Oxbridge 2024 Entry

[Lightsabre]

Thought I'd start a thread for parents of dc considering Oxbridge applications for entry in Oct 2024 (I don't think there's a current one)? Past threads have been so informative and supportive and hopefully this thread will offer that too. Please feel free to add to the thread if your dc have recently had experience of the process, good, bad or ugly!

The thing about the comfortable Oxford offers for both A level and IB is that candidates typically exceed them. DD got 45 against an offer of 39. DS had an offer of 2 x A star plus an A and got 3 x A star plus an A.

* Cambridge are notorious for asking for an A in further maths but only asking for an A in maths for maths and natural science courses.

Engineering too... DDs offer was Astars in FM and an A in maths. Which (thanks to the AQA maths being weird that year) is what she got.

DD had the standard Oxford STEM offer of A star AA and and got 3 x A star and an A. DS's Cambridge offer was 2xA star A (one A star higher than the typical published offer) and he got 3 x A star.

The Oxford approach gives offer holders more certainty of their place. Cambridge just keep filtering to the end of the process.

Yep and I remember the old days when I got a 2 E offer from Oxford. They didn't much about A levels once they decided :)

Reading this with interest. My DC is planning to apply to Cambridge for ‘24 and also does the IB . I really don’t understand why Cambridge is so hard on IB students compared to A level? Particularly given that the exams are also much less spread out. There is no comparison between 42 and A star A A. Does anybody understand why it’s like this?

Close together? My DD has exam for two of her highest at the same time! It was ridiculous. She ended up having 4 on Thursday (in isolation for most of the day) and 3 on the Friday and mostly her most important highest. I don’t understand the IB offers. With hindsight A levels seem more sensible if Oxbridge is main goal although IB helps get an offer perhaps (eg ToK) and better prepares for studying once there.

Oh goodness that is really bad - so hard for her ! I wish her all the best . I know some A levels work out badly too but in general they are pretty spread out over 4-6 weeks for 3 subjects with time to cram in between. As far as I can tell IB is squashed into a couple of weeks for 6 subjects? They don’t tell you that when you sign up. So yes I have no idea why Cambridge alone are so hard on IB and do not appear to acknowledge the work involved at all. It’s v frustrating.

I invigilated IB exams this year and as pp have mentioned some students had two exams back to back one day with three back to back the following day due to clashes. My ds sat the IB diploma in 2018 and although the exam period was compact, he didn’t have any clashes. The number of clashes this year was ridiculous with students having only a 15 minute break between exams.

Hello I’m new on this board! Looking for some advice please. I have a tech/maths-whizz DN who is a British citizen but has grown up in the German education system. One of his parents read Maths at Oxford back in the days of the 2 E offer and between some out-dated advice and encouragement, DN now hopes to apply to read undergraduate Maths at Oxford too.

DN is very good indeed so it’s not a totally mad idea. DN speaks 3 languages natively (including English) and is on track for predicted 1.1 in his Arbitur next year.
His maths and coding skills are sharp and demonstrable - codes and releases his own games, performs very well in National Maths Olympiad comps. He goes to a small selective state school which focuses on STEM and he is top of his pack there. He is very sociable and has found school very easy (got bored in lockdown and taught himself Korean etc). But still normal
lad and holds down a job at a local shop on the weekends. He has always wanted to explore the English side of his identity and I think that he would absolutely thrive at Oxford (I also went there from a state school background but 25 years ago).

Has anyone any advice in this position: a British-but-foreign-educated kid applying to Oxbridge?

• As Abitur is “early” he would arrive in Oxford age 17, turning 18 in Michaelmas. Would he be better off doing a gap year (maybe a UK tech internship) and apply with a stellar CV?
• What would happen if his abitur slips to 1.2 - would he be ineligible to apply?
• who is likely to provide the best support?
• does his School reference need to be translated to English from German (!)

@BestServedChilled
https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-to-university
the link above will give you all the info on how to apply for universities in the UK. All the information would need to be in English.
Details of standard offer for students studying Abitur and test dates for MAT in following link
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/mathematics

Hello @BestServedChilled . This is from other posts in Mumsnet but the idea seems to be for Maths at Cambridge they prefer students not to have a gap year. DS has offer at Cambridge (Engineering not Maths) and will be there a year early (grades dependent etc).

Yep ridiculous this year. As I said DD had two of her higher exams scheduled at exactly the same time. If she misses her offer by a small margin will make that clear to Cambridge.

Thank you @ShanghaiDiva this is grounded, good place to start. Everything in English shouldn’t be a struggle - his schoolteachers have good English (whilst it’s not a bilingual school). My DN is native English so that’s no problem. He has a cute little German accent but adds to his overall charm!

@yoyo1234 ahh very good to know. I assumed gap year=good thing. Maybe experience suggests continuity of immersion in academic life is best.

The big problem is DN’s parent who thinks DN can play the application process (“personal statement is BS, you can follow an online example or use chatGPT” or “you just need to tell them you’re really good at maths and ace the MAT” which I feel might not be DN’s best strategy … 😂)

DN is already doing first year of German university maths in his spare time as part of an accelerated learning programme sponsored by his school. And his parent has basically coached him since he noticed they share an affinity for math from age 3! And now they just speak their own language really, it is very sweet listening to them solving pure maths problems together, like I discuss the latest episode of a Netflix series with my DD!

Im sure you motivated MN parents may have some comment on this attitude, but DN’s parent has led DN to believe his sheer brilliance will magically shine out amongst the other thousands of probably equally brilliant candidates.

is it the case that just being jaw-droppingly good at your subject and totally passionate is enough? How do you get a foot in the door to show the oxford that these days?

@BestServedChilled
the Oxford maths undergraduate page details that 30% of candidates are interviewed and 9% are successful. An exceptional score on the MAT would be a good place to start
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/guide/admissions-tests/mat
but as you say there will be many exceptional candidates applying.

Being jaw-droppingly good at the MAT is exactly how you get a place at Oxford to do maths tbh. (My oldest is doing maths at O and my younger has an offer of an engineering place, dependent on A level results.)

Putting minimal effort into the PS would be dumb (not least because other unis do take it seriously), but the MAT is the biggest factor by far in getting an interview. If you're in the 70s they pretty much can't not interview you. So in my experience your nephew's parent is on the right track tbh!

Extra-curricular and supra-curricular stuff depends a bit on your school background (and I don't know how well Oxford decodes German schools). If you come from an ordinary state academy school in the UK I think Oxford accepts you may not have had the opportunity to do lots of non-curriculum stuff. If you come from a top flight grammar or public school I get the impression there's an expectation you will have done more.

Good performances in Olympiad are definitely worth mentioning.

@BestServedChilled
According to the website he would need 1.1 for maths, as the standard A level offer is ÅÅA. For courses requiring "only" one A star, 1.2 is fine.

(“personal statement is BS, you can follow an online example or use chatGPT”

Dear lord, are these parents so much into maths that they don't understand language (eg the meaning of the word 'personal'), plagiarism checking etc?
Apart from anything else, imo it's worth applicants putting effort into their personal statement because it can help them think through and be sure of what they want to do and why. By all means look at examples, throw ideas around in ChatGPT if it helps him think but being half hearted and lazy is daft.

As an aside, I'm loving the creative use of the Å as a way of avoiding MNs mangling of multiple asterisks which bedevils A level/uni offer threads.

I wonder whether a lot of students in this application round (especially the tech-minded ones) will all have the same idea re LLMs and PSs. Unless they do something genuinely innovative with it it risks being a bit old-hat. And yes, plagiarism risk too.

I don't know about maths but for my DD in both her Cambridge interviews pretty much all the time was on things related to her PS. It was the kick-start for every little topic so it had to be things she was interested in and knowledgeable about. Perhaps totally different for maths but not caring about PS just seems really dumb. All downside and no upside. Perhaps put it in maths-speak about asymmetric risk :) There are a heck of a lot of people who are incredibly good at their subject who don't get into to Oxbridge and the same in other spheres such as music.

PS is a good place to bring up Olympiads and what they have enjoyed or found interesting about them. DS (offer for engineering at C) said 3 of his 4 interview main questions were linked to syllabus questions and 1 was on PS . The PS could be a good way to encourage interviewers to question you on things you want to talk about and your interests . A good PS may link to good interview questions and responses (which should help get you in) . Certainly though DS and us, as parents, think scoring well on entrance exams is a huge factor in getting an offer.

@BestServedChilled as others say,MAT is essential and registration is end of September and exam will be 19th October. There are stats on Oxford Uni site that break down scores vs interviews. He could start doing practice papers now.

Oxford use the MAT to decide on who to interview.

Sorry I’ve been slow to read these responses. @ErrolTheDragon asymmetric risk - quick Google - I love that idea!

in summary I’m wrong - MAT is definitely the big thing to wow on - but I’m right too; PS needs to be done in a grown-up way and will cue questions so the interviewer can find out what’s ‘under the hood’ so to speak.

I am armed with good idea and information- thank you all for your kindness taking time to reply!

PS my degree is in history so it just made logical sense to me that the PS is a place to show off my written skills. I guess with maths the mindset is different…

Hi coming over to join as my DS is considering applying for either History or History and Politics at Oxford.

He's got an interesting background having undiagnosed SEN and autism which led to school refusal for the entire of secondary but he's just finished year 12 at 6th form and has astounded everyone with his work ethic and results which will lead to predictions of 3 A *.

So we haven't been planning this for years, it literally was inconceivable as recently as 6 months ago, but we're off to the Open day on Thursday as he's finally decided he might be good enough having been added to the school's email for potential Oxbridge candidates last week!

Quick question about the HAT for anyone who might know, is it organised by school? Does it take place at school? Do they have access arrangements like the 25% extra time that he get's for other exams due to dyslexia?

I am going to speak to school who are, tbh, very hands off but feel I need to start looking into this things.

Thanks in advance.

@lifeturnsonadime

Well done your son! My son also has autism (but diagnosed at 3 thankfully) and wants to study History - but at Cambridge rather than Oxford.

You will need to confirm this, but I believe they sit the HAT in school and you can get the same adjustments your sixth form college allow for exams.

If you are looking for super curricula stuff for his personal statement, my son is doing Caius Explores, is quite fun and has a closing date of the 31st July. For a more formal history essay competition Robson History Prize by Trinity Cambridge is open until 1st August.