are likely to be as kind as possible too.

So this I think is simply wrong: The son of Jo Kessel in the article certainly had huge obstacles that stopped him from getting an interview.

JK's son went to Latymer and is now at Bath.

One of the Latymers is a co-ed grammar school.

Latymer is a grammar school in North London

www.latymer.co.uk/

Not to be confused with Latymer the independent school in West London.

Hi just to give a two pence worth - I do think there is a difference between applying to O and C in that, as goodbyestranger says, at O, decisions seem to be made far more at a departmental level. So in this sense, it doesn't matter which college you apply to as, if you're a strong enough candidate but perhaps not the strongest at that particular college in a given year, you will be interviewed elsewhere and perhaps again - ie. they will get in somewhere.

At C, the colleges seem to operate far more as separate entities. They say the pooling system means things shake out but I'm not sure about that as, if you look at some subjects at some colleges, they hardly ever take from the pool, whereas others seem to do so as a matter of course. I think it's largely down to the discretion of the interviewers / DOS as to whether they tend to take applicants they have actually met, or take their chances in one in the pool who they won't have met the applicant in person. They will just be 'a file' really, so harder to gauge.

So, I would say, if applying to C, college choice matters. It's not true that some colleges are 'harder to get into than others' as such, because it varies subject to subject. But do look at the interactive graphs for the last 5 years for the chosen subject at the different colleges. You can see not only which are more competitive, but also which seem to routinely take from the pool and which barely ever do.

Anothef thing to factor in at C is that some colleges in various subjects do a 'general interview' and an academic interview, whereas others will do two academic (and others perhaps just one longer academic). It really can vary a lot. If your DC has a very strong PS with things in it they feel they want to discuss, go for a college with a general interview as this will give them the opportunity to do so.

(sorry it was meant to be a two pence worth, but ended up like a mini essay)!

Oxford looks for the very highest ability in the subject to be studied and the potential to go a lot further in the subject. There's probably no correlation between that and being a well rounded person (whatever that is). Everything else is largely fluff.

Here is the admissions data for Oxford comparing different types of state schools via this link public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics2021SchoolType/SchoolType?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no