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!

Id suggest using Park and Ride if driving to Oxford for an open day.

DD is guiding at her college (medicine). Nice earning opportunity!

It's Cambridge but will check out Just Park.

@mondaytosunday Cambridge park and ride will drop you in the city centre and it is a very walkable city. I think the autumn open day is mainly about college choice so I don't think departments are open. Most of the colleges are easy to reach on foot.

6ampatrol the admissions processes for Oxford and Cambridge may not be perfect but that’s not at all the same as being ‘very imperfect’. Ime they’re about as good and thorough as admissions processes can get. People often talk about ‘lotteries’ etc simply to be kind to those who are disappointed, but it’s just not the case that decisions are random, or not made without great care and cross referencing between several academics.

6ampatrol I also think you may be woefully underestimating the workload for humanities (indeed all) subjects at Oxford and Cambridge. It’s intense, no question about it, and the essays are all marked and are all pretty important.

DH and DD had to wait a long time for the P&R buses when they went to a Cambridge open day a few years ago. They were staying in one of the hotels out near the A14 which has plenty of parking, I think they rather wished they'd just got a taxi/Uber from there and/or walked one way.

One of my D1's friends did HSPS at C after an Art Foundation Year. She was allowed to defer in order to do it.

I'm not sure I agree with all of 6ampatrol's comments. DD was never taught by her DoS in her entire 4 years of undergraduate study. He's a nice guy and they got on well, but her only interactions with him in her first 2 years were end of term meetings. As has already been stated, humanities students have a lot more work than one essay per week. Students can be catered for, but if they do other activities, it is more practical to self-cater at least some of the time. As an example, some of DD's rowing trips started at 6.30 or 7am. It's a 10 minute cycle ride there. Catering didn't open until 7.

Yes, it was good having accommodation throughout her 4 years and if she needs it for a part-year next year to write up her PhD, she can have a room there.

I think gap years where the student has a definite plan are looked at quite favourably. A colleague's DD did an Art Foundation course, and applied to Oxford. As a result of the Art, she read History - she loathed everything about the Art course, although is now using her artistic skills in her career.

Although there is obviously luck involved in getting a place at O or C, I think that they do know what they are looking for, it is just that they have a lot of suitable applicants. They are looking for someone they can teach via the intense tutorial based system. The admissions system may not be perfect but it does give them a lot more information on the applicants than other universities have - D1 had to submit several pieces of work, sit aptitude tests and then had three in-person interviews for a History joint degree at Oxford. (This was all at one college - she could have also been sent for more interviews at other colleges during the five days she was there)

Judging from her experience I would say that the work is incredibly intense and the workload is huge, honestly a world away from my own experience at an RG uni and really nothing like A levels.

@mondaytosunday we drove and used the Park & Ride when we went to the open day in July. Was really quick first thing in the morning but did take a fair bit longer on the way back. There was a huge queue for the bus when we got to the pick-up point opposite Sainsbury’s, although admittedly it went down quick and we were on a bus in around 10 mins. But the traffic was bad and what only took 10-15 mins in the morning took more like 40 mins in rush hour traffic. I wouldn’t try and park in the centre of Cambridge as would be a total nightmare.

Oh and food wise we ended up getting lunch from a street food pop up place at the Sidgwick site and sitting on the grass. It was all we had time for really as we wanted to get round as many college tours as possible in between the subject talks/seminars.

Thanks all I've booked a space at a hotel that's supposed to be less than ten minutes walk through Just Park.
Yea it's just a college Open Day, no subject talks or anything. We will just try and get around as many colleges on her shortlist. I'm still favouring Newnham, she's quite taken with Kings and Jesus....

It will vary subject to subject @goodbyestranger, but none of DS' weekly essays went towards his yearly grade.

I'm not saying the work isn't a lot, but an essay is an essay. They can put as much or as little into it as they see fit, just like at any other uni. In general, life is easier at Cambridge than many other unis where they might be in house shares all over the place and dealing with inconvenient commutes, shopping, landlords etc. Cambridge is very walkable / cycle friendly - you can get anywhere and it's easy to find people. It's not like negotiating Manchester, London or Bristol, not is it a remote campus Uni like Warwick. This leaves more time for rowing, choirs, CU, etc.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that tutors are clueless. Not at all! What I meant was, if you have 50 applicants, all with top grades, but can only choose 7 of them, what's to say that the rejected students wouldn't have fared just as well at Cambridge as the ones selected. Probably most of them would have done just as well. Apart from a very few possible genius-types, I don't think a student with three A stars at Cambridge is any different to one with the same grades elsewhere.

Yes, I do think Cambridge could do a lot more to standardise their admissions process. How can it be fair that some colleges ask for two essays, while some ask for no essays for the same subject? Some colleges may do one interview, others two - again for the same subject.

If they are 'pooled' from a college that required no essays, would this mean they are less likely to be picked up by a college that does require essays? Who knows? It's very opaque. I think they could at least standardise the entrance process, per subject, across all colleges. I think the Oxford process sounds more standardised.

Park and Ride in Cambridge also good. Car park wise Grafton is large with space. Little walk depending on where you are going to see but not too far. Not cheap but not outrageous either. You won't find cheap or free on street parking.

My parking advice:

Cambridge - choose the council run car park on Queen Anne Terrace. It’s a short walk into the city centre, near all of the restaurants and near plenty of the colleges. Always spaces available. Reasonable costs.

Oxford - easier to park than Cambridge IME but the distance between colleges can be much further (I’m thinking of St Cat’s here) so you need to plan your day to ensure you are not crisscrossing the city needlessly.

6ampatrol the importance of doing these essays and reading for them isn’t measured by whether they ‘count’ towards a yearly grade. I’m not sure the ‘not counting’ does vary subject to subject with the weekly essays does it? It doesn’t at Oxford, other than formal coursework. Perhaps Cambridge is different but I’d be surprised.

It’s far easier to hide from scrutiny at other universities. If you don’t bother to do Oxford essays at least relatively conscientiously, and you’re then faced with a tutor quizzing you and perhaps one other person max, then you’re in trouble if you wing it more than a couple of times. Almost all of my DC know one person in their college where the tutors invoked disciplinary measures for lassitude and those students were sent down. The tutors can’t be bothered with students who can’t be bothered and those students can be far more easily identified at Oxford and Cambridge because of the one to one or two to one tutorials/ supervisions. Lame excuses will go a very short way.

In terms of parking the problem in Oxford is really the restricted time allowed at the most central parking bays.

My parking advice for Cambridge if you’re coming up the M11 from the south: leave at junction 13, use the Madingley Road Park and Ride (free), walk towards Eddington Avenue and get the U(niversity) bus into the centre. The bus goes past Robinson, Selwyn, Queens’, St Catherine’s, Pembroke and Peterhouse, and close to Newnham. Get off at Pembroke for King’s, Corpus and the other town centre colleges. (Do not park at Eddington itself, use the P&R site.)

Same advice if you’re coming on the train, it will go past the same colleges in reverse order.

There are not the long queues for the U as there can be for the dedicated P&R buses.

Some of the U buses go to Girton College, but not many.

The route will be changing slightly from 2 October. On weekdays the bus continues from the train station to the Biomedical Campus and back past Homerton.

Here’s a page which tells you how many spaces are available at each of the Cambridge city centre council run car parks. It says it’s updated every 2 minutes.

There are likely to be queues at peak times for the Grand Arcade (very central) car park and possibly for all the multi-storey car parks, even on a Friday.

Am just joining this thread as dd, having surprised herself with achieving an A* (Art), A (Eng Lit), A (Sociology) and A (EPQ) is now rethinking potential uni choices and looking at Oxford.

Can someone explain the college system please? Do different colleges pertain to different disciplines? Are some more arts-based than others?

Which subject does she intend to study? Not all colleges offer all subjects.

At this stage she wants to study Fine Art.

About twelve colleges offer Fine Art. The Oxford Uni website lists them. Start from there!

It's Ruskin School of Art at Oxford. Only 12% admittance rate and they highly recommend applicants do an Art Foundation course first. Grades need to be good but like most art schools it's the portfolio that counts!
Check out the thread for those pursuing creative routes on Higher Ed - I know one of the posters on that had a child accepted at Ruskin this year. Sorry can't figure out how to link it!
As mentioned by PP 12 colleges offer that course but with only about 28 students admitted a year you should look at the individual stats for each one.