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

[Riverpebble]

New thread for the start of the Oxbridge offers.

Dd also said that this year’s papers felt harder than the mocks and past papers she did, the physics AQA questions were just a bit left field and generally ‘not nice’.

I think the pressure for these kids is that they are basically aiming for perfection, and there is little margin for errors. I really feel for them.

Joining this thread (if I may) - DD has a blisteringly high offer from Cambridge and is freaking out. My hunch is grade boundaries this year will be lower - her school has marked them against 2019 boundaries but there is no way this cohort could achieve at that level given all they had to navigate. My hunch is that universities also know this but aren't able to make lower offers as they don't know how things will pan out. Perhaps that is wishful thinking but in the end I suspect that most of this group of offer holders will be just fine. Oxford and Cambridge need to fill their places and won't have over offered by very much because the supply and demand equation is very different for them to other universities and they need to fill their places.

I think what they don't have experience of, through no fault of their own, is sitting a big suite of one-and-done public exams. DS2's PAT was actually the first national exam he had ever sat. So they perhaps don't realise that the stress, and the dropping of marks because of nerves and the whole weirdness of it, is built into the process (and that everyone experiences it to some degree).

DS2 didn't find FM too bad but he wasn't sitting Edexcel which seems to have caused a lot of grief today.

Looking at the TSR polls it does seem that the difficulty of the subject exams vary between exam boards. How do unis account for that? Or don’t they? I guess if boundaries are is on a bell curve basis, it doesn’t matter, but I don’t know how boundaries are set either.

I asked my DS about that @Teriyakieverything and he said if the papers are easier then it’s harder to get higher grades as it goes by top percent of scores, not getting 80% and over (or what you might think the grade boundaries would be). So he’s hoping for harder papers where it’s more difficult for everyone as then he reckons he’s got a better chance of getting an A star than an easier paper. Well, that’s his logic and it makes him think more positively about harder exams 🤣. I’m just glad there is less pressure on him than those that didn’t get an Oxford offer as he “only” has to get an A star AA than 2 A stars and an A or even 3 A stars like some of his friends

This my first DC doing A’levels and it’s been an eu opener. There seems to be such variation between boards and then between question choices in same paper. My DS does English OCR and Hamlet as his school choice. The hamlet question was impossible but other Shakespeare text questions straightforward.. how on earth does the board create even marking in throws kinds of scenarios? The pressure on these kids is just insane….

@OnePlusOneEquals which non oxbridge unis are offering 3 A stars? That’s just insane.

In all honesty I don’t know @Teriyakieverything, that’s just what he’s told me. I know that two friends sitting on physics offers at Durham and Warwick need 2 A stars and an A, as to the 3 A stars I don’t know as they aren’t doing physics and are doing other subjects. He’s only mentioned it in passing to me. I’m just glad that pressure isn’t on him. One A star and 2 A’s is enough!

@Teriyakieverything as an example warwick maths is three A stars or two A stars and two A’s (if you didn’t do something like STEP or TMUA).

My DC has a 3A offer for Oxford and their highest other offer was 2A* and 2A for LSE.

The only non oxbridge places I know that ask 3A* are medicine or occasionally places like UCL maybe? But I’m sure there are the odd other one.

Yes @lovefizzycolabottles I think it possibly is Warwick

Manchester Computer Science is 3 A* offers

Also Edinburgh computer science is 3A stars.

Just browsing here now that offers are all in. How is a “Hamlet” question impossible? Unless it’s asking the candidate to explore Hamlet’s desire to visit other planets, or Claudius’s recommendations for post-Brexit economic security for small businesses.

@Itsbeennice the Hamlet question was something along the lines of: '‘Images and ideas of the theatre are central to Hamlet. Discuss'

Curious to see how you would have approached that one

Eng.Lit., OCR, 2019...

I’m not going to write an essay now because it’s my bedtime, but that’s a very straightforward Hamlet question and I’ve never even studied it. He puts on a play fgs!!

@ChristinaAlber I guess you're one of those people who always came out exams telling everyone how easy you found them

From my experience those types weren’t even the ones that did that well 😏

You have never studied it? Well that explains it then. Sometimes the more you research something, paradoxically the more complicated it becomes.

I don’t know anything about Hamlet really and my kids never studied English A Level. But I take at face value comments from parents, teachers and pupils who were involved with studying Hamlet this year. The question was clearly unusual, unexpected and challenging for many. It doesn’t not feel very fair to me.

I agree @ThisIsBrandNewInformation - some of the other questions for those studying other texts were much more straightforward and recognisable for students who has spent 2 years studying a text. The Hamlet one was quite left field and I think will be very difficult for examiners to mark in a consistent way compared to other Shakespeare questions. I have a DC who sat this exam..

I just don’t see the point of ‘tricking’ students. They have done past papers, worked hard and have an idea what to expect. Why put strange questions in the paper which cause extra stress and upset? It feels unnecessary to me.

@ThisIsBrandNewInformation yes I agree - feels really counterproductive to me. Young people are constantly made to feel they are somehow not doing enough to deserve to do well and have to go beyond expectation. This question a good example of that but also not applied consistently.

I think the question is a very generous one as you can take you essay in whatever direction you like. It’s Hamlet, there’s an awful lot of imagery from which to choose.