Oxbridge 2023 support; it's offer month. Good luck all.

[Riverpebble]

New thread for the start of the Oxbridge offers.

@Ooonafoo - Of DC friends who were reapplicants, 4 of 5 were successful second time round (inc DC). All had all 9s and A-stars though (probably wouldn't have bothered otherwise). Totally agree with @BiancaBlank above that it's still worth applying in Year 13 as they learn a lot about the process and can build on that.

How are the student finance applications going?

My ds has had his fees confirmed.

he keeps not revising though! I’m worried he’ll struggle with the workload and organisation required if he does get in. He’d be happy with his second choice anyway but it’s not an easy time. He won’t let me help him organise himself either!

Speaking of finances. Assuming dd does actually get the grades required, how would we receive the bills for the tuition fees and the college accommodation please? Would it be yearly upfront, or termly? Would the tuition fees and accommodation fees be clumped together in the bill, from the college?
It would be good to know these things for cashflow planning purposes.

@Teriyakieverything all the university websites have pages which explain how/when fees are invoiced and options for paying them

Not that I could find. Looks like I will have to email the College.

DD and DS1 (both Oxford) pay their battels (accommodation and food) termly in advance. I believe fees are the same.

DD's battels are billed at the start of each term, with adjustments made for actual meals taken at the start of the next term. One thing to watch out for will be the bill during the summer holidays which catches up on any stray costs at the end of the year (eg. library fines, formal dinners, extra stash (college clothing) which is easy to overlook when they're not looking at their college email every day. Different colleges do things in different ways though.

Thanks for the information. Did a bit more digging and looks like the bills would be termly, separate for fees and college accommodation.

My DS pays fees up front in October and rent / food (battels) termly.

DD has put aside any college issues. It has been a hard tug filling out and uploading documents for what she hopes will be her college but knowing if things go wrong might not be. There is a new admissions person at her college so the end of April to upload certain things came and went as the links hadn't been updated for certain categories of documents and they've asked the students to bear with them. DD thinks she will have some time in half term to deal with more paperwork but it would have been more ideal to do as much as possible before exams, seeing as the deadline is 15th June which is before DD's last exam!

She delivered an Oxbridge aspirants lesson at her school the day before her last day at school and with a pang realised it was a year since she had started the journey with her application. She said it felt like she was passing the baton and could feel the memories of the baton being passed to her, it is great she has had such an opportunity and she is thinking what she can do with schools in our area that don't have similar programmes.

And the a levels have started, good luck

First one for DS tomorrow afternoon, good luck everyone - fingers crossed for nice questions!

Good luck to all DCs. By the end of tomorrow’s two exams DD will be half way through her exams, it will be 4 down, 4 to go.

Awful AQA Physics today apparently. No point dwelling on it though. Moving onto the next one tomorrow.

Oh god, DS did the physics paper yesterday and said it was 'good' but that's what he said about the mock and ended up with a C!

All done here last week as DD took the IB. Feeling the offer pressure. Not much room for slips and slightly wishing she'd done A levels. IB 42 776 seems a lot harder than A*AA. Crossing fingers...

If it is any consolation, DS was holding a Cambridge offer last year and needed A star in FM and As in everything else - he came out of his first physics paper and said his chance of Cambridge had gone, it was awful and there was no way he had done enough. I tried to reassure him that if he found it hard, when he'd had an A star in his mocks and consistently through his A level years, then everyone else would have done too.....which turned out to be true. He has just finished his first year (literally final lecture of his first year yesterday!). So, try not to panic. The debriefs after the exams are awful, but you have to remember that it is a national playing field, and if the DCs holding offers are finding it hard, then the grade boundaries should reflect that....Good luck everyone!

My child also very upset about the physics yesterday. Tried very hard to shift focus forward onto the next exam. Not entirely sure I succeeded, but as you say - how hard must those exams have been if A * kids are struggling!

@sytron - exactly - he ended up with four A stars, so his view of his performance was totally off. (Hope that's reassuring)

@Hertsessex my DC also doing IB and planning to apply in autumn. I still don’t understand why Cambridge in particular are so hard on IB students (compared to A level offers). Have you ever been given any rationale?
Good luck to your DD!

Anyone's DC do further maths paper today? My DD is pretty devastated at how hard it was and now fears O is off the table if all papers are that hard. Seems to be universally considered impossible on TSR.

Dd did edexcel fmaths and said it was horrid. Last years was really easy in comparison she said (they sat this as their mock). How can they vary so much? Really hoping the grade boundaries reflect it.

My child felt better than physics but FM was very hard and not happy about their answers. Also feels Oxford now out of reach. Keep pointing out that everyone else felt the same, and the only way out is through now. Poor things, they are all really struggling I think, everyone in this year, regardless of ability.