DS wants to drop out of Oxford - and it's largely my fault

[Distressedstudent]

My DS is a fresher at Oxford and not enjoying it one bit - the intensive work load, the lack of contact hours, the general 'nerdiness' of it. He had wanted to go to York but, as he was predicted (and got) 4 x A star, we urged him to apply to Oxford (where we went - he had no intention of applying) and then, when he got his offer, to firm it. He very reluctantly agreed after talking to his teachers who said he'd be nuts to turn down Oxford, even though his heart was set on York.

He sees his friends from school having a blast at other universities whereas he has his nose to the grind at Oxford. He is now planning to see his Director of Studies and to see if York will take him from September (to read the same humanities course). He is not interested in my advice as DH and I 'got it wrong' and gave him 'duff advice' (his words).

I am not sure if I am up to replying to anyone kind enough to offer their thoughts because I feel so miserable/disappointed/guilty on his behalf.

Nor should anyone think that we have some magic lens that allows us to perfectly identify some notional "Oxbridge material" in a 30 min interview and a UCAS form

And aptitude test results where relevant. And more than one interview, with the results of the two or more interviews being collated.

I don't see why not. Plenty of fairly high spec jobs are decided on not a lot more. I've appointed people to posts of serious responsibility with approximately the same amount of info and you lot are supposed to be perceptive. Pretty poor job frankly if you can't make decisions about which kids are up to Oxbridge on that evidence. I think you tend to say its tough so that those who don't get offers don't feel bad. That's commendable in its way but it's hard to buy the idea that you can't do a decent sift on the info you've have to hand/ have gleaned.

So yet again you know better than the Oxford don who posted this @goodbyestranger? 😩

Surely if that were the case @goodbyestranger no candidates holding offers would miss their A Level grades?

I very definitely made decisions in my late teen/early twenties solely as a result of my parents' advice which in retrospect was based solely on what they wanted rather than what would be best for me. They wanted the prestige of a child at Oxford. They didn't care if I wanted to go or not.
Perhaps it's immature not to be able to say "no" to your parents, but if it would cause serious family ructions (it would in my case) it's also not very easy to do.

I'm not saying that is the case in OP's case, but many DC of her son's age do take parents' advice very seriously and would struggle to go against it.

I’d also point out that physics department at Oxford’s recent statement, saying that they admit they often select candidates who prove lesser physicists and miss the very best candidates. Mistakes get made. In the job market too. Otherwise we’d be living in a perfect country when we very obviously are not.

@redskydelight
I really meant it was immature to blame anyone at this stage. The DS wants a different experience. He might be wrong of course. However he might just be better off accepting parents and school did their best. Lots of Dc have doubts but are fine in the end. He isn’t so move in without recrimination.

I want to note that as a current Oxbridge academic, I don’t actually agree with this that much — first of all, not as many students apply with 10A equivalent and 4 A predicted as you suggest: they are most definitely in a (small) minority.

(The new numeric GCSEs also make it unlikely that many candidates will get straight 9s, as the 8/9 is meant to cover a range of marks across the old A*.)

It’s actually reasonably rare to get candidates with all 9s. A mixture of 7s, 8s and 9s at GCSE is more usual. And many of the students we accept have a mixture of GCSE grades — sone of my highest achieving students didn’t have stellar GCSEs on original application. Some kids who are suitable for the course might be all-rounders with high GCSEs across the board; others have a mixture, with attainment spikes in the subjects they’re especially good at: that’s pretty normal.

As long as a student is predicted to meet the “standard offer” (AAA/AAA) at A-level, we will normally interview them — and not all of the ones we admit get straight A across the board by any means.

I have to say that we tend to look for slightly higher exam achievements across the board from candidates at the very good grammar or private schools; we’re less bothered about the results profile from schools with a poorer overall teaching record.

I actually am pretty confident that we tend to mostly get the right people. I’d say that in every admissions round, we’re pretty confident that 60-80% of the candidates we admit are well suited to the course. The remaining percentage is a bit less easy to judge: on that borderline, I do think we probably accept the occasional person who isn’t quite suited, and always end up having to reject a fair few who we could also have taken.

(Those candidates often have an opportunity to get picked up in the winter pool (Cambridge) or by the second/third choice college (Oxford). There’s a smaller pool/adjustment in the summer when results come out, for those who narrowly miss their offers, too.)

Of the students we do take, there’s quite a variation in A-level subjects/GCSE profiles/backgrounds. Sometimes you get an applicant who doesn’t have a great exam record, might be at a not great school, but they have a really natural intuitive feel for the discipline, and do you want to take them. (This is more common in arts/humanities than in sciences: they tend to rely much more on exam scores ok the sciences.) Sometimes - in fact quite often - there are candidates with eleven 9s at GCSE, fab A-level predictions from top public schools, and you interview and they just don’t have a feel for the subject at all: they aren’t really a natural or they can’t really develop their thinking, and you can often clearly see the exam record is evidence of good teaching and spoon-feeding, and not natural ability.

In the middle, there are lots of kids with good but not perfect grades, decent written work, decent test results, and who put in good interview performances, and we’re looking to take those who have shown across the board evidence that they are bright, have a feel for the subject, can think on their feet, can develop a line of thinking, and are able to show enthusiasm and interest in a range of issues that are part of studying the subject at university level.

And then we make a list ranking our top ones, and typically the Admissions or Senior Tutor cuts off our list at the number of places we’re allowed that year; and there are always some who fall below that line who would probably have done well too, and that we would have loved to take if we had more staff and more places.

Overall, though, I tend to be pretty confident in the ones we do take. (They do seem to do pretty well, if I say so myself; or maybe I’m just really good at picking them 😂 we regularly come top of the university in my subject!)

However, there are many other great departments and universities, too, where students will also have great teaching and a great time doing their degree. So I often don’t agonise too much about the students we don’t take, because they are likely to be a gift for my colleagues in another good department in another good university, and do very well wherever they go!

Rejects yes, assuming the poster is in fact an Oxbridge tutor. Reassuring to read tortoiseshellpeppershoes post about mostly getting the right people. Not sure what the snark is about 'yet again' but if you can point me in the direction of where I've gone head to head knowing better than any Oxbridge tutor then I'd be reasonably grateful.

Rejects I'm not clear if your username suggests you have an axe to grind but what is clear is that Oxbridge takes a good deal of trouble not to be unkind or harsh to those who don't get offered places.

Is that true about candidates rarely having all 9s at GCSE?

That bit about your brother sounds made up sorry. You haven’t been able to apply to both for almost 40 years and could t get an A*.

I think @rejects is clinging on to this at the end of four pages of detailed statistical analysis from the Oxford Physics Admission Department.
I read it not as a fact but as a cushion to soften the blow of rejection.

Yes, absolutely. It’s reasonably unusual to see all 9s (even under the old letter grading it was unusual to see all A-stars).

I think a quick look at previous posts shows this to be the case.
Parents do get very heavily invested.

Of course good candidates occasionally don’t get an offer and not all those with a place will turn out to have been the best choices. But you can’t deny Oxbridge are thorough as compared to other unis who don’t have either admissions tests or interviews. So chances are their ‘hit rate’ is a bit higher than most places for picking who they want.

I think that there is an onus and responsibility on the student themselves and maybe the school (even the parents to a degree) to think carefully about whether that student is suited to the Oxbridge style of education and general experience. That would definitely reduce the number who end up there and hate it or can’t cope and also those who don’t get an offer when they believed they would.

But I think in general all of those three get swept up in the prestige (which I think is actually reasonably warranted) and persuade themselves into an application when they maybe shouldn’t.
This would include kids who are bright enough on paper and perhaps have a good day on interview but don’t have the genuine drive and thirst for the subject that Oxbridge requires to be accepted and then to thrive there.

That’s a nice post, @tortoiseshellpeppershoes . I was one of the unlikely successful applicants in English back in the 90s. Overseas working-class applicant from a dreadful school which sent no one to university, far less Oxbridge, spotty academic results, had no idea what you were supposed to put in a personal statement — I don’t think my interview was even particularly good, they just saw something they liked, and felt I would benefit from Oxford teaching. I certainly had a huge appetite for learning, and was curious and really interested. And they were right.

Thanks @tortoiseshellpeppershoes DS got a combination of 8s and 7s and is convinced he has no chance if he applied. As I’ve said earlier up the thread I don’t think he’d be suited for it anyway.

@tortoiseshellpeppershoes I'm sorry maybe I should have qualified that with DC applying from my own DC's school which is one of the top UK schools . I was setting aside any contextualisation considerations. There are a number in my DC's school cohort who have a clean sweep of 9s at GCSE and are predicted 4 or more A stars at A Level and who have been rejected this cycle. A few real superstars were rejected alongside some surprising long shots (in terms of attitude rather than raw ability) getting offers but maybe they were just more suited to the tutorial teaching model. Who knows. As you say they all have excellent fallback options so nobody is too worried. I have no skin in the game as my DC got 10 9s at GCSE and has four A star A Level predictions and didn't want apply to Oxbridge because he didn't like how his chosen subject was taught there.

I’m finding this thread v interesting because I was rejected from Oxford and went to York (and loved it). It was the right decision from Oxford because I was v bright but v lazy and would not have done well with the higher workload at Oxford. Loads of Oxbridge rejects at York including loads from v expensive public schools who came out with the same or worse GCSE/A-Level/degree grades as me from my northern comp.

I hope OP’s DS either settles in at Oxford (still possible IMO) or moves to York and has a great time.

@ClimbingRoseBush
Private schools don’t give you extra brains. And northern comps are not all bad. Liz Truss fell into that particular hole. No one buys it. Just admit you are clever without rubbishing others.

@BadgersStripes it’s fair to say that at the present time, there’s increasing pressure to reduce the number of offers made to private school candidates and increase the number made to candidates from less privileged backgrounds.

But these decisions aren’t always about contextual offers — it’s always been the case that the very good schools have the ability to produce kids with very good exam results, but not all of those kids are necessarily innately particularly bright or have a real aptitude for Oxbridge-level study - but the “top schools” know exactly how to get strings of top grades. So one thing we’ve always done is filter out the genuinely talented from those schools, as opposed to the merely decent learners who are well taught. Sometimes, “top schools” do produce kids whose natural ability is overrepresented by good results coached by the school. Many of those schools are exceptionally good at teaching to the test, so a pupil can learn to hit the assessment targets without necessarily being innately really talented.

For example, this year I ended up rejecting a couple of applicants from very starry schools with strings of 9s - because the marks they’d got in the pre-interview assessments, and the work they’d submitted, were all quite poor compared to the rest of the field. When you have an applicant from a really top school with good results, but their test marks are in the third or fourth quintile, and their written work is full of spelling and grammar errors, then there’s probably a lot of teaching to the test that’s gone on. Compared with a candidate from a comprehensive who may have slightly less stellar results, but can write and argue well and is scoring much higher on our pre-interview tests — well, we’re going to lean towards the candidate who has done more with less good schooling.

And of course, some pupils at top schools really are exceptionally bright, and have benefited from the very best teaching and resources and are achieving very highly indeed. So we need to sort out those from the ones who have good exam marks but largely only through good teaching. The assssments and interview questions are designed to help us tell which are which. A significant part of the interview is testing thinking style, and that can’t be prepared for - eg. we might get a candidate talking on a subject, then give them some new information they don’t already know, and see how well they can synthesise this into their existing ideas, so that they have to weigh up new information and decide whether and how to change their argument accordingly. That’s a skill that teaching to the test can’t give you. (It’s actually pretty easy to tell which candidates have been extensively coached and which haven’t, to be honest.)

That all is something that parents can’t see, so I can well understand that it might look weird if Johnny who has always been the school golden boy and has strings of 9s doesn’t get an offer, but Mary who is a bit of a quirky dark horse does get one. Johnny may be really really good at doing what he’s told in order to get good results, but he hasn’t really got many deep thoughts going on. Or he’s chosen a subject that doesn’t suit him. Or maybe he was fine, but just didn’t look quite outstanding enough for the college to offer a place to another independent school candidate as opposed to a state school candidate. Other parents at the school can’t tell any of that, so it stands to reason it all might look a bit mystifying and opaque.

@tortoiseshellpeppershoes this has reminded me of a recent episode of Sideways on R4 where Matthew Syed talked to a maths prodigy who went to Oxford at 15. He struggled in his later career because he lacked the ability to be innovative. It was an interesting discussion how some prodigies are only able to remember and implement other people’s work but are incapable of developing their own ideas.

It’s always interested me that I rarely meet people who are extraordinarily bright. I notice when I do. I meet plenty who have great exam results but don’t come across as very bright. They come across as good at exams. The ability to think creatively and question what you are told seems to be missing. I’ve found @tortoiseshellpeppershoes description fascinating. Great post.

@tortoiseshellpeppershoes - I totally agree. I know a lot of people who think intelligence is to do with knowledge. Not at all. It's to do with application of knowledge and critical thinking. And as you say - throwing new ideas at someone to see how they can incorporate them into their current pool of knowledge is a very good way to test that.

I found the description of thinking on your feet interesting - I think it was why I got rejected many years ago. I think of myself as a pretty clever person but I'm not at all fast - it takes me a while to work out what I think, and I hate being under pressure to come up with an opinion/path forwards - I'm just not good at it.

I do think equating 'quick' with 'intelligent' is problematic (and leads directly to Boris Johnson). Quick and interesting/insightful is great, but I think in the past Oxford in particular has placed too much weight on quick and facile, to its own detriment. And realistically, most epoch-defining thinking is not produced by people standing at a podium under intense pressure. But I can see that in a tutorial setting students like me don't contribute as much as those who are more cognitively fleet of foot.

This has diverged into an even more interesting thread. Yet all the hoo-hah could be spared if only students could just transfer to another university if they don't like it, or do some kind of exchange. It seems unfair to ask teenagers who often haven't experienced much of the outside world not least because they've been deeply involved in their studies to make informed choices about where to spend three years of their life, a percentage of time far greater at that age than it is later on in life.