Oxford/Cambridge - current students support/chat thread 2022 - cont

[Panicmode1]

@petitebleu - so sorry to hear about your DS. I hope that some time out over Christmas may help to give him some space and time to think about his next steps.

I LOVE virtual parents evenings...exactly as you say, no having to wait whilst the keen bean parents spend HOURS at every appt, and actually teachers who can never keep on point. We had done DS2's GCSE teachers in 45 mins last week, glass of wine in hand, sitting on the sofa. Bliss!

I'm so excited. Ds1 is whizzing back for the day tomorrow -DD has an INSET Day today so has taken a day off A level revision and is on her way to visit DS1 now, go to a college formal with him and then they are both coming back together tomorrow..haven't seen DS1 since just after NY and have barely spoken since as with rowing, work and his natural reticence to chat, so it will be lovely to see him, albeit briefly!

Lovely to hear everyone's updates. It's half term here next week and we (me, DH, DD2) have booked an Air BnB in Oxford for a couple of nights, attending a formal at DD1's college on the second night. It's the last opportunity we'll have to attend a formal because DD1 is in final year and will be busy with exams in Trinity term. But.....I tested positive for Covid yesterday so am currently keeping everything crossed that all symptoms have resolved and I'm testing negative by the time we're due to go.

@Panicmode1enjoy your DS's visit today! @MiniJellyBeans I do hope your visit can go ahead as planned next week. It's lovely to attend a formal.

DS is 21 tomorrow. He is partying this evening and we have supplied a Fitzbillies birthday cake and a very large box of their Chelsea buns.

@ofteninaspin Congratulations to you on your son's 21st Birthday - a great achievement for the Chelseas Buns and a Cake sounds like a lovely gift. I am sure they will be devoured

@Panicmode1 enjoy having DS1 home, totally recognise the challenge of communicating. Best to work on no news is good news.. Mine is supposedly helping his 90 year old grandfather move house today just outside of Oxford. Hope he turned up.
NB also a fan of online parents' evening though do like having some opportunities to nosey around the school.

sorry - sent before reading through @ofteninaspin -meant to say a great achievement for the parents as well as our DC to reach 21 - we deserve a pat on the back (not got there yet!)

Thank you @Juja . 21st birthday parties are quite a thing at DS's C college, perhaps because so many of their cohort's 18th birthday celebrations were curtailed by Covid?

I hope your DS has remembered his grandfather's house move and all goes smoothly.

@ofteninaspin hope he has a great birthday celebration

@Panicmode1 lovely to have an impromptu visit and catch up

@MiniJellyBeans hope you are able to visit her as planned

@panicmode your dd must love going to uni events before going there (I loved bits of visiting Dsis) . Is your dd hoping to be doing engineering at the same place?

@yoyo1234 - no, DD isn't quite as academic as DS so she's doing something totally different.

(I actually think she could have had a crack at it - she got mostly 9s and a couple of 8s and has decent A level predictions, but she didn't want to work as hard as DS! She may be slightly regretting it now. She had a brilliant time last night and said she wished she'd maybe thought about it a bit more....!).

DS has just gone back to the station....such a lovely flying visit!

@ofteninaspin I hope your DS has a brilliant 21st birthday celebration tomorrow.
@MiniJellyBeans what terrible timing to get Covid but hopefully you may well be fine by the time you visit Oxford.

I'm at last invited to my first formals - one at Oxford in a few weeks time with DS2 (and DS1 is coming along too) and one at the end of term at Cambridge - (and DS2 will attend that with me as well). Meanwhile, I'm soon meeting up in London with both DS1 and DS2.

We can now have a bit of a celebration too because DS1 (C) at last has progressed to an interview with one of his career applications - and DS2 (O) has secured a Vacation Scheme that might lead to a job offer. So some progress is being made and even if they don't get any further at this point, I'm proud of them for putting in a lot of work with applications alongside academic work.

@mutterphore That's a lovely update.

It will soon be DD's 21st. On her 18th we went for a look around her future college, hoping to make the offer seem a little more real. Within a month they were all told that they had to stay at home, not take their A levels etc....

Well done to both boys mutterphore :)

Well done to your sons @Ironoaks and @mutterphore

They've done so well to get so far; it's competitive out there.

Great news @mutterphore and well done to your boys.

@mutterphore that's encouraging news for both!
Enjoy the formals!

Stupidly pleased to hear from DS (C) this evening - mid-term 1st year and a quiet point in winter for us - that all is well with course, GF and social circle and that all he needs is are his flip-flops and his badminton racquet. He'll get both over tea on Friday after a business meeting in Cambridge that his mother will be attending. There are some advwntages to him being at a local university.

Fingers crossed for both ds @mutterphore , applications and assessments are very time consuming. Hope you enjoy the formals.
I am yet to be invited to a formal, I've made ds promise that we will get to one before he finishes. He has one more year as his course is an integrated Masters so there is still time!

Great news on your sons’ progress, @mutterphore , and hope they make it all the way!

We had a nice flying visit with DS yesterday. He showed us his timetable. One day he has lectures and labs and supos solidly from 9am to 4pm, without even a break for lunch. I’ve no idea why the department thinks this is conducive to learning. Nevertheless, DS seemed ok and keeping his head above water, and enjoyed showing us bits of college which we hadn’t seen before somehow.

@mutterphore great news about both DS on the jobs front. Enjoy the formals.
@ofteninaspin I hope your DS enjoyed his birthday.

Glad the visit went well@Panicmode1 .

Fingers crossed for a negative result @MiniJellyBeans .

We only managed one formal with DD and that was in February 2020 when she was a 3rd year. We didn't want to leave DD2 home alone before that as we live in a little rural hamlet with rubbish mobile signal and internet and she couldn't drive. By early 2020 she was happily at uni. DD1 asked us to bring wine but to go to her room first. She expertly decanted 2 nice bottles of M&S wine into her college-stamped bottles that she had somehow acquired to save on corkage without spilling a drop, then carried them over under her gown. Anyone would think she'd done it before! The meal was nice and it was good to experience the tradition. In her college, people who get Firsts in Part 1 or Part 2 are meant to have the opportunity to say the Latin grace. Covid put paid to that but technically she is still owed that. She isn't remotely bothered about doing it and now lives a good 40 minutes' walk away, so doesn't really bother with formals any more, but it would be funny to witness.

Thanks for the good wishes. At least they're making some progress, although the competition is fierce (I think only a 2% success rate or something). The vac scheme won't necessarily lead to a job but would still look good on DS2's CV.

DS2 also had a rejection from one of his recent interviews, sadly but he felt it wasn't surprising as everyone on his assessment day (they were running more than one day for applicants who got to that stage) was quite a lot older than him and seemed already to be working in the relevant area or related area. They were almost all female and he was in a tiny minority of people who were still just students and who were male. Very interesting I thought. Now he's had a few interviews, he's at least getting the hang of how these go and what they want.

DS1's only got to the interview stage with one application and that's probably only stage one of that stage as well but I'm equally proud of him and pleased he's even got that far.

I enjoyed meeting up with them both in London yesterday and both are working hard but also having a lot of fun still with choirs, rowing and busy social lives.

I really can't quite believe that their time at O & C is almost over. It's gone so quickly.

By the way, how 'posh' should I dress for a formal and what should I wear, so that I don't embarrass either DS? I think I only own one dress that I can still get into these days.

I don't wear dresses or skirts, so I went for a slightly dressier version of my workwear: a grey woolen tunic which hangs well on me, black trousers, and a brightly coloured shawl.
It was a similar level of smartness to DH's (lounge) suit & tie.

@mutterphore I think dress code depends on the college. I’d be guided by what the men are wearing — evening wear if they’re in black tie and a formal ish day dress if lounge suit/jacket. Sorry if this is stating the obvious! I wore a day dress to a formal at DD1’s O college (a newer one) and similar to DS’s C college (old and grand). You can also ask them to send a pic of a previous formal to get an idea of what people wear.

I’m so glad for you that you’re going.

Do all colleges do "formals" what are they ? Just wondering if I need to get DS gowns/smart clothes (he lives in hoodies , tracky trousers and trainers).

Formal hall = a dinner (usually 3+ courses) in college. Dress code at DS's college = gown, suit, tie. He has only been to four formals in 2.5 years: matriculation dinner, parents' dinner, half-way hall, scholars' dinner. Some students go to formals much more frequently.

At his college, students need a (college-specific) gown and one formal outfit: guidance given was dark coloured suit, white shirt, subdued tie (we interpreted this as not a novelty tie). This is required dress code for one-off events such as matriculation and admission of scholars, as well as formals.

The rest of the time DS wears jeans and hoodies.

It's very college dependent though. Some are much more formal than others.