Oxbridge Rejects 2023 - Come this way and commiserate

[Rejects]

As mentioned on the other thread a safe space for those who'd like a bit of support while not dampening others' moods Sorry that I have gone on a lot about this rejection already on here - it's helped me keep outwardly calm and cheerful when my ds has been very upset.

I am acutely aware in the scheme of things a university rejection is not a huge deal and that amazing lives and outcomes no doubt await all our dc wherever they go, it's just getting through the time between now and A levels and/or offers from other unis arriving, keeping dcs' morale up. Good luck everyone

I'll join having lurked before. Dd didn't get an offer from O to read English having been pooled, which got her hopes up. Her two closest friends both got in to C. Like Rejects - having followed that saga, she got a lot of detailed college feedback (kind of wish she'd just go a straight no, no questions asked) showing her scores were above average in all areas and suggesting she should reapply. Initially she dealt with it all quite well but as time has passed and it sinks in she's got more upset.

Her second choice is Edinburgh and no news - apparently there might be none until May, I've heard a horror story about a girl last year walking in to her A level and opening the rejection email from E, which haunts me. If she doesn't get that offer it really will be a confidence-killer. The school is very gently encouraging her to think about reapplying but she doesn't want to go through this twice and I understand that. All this will pass but it's been a miserable half term with her lacklustrely revising for her mocks. I honestly wish dd hadn't embarked on this process and just set her sights for Edinburgh so she could be enjoying her last year at school more

Count me in for the new thread.

@LanadelSlay my DS was pooled without being picked up too. His next choice is St Andrew's which he really loves but everyone keeps telling him how hard it will be to get an offer, which is just making him sad. Also what's not helping is people keep telling him to reapply to Cambridge next year, I really don't want him to go through it all again. I'm just being as supportive as possible and listening rather than offering advice, as that doesn't go down well.

Edinburgh can be a shocker to get into too. Maybe a third choice should be equal favourite? Putting too much store in one or even two hard to get into places is not always a happy mix. After being rejected from one, it just prolongs the agony. Years ago DD had 2 offers almost immediately. Both fine universities. Others were then a bonus but not vital, including Oxford.

DS didn’t get C, although has 4 other offers. He’s phlegmatic about it. Disappointed but only 3 from his school got into C (private selective school), so it’s not as though all his friends got in and he didn’t. His decision but I don’t think he’ll reapply. Could well get another rejection.

Sounds very similar - hindsight is a wonderful thing but you can't help having an instinctive preference for one uni or another so it's hard to have "joint" favourites. DD has got an offer from Bristol but even though she liked her visit there, her heart is with Edinburgh. I agree continually being told to reapply is unhelpful, parents tell me too that this is what she "must" do, it just muddies the waters. You're right to listen and say as little as possible, I tend to get provoked by "Obviously I'm a loser" comments (which I know rationally are just teenage exaggeration) and say things like "But your scores show you did really well, so you know you were just unlucky" and then I get yelled at. Need to learn to say absolutely zilch. @Radiatorvalves I think he's making the right choice, great he has his other places in the bag.

DS was rejected from C after interview, but luckily has 4 other offers (languages). Only one offer at his (not very selctive independent) school, and some great candidates didn't even get interviews. He was very disappointed, but is trying to move on.

Just a word of reassurance to you all. My DD did go to Oxford and has big regrets about going there. She was perhaps unlucky with the college she was allocated to and Covid didn’t help. However, she has now graduated and has a fantastic job in the city working alongside colleagues with degrees from Bath, Nottingham, Bristol etc. With the exception of maybe a few old school law firms, she has found that Oxbridge has not conferred any advantages to her or her friends in the job market. So she feels that she put herself through lots of stress at Oxford for no real benefit in the end.

She does feel that if you want an academic career then Oxbridge stands out. But again, many of her friends who were rejected from Oxbridge as undergrads and went elsewhere eg LSE, Imperial, Bristol, Durham etc have still gone on to post grads at Oxbridge or prestigious international universities such as Harvard and MIT. Hope that helps ease disappointments.

Thank you v much, I'm sure all of us know in the end no big career doors will be closed to our dc - I certainly am aware of that. Personally I'm just finding dd's despondency a bit tricky to manage right now, which is 100% related to her bffs both getting in, her nice-try-but-no-cigar near miss and anxiety about Edinburgh, which as I've just been told can be a shocker to get into. I am just going to have to take deep breaths and remember this too will pass ...

DS v despondent. Pooled and rejected. High LNAT score, predicted all A stars. Waiting on all other unis to respond. Motivation down the drain.

Joining the club we didn’t want to be in. Rejected after interview. It’s a bit annoying as they are extremely clever, top of their (selective) school. Objectively I know they don’t work at all hard. They would have moaned like hell at the intense workload and short terms. Luckily they shrugged it off and got their real first choice a month later, which has helped a lot. It’s really hard when the rejection happens then potentially they’re waiting for another few months to hear back from other places.

In hindsight would you have let your dc put themselves through this?

I can't see how I could have stopped dd, her teachers encouraged her, her best friends were giving it a go - but I didn't foresee such a detrimental effect on her confidence.

DD2 is very competitive and will now no doubt want to give it a go just to get one over her sister. Aargh! 😂

Very pleased for all of you with second-choice offers, that must be a huge relief. Having no offers at all @GiantHam - that is horrible and I hope it changes soon.

@LanadelSlay its a good question. In retrospect probably not - I think at the time we knew it very unlikely she’d get an offer (6% offer rate for e&m) but thought it was just one option out of 5. Hadn’t really realised how competitive economics was at so many other unis until later in the process (horror stories of 4 a star, straight 9s getting a full set of rejections last year - Warwick, lse, ucl, Edinburgh, St A etc etc) so an extra slot might make all the difference. So I think I’d look carefully at acceptance rates for all the unis (and courses) if we were to do it again - which we won’t! Luckily she got a St A offers soon after the Oxford rejection and that’s going to be first choice so that really helped. If we were still waiting I think the fallout from the rejection would have been worse. I also think applying for oxford meant a lot of time working through TSA past papers etc and took up a lot of headspace at a busy time so wasn’t worth it…but if she’d got in who knows! If it’s a course with a decent offer rate and other unis offer early for that (so you can move on quickly from the rejection) then it’s worth the gamble! But lots of rejections for things like comp sci, hsps, ppe, economics, engineering, nat sciences etc etc. and people are still waiting for others so it’s demoralising. But you don’t really get a handle on all this stuff until too late in the day! I do just wish it was all more aligned - I do think the whole offer day stuff for Oxbridge builds it up - if others had a set day when people would know if they’d been accepted they’d be a frenzy around them too!

DS still finding it very hard to deal with. Like many others straight 9s / 4 A stars predicted, was pooled but not picked out.

Harder still that his GF was picked out of the pool so that's doubly hard, as he's really proud of her and trying his best to be happy for her, but not only is he not going, their dream of going to uni together is not happening.

Still waiting for Edinburgh, but so despondent about it all, it's very hard to know how to help.

@lovefizzycolabottles I think it's a really good point that the offers day hype builds it into a bigger thing that it might otherwise be - everyone talking about it has to make it more stressful. Otoh if I knew the exact when the hoped-for St A offer/rejection might be arriving I'm not sure any of us would get much sleep - ditto for everyone here waiting for a specific course/uni. @flotsomandjetsome that's really rubbish for your ds to have to put on a brave face re his gf, I feel for him. My issue is I genuinely don't believe Oxbridge is the sole key to happiness and success - as I'm sure we all know, but right now there is no way of putting this across to ds without upsetting him further, so I'm just going to keep schtum and listen as some other wise person said on here and take a view this time next year something even if it wasn't Plan A, B or C will be in place and it will work out fine.

Some years ago, DD was pooled but rejected from C. Her close-second choice was LSE which turned out to be an utter nightmare. They extended the deadline people would hear by three times! In the end, they kept her hanging until 6pm on the very last possible day in May before the rejection email pinged through. By then, they had had her application since late Sept - so 8 months!

She was fortunate that she did receive offers at Bristol, UCL and Durham. UCL snd Bristol had come in before Xmas. I think Durham came in about March. Anyway, she decided against Bristol because of the course being slightly different there. UCL can be a nightmare for accommodation as you don't know what you're getting until the last minute. Durham is beautiful but very far north for us and also quite small and she was worried about the then 'rah' reputation ( I think this is not so much the case now). I think, the process was so drawn out that she got in quite a low mindset and couldn't get excited about any of her actual offers.

In the end, she took the risk and reapplied to C and was successful. But she also was very excited about gap year plans and she spent most of the year working in a community project in a developing country. She also applied to a few US options in the gap year to broaden the search.

Now she is at C and honestly, the workload is fine. She says some people just like to exaggerate it to make themselves sound special. Yes, they do about 7 essays per term but, as she says, so what really? It's not as if they have anything else to do and they are in fully catered colleges with their beds changed for them etc and the term is only 8 weeks. Also, these essays are just a starting point for discussion in supervisions - they are not really graded and don't go towards final marks.

There are some international students who hardly ever come out of their rooms and are in the library until 3am and this kind of thing, but that's up to them. There is actually no need for any of that.

Now that she is at C, she can see that it is quite a lot of hype to a certain degree and that obviously people there are no different to people at other unis with the same grade requirements. It's very arbitrary as to who gets in and who doesn't.

She reckons anyone who can get a combo of A stars and maybe the odd A at A-level could easily cope there. There is no such thing as an 'Oxbridge type.' Tutors can only make an informed guesstimate on the info they have.

Having said this, the admissions system is even more ridiculous at LSE where the whole decision rests on the PS (they all have top grades). Surely they realise some students have a lot more help with the PS than others?

Reapplying is not for everyone, but if they do decide to go that route, make sure they have a clear plan for the gap year and also maybe broaden the uni search?

@hope2023
I think experienced tutors can see through a PS that’s been tweaked rather too much.

For bright students the difference in outcomes between Durham and Cambridge are not enormous. If anyone has the stomach to do it all over again, great, but it’s not necessary. Especially as undergrad doesn’t have to be the end of the learning process.

Joining - dt2 pooled for Cambs comp sci, but not picked up. Has offers from Manchester, Warwick and York, and waiting to hear from UCL. Yes, he was disappointed, but he's off to visit M tomorrow, and W in May, and excited for the future (particularly the Masters he will clearly complete at C... 😎).

@multivac Not much difference between all his choices either except city vs campus.

No Oxford applicants here but my friend's DS is second year CS at Manchester. 3 A stars was his Manchester offer. He had been pooled for Cambs and not picked up. Was initially a little disappointed as he had been told by everyone (except his parents) that he was a dead cert but he decided to embrace his other offers rather than dwell on it. He is absolutely loving the Manchester course and the city.

Manchester entrance offer is higher than Cambridge! That’s a steer as to how competitive it is.

Last year this was me - except having twins I had a foot in both camps. One got an Oxbridge offer, the other didn’t . Fast forward to now - rejected twin is immensely pleased they didn’t get in having seen the huge workload his twin has . Meanwhile he is doing a very respected integrated masters at a great University which they absolutely love & suits them perfectly. He got 11 X 9s, 4 A* at A level ( as predicted ) & Top grade AS in another subject, and has already got a clean first in the winter exams . The problem with Oxbridge is there are simply too many really great candidates . Just posting really to say in time your DC will move on . Good luck in hearing back from the slow coach universities - it made such a difference when the path was clearer .

The problem is that many top flight universities have huge numbers of qualified applicants too! It’s grade inflation. Such a big problem for everyone.

DS rejected from O after interview and was a bit fed up but quickly moved on. Four other offers and we're now working through the applicant offer days. He's still very happy he had a go and I'm very proud of his attitude in this. They have generally failed at very little at this stage and it's a knock but the secret is always getting back up again.

Majorityofthree I think your point about getting back up is so valid.
'It's not how you fall down, it's how you get back up again'

Many people have been deemed not suited for Oxbridge and have gone on to have fantastic careers, and fulfilling lives. I am such a person, and I am a well paid professional working with many people from different universities. You can't tell where they trained a few years after graduation.

Your young people will have wonderful experiences at the other universities (I know I did) and oxbridge will be completely forgotten, until their own kids start thinking about universities.

Nil Desperandum!