Oxbridge tutors???..

[WakingFromTheDream]

Just wondering do you recommend using a tutor to assist with personal statement// interview technique etc??

Many thanks

I would also add that you can't be coached for tutorials. If you can't cope with thinking on your feet in an interview, you will be very exposed when you have to do it week in week out in a very small group.

I am going go abit against HewasH20 last statement only because I have had some (what I have found to be pretty traumatic) life events happen and how I react when I feel enclosed in a room can effect what I say (though not necessarily think). The idea that just because I may not perform at my best in interviews when I do not know people may mean I am not up to a rigorous academic course or job with people I know I find upsetting.

In which case, being in a room with a tutor in a one to one or one to two for an hour each week with a different tutor each term would presumably be equally stressful for you.

I'm not sure how being tutored for an interview could possibly help you in the situation you have described Yoyo.

I just wanted to put foward the idea that interview performance is not necessarily a reflection of academic ability. I would say practice is very useful for helping people feel better and let them show their ability in an interview situation. Personally I think I would also find weekly supervisions with people from tge course very different to an interview for a course.

You are describing a very specific scenario though Yoyo. The OP sounds as though she is hoping to buy her DC an advantage, which the Oxbridge systems are designed to reduce.

A lot of what we do for our DC is trying to get them an advantage. I think most parents(and we certainly did for DS) will try to help DC with practice interviews (if only to try to arrange them with friends rather than paid for) . I think it may not help that if you have a string of interviews often the oxbridge one can be first (and may seem like a practice one). I know those that got into Oxbridge, those that got offers from Oxbridge and decided against going and those that didn't get in. I think the most intelligent person I know didn't get an offer.

I would have 100% benefited from interview practice when I was rejected. I'd been to a comp and was doing my A Levels at an FE college. Scored well in the old entrance papers (this was late '80s). Got to my interview and an old man (probably about my age now, to be fair) in a black gown was sitting in a dark corner and started ripping my essay to shreds, barking at me about what I thought of THIS and what I thought of THAT and how I would account for THE OTHER.

I thought he hated me, and that he thought I was shit. It occurred to me I might have been called to interview by mistake. I clammed up (it was that or start crying - I wanted to go to Oxford so much) and just readied myself for the rejection letter. For some reason he pooled me; I didn't know what pooling was or what it signified and nobody explained it. All I knew was that my name was on a sheet in the lodge saying I had to go to another interview. I thought 'fuck that, I don't need to be humiliated twice in one day' and went home.

Yeah, I would have benefited from interview practice.

I know things are different now and the scenario above is much less likely to happen. But these are very, very alien encounters to some kids and they deserve a bit of familiarity before they get in there, so that they're able to show what they can do as well as they can.

Familiarity. Thats the thing, exactly. In ds's case I did pay for some tutoring for the specialist subject exam instead. The idea of him tackling a type of exam he'd never even seen before as a one off was not one I felt good about, especially as he was in the year that had GCSEs cancelled so it was the very first external exam he'd ever had. I now think that I'd underestimated my own son - he'd almost certainly have dug around on the Internet and asked his teachers and got by. But whatever. I don't regret it.

I'd say let him write his own PS and have a look. I was all set to help ds and critique it but in fact it sounded exactly like him.

UCAS are reforming applications from next year so might be worth reading up, www.ucas.com/about-us/news-and-insights/reforming-admissions

@PacificState what a horrible experience - poor you! To be fair though, I don’t think many kids, whatever their educational background, wouldn’t find that type of encounter alien because it’s unacceptable. It doesn’t happen as often but it still exists: 2 friends of my dc had a very similar experience recently at their Oxbridge interviews and were both shattered from the outset and had no idea how to express themselves; one was pooled, so clearly wasn’t a no-hoper but didn’t get in. Dh had it in the 90s, he attended a mediocre private school that gave no interview prep and the interviewer tore him to shreds, he still hadn’t recovered 25 years later! I once had this in a job interview when they had head-hunted me and still can’t bear to hear the name of this bully. It’s a particular type of person with their own issues who decides to pick on someone in their power and give them no chance to show what they’re capable of.

Thanks @ChristinaAlber. I realised after I posted how emotional that was 😂 I'd like to say I'm over it but I'm clearly not! Sorry to hear of your experiences. A friend's DS reported a nasty interview experience in this year's round (at Cambridge) - said the interviewers appeared to just not be listening to him at all, typing and looking away at other screens while he was talking. Might have been totally legitimate but he found it really offputting and didn't feel he'd had a chance to show what he could do. It's a rough old business.

Well my dh isn’t over it either! It shouldn’t happen but unfortunately it does and not just in an Oxbridge context

I’m not quite sure what you’d expect from an online interview. We’re being told that we have to stay online for access reasons - especially to save candidates the trouble and expense of travelling to an in person interview. But we can’t interview without actually looking at the forms in front of us - which on an online interview also have to be up on a screen in view. And we now have to document every aspect of the interview in notes as it’s happening, from the actual start time to every question asked and the applicant’s answers. (These are all typed into an online form.) This is because applicants and their schools expect all this to be documented in feedback. How you’d expect us to do it by screen without looking away, and typing at the same time, I don’t know.

All of this - double online interview, exhaustively benchmarked and documented - is precisely because we now don’t do interviews like you experienced in the 1980s.

I personally much prefer in person interviews, precisely because you can get more of a rapport going with a candidate, and make eye contact whilst your colleague is looking at the file or documenting the answers, and so on. But it’s simply not possible to do that on screen. You can’t memorise every aspect of a candidate’s file, conduct a proper interview in 30 minutes, then write all of it up afterwards in five minutes before the next interview. Impossible expectation. But applicants and parents want them online. Online is perceived as convenient — but it may be a less good experience all round.

In his second year, DS had weekly 1:1 supervisions for one of his courses. Definitely nowhere to hide!

Just to add some balance and not scare people off: ds interviewed in 2019, he had 3 interviews in 2 colleges and enjoyed them all. He said all his interviewers were very nice and tried hard to put him at ease (he can be very awkward).

Thanks @tortoiseshellpeppershoes that all sounds entirely fair enough and tbh I suspected that was the explanation. My sons both found their (online) interview experiences totally fine, no complaints.

DS got a place at Cambridge because he was able to ‘justify the saxophone’ and explain in detail the medical condition which had caused him to miss a term of school and have an operation in yr12. Oh, always be polite to any admin/secretarial staff while waiting for interview. We think the secretary was part of the interview process.

What was his subject? Is music too obvious? 😁

Myself, DH and DS certainly have no complaints about C interviews. DH and myself think practise is the beneficial thing and building confidence. Interestingly DH ended up with an offer from a Uni for a course that at the time (despite being for a very competitive course ) proudly didn't interview. My course at the same uni did interview (it was also the last set of interviews I had and I certainly feel I got a lot better as I went on, the questions there were also arguably the most difficult, most relevant and the most numerous) . I think for DH not interviewing was really important, he came from one of the lowest ranking schools in the country (grade wise) and the school gave little/no support for PS or preparation. DH is now very highly qualified in his profession (who you would love to have in an emergency he is exceptionally intelligent) he now does interviews/assessments to select students for a very competitive course at a prestigious university, he chairs numerous meeting etc .

@PacificState @ChristinaAlber those experiences you describe were awful 🌼. @PermanentTemporary I can completely understand you getting support fir the exam especially if your DC was in a cohort with cancelled exams.