Oxbridge applications 2023 mutual support thread

[Riverpebble]

A new, friendly thread.

DS had first interview today…. Found it tough but very engaging. He said he was “pushed to my limits, but enjoyed it”. Cant ask for more than that.

Second interview is later this afternoon and he seems a lot more relaxed now.

@Scottishsummer my dd got an unconditional for English lit from Edi, 2 weeks ago

You must be incredibly proud of all these unconditional offers! Incredible achievement!

I am & I know I sound boasty. But she's had a bloody tough childhood & has sen. (& abusive dad) sorry if I'm overstating & good luck to all of your kids.

DD's interview with Oxford went fine, she quite enjoyed it and they were challenging but friendly.
One thing to be aware of is that she logged in with her school Microsoft Teams login but that has the camera disabled so she had to log out and back in again with a different account which caused a bit of a panic at the last minute.
They've told her she may hear about a second interview next week

Article from 1982 about increasing state school proportion at Oxford.
What's the percentage these days? Doesn't seem to be moving very fast.

According to www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate-students/current/school-type percentage of state school students was 68% in 2021, a substantial increase from 50% in the article posted above.

DC had interviews yesterday (physics). Apparently the questions were hardly challenging, pretty basic and the questions were done with about 10 minutes before time. So there was a general discussion about the university in general the rest of the time...oh dear. any similar experience?

18% over 30 years is unbelievably slow. I'm actually surprised it was 50% back in 1982.

Anyway DS's interview has gone from scary to alright to the tutor said I nailed that answer.

I suspect the truth is in there somewhere. And he did enjoy it.

Depends how you look at it. Going from 50% to 68% is an increase of 36% on the original.

For my dc subject, a Freedom of Information request I found shows a far higher offer rate for state school pupils vs private (twice as high) for the 2021 admissions round. So around half of state school applicants got an offer, around 23per cent of private school applicants did.

Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Warwick and Bristol.
Has finished Cambridge interviews and has offers from Warwick and Bristol. Not heard anything yet from Imperial and UCL.

Sorry the above message was in reply to @Cocopogo

I'd be interested to see a breakdown that included Grammar school percentage. Or if they look at the stats of those that switch from private to state at 16. I think those figures would be quite high.

For Oxford from 2017-2021 are in the image below the average acceptance rate for state school applications for 2021 was 18.3% and 19.9% for independent schools.

The academics doing the interviewing have had to work very hard to climb the university lecturership ladder.
Thankfully they no long hand out places on the basis that someone's dad or housemaster went there. (Grammar school advice in the 90s was, do you know any alumni who can ring up? No, then your better off elsewhere)

Phew, it's over unless she's pooled, which we hear about tomorrow apparently! Horrible moment when our printer failed when dd had to print out the poem to discuss but after five minutes of a lot of shouting and panic it got going so not too much time was lost. She said she enjoyed both interviews and interviewers were nice and friendly. Can't ask for more and it's now in the hands of the dons (or gods). I want to forget all about this for a looong time!

So, in the positive spirit that is this thread. I'm really pleased that the applications are weighted across context GCSE, PS, TSA results and an online interview. Lots of ways to shine or compensate.
Very grateful we've not had to get across the country in this miserable weather for a 1in 3 chance.

If you've been to an open day, is there anything to be gained by attending an offer holder day? DD wants to go to Bristol again but it's a 4 hour trip each way and she already knows it's her top choice if O doesn't work out.

Here are the Cambridge admission statistics for 2021. Among home applications by type of school, grammars appears to have the highest success rate @24.8%, followed by independent @20.7%. Comprehensive and Sixth Form Colleges not far behind independents at 18%+. Of course the proportion who apply within the total cohort in independents and grammars
would be much higher compared to comprehrnsives and colleges...

Replying to dingdongbe post - my son had his physics interview today - they ran over time - not sure that’s a good thing.

it’s just so hard to tell

Offer from Bath today A* A A. Or AA in bioand chem and AB in maths&FM

What do you all think of open applications? Ds will be applying next year and I'm just reading about these. Do you think colleges feel an applicant isn't really interested in their specialisms if they make an open application.

From the horse's mouth:
'Open application
Applicants can indicate a college of preference when they complete their UCAS application or they can make an open application. Open applicants are then allocated to a college. After this allocation, colleges review all their applications in exactly the same way: they make no distinction between direct and open applicants.'

That's Oxford www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/Admissions%20Report%202019.pdf

Not sure if Cambridge have a similar approach.