Current Oxford/Cambridge students support/chat continued (2)

[Panicmode1]

The other thread is nearly full so I took the liberty of starting a new one...

Lol @PettsWoodParadise I remember collecting 1st year DD the night after the Snowball. She had had one hour's sleep. It was a VERY quiet journey home.

Not sure if DD is planning on going this year. She is having a bit of a flap about getting work done. However, she still managed to go and stay with her bf over the weekend - they alternate weekends during his terms as he is now a teacher in a boarding school. She is going to a concert with him & his parents in the Royal Albert Hall the week before Christmas, then getting a train home on 22nd, so I'm envious of all of you with yours home for weeks.

In other news, DD2 has a job interview tomorrow. Typically, she can't even remember applying for it, but she must have done a reasonable job, so she's catching a train and staying in a Premier Inn close to the venue overnight tonight. 18 months ago she would never have had the confidence to do it, so I'm really proud of her for showing some gumption.

Best of luck to your DD @Malbecfan - hope it goes well. (DS has an interview today too - for an internship this summer. It is with a company he was going to do work experience with in Y12, but the pandemic put paid to that.)

Best of luck to mini @Malbecfan

I have DD at home for Thursday and Friday and then will drive her back to Oxford where we'll have tea with DS1.

We won't have DS1 back until quite late (maybe 22nd) as MChem terms run late. DS2 flies back to the UK on 23 December! But he will have had a couple of breaks for midterm and Thanksgiving. He's been 'adopted' for Thanksgiving by a friend's family in Philadelphia.

All 8/9, 9 GCSes, two A stars and and A plus A star at EPQ.

Oh, and had to do one of the university entrance papers.

Good luck to DD2 Malbec.

DD4 also mid interviews. She did an internship in London over the summer but that only helps to skip a couple of preliminary stages - although that's very helpful tbh. She's applying for several very different things. Not heaps of applications overall though, so hopefully one or other will come through. She's very keen to go straight to London and not have a year off.

Good luck to your DC for their interviews @Malbecfan and @Panicmode1.

And good luck to DD4 too@goodbyestranger .

One of the main issues with collecting a DC who has been on the razz the previous night is that nothing seems to be packed. Mind you, this insistence on collecting at 10am was always a pious hope on the part of the college authorities. The journey took around three hours from Devon (sometimes much longer esp if there were issues on the A34). I was never quite sure why the colleges couldn't adjust for the parents who didn't live in London or the South East so tweaked it myself. No-one ever seemed to care.

Cheers ofteninaspin :) Think expectations are very low for the one she had a few days ago....

Thank you @ofteninaspin and good luck to your DD @goodbyestranger

(It's not just after a ball I find the packing lacking...I turned up at the prearranged time to bring DS home at the end of the year, and half his room was not packed!! I had to sit on double yellows on the hazard indicators for about an hour watching for wardens whilst he finished!)

Hope all of the Snowballers have a ball 😉🤣 and recover quickly to enjoy the Christmas festivities....I can't believe how fast we are hurtling towards the end of term now.

Thank you @goodbyestranger for the pick up insights, you always have so much insight it is really invaluable. Good luck also to your DD4 in their interviews, do keep us posted.

@Malbecfan good to know that post-frivolity lack of sleep on such an occassion is not unusual! Good luck to your DD2 for their interview.

@Panicmode1 I hope your DS gets the internship they want. DD is half thinking about opportunities for summer, but with the play is just too busy to even consider it, I think a position in the summer end of Y2 and before start of Y3 is also more normal perhaps? I don't really know.

Safe travels to @HoneyMobster 's DS as he crosses the pond later this year, but not before he enjoys a Thanksgiving in the US.

Good luck to everyone's DC with a pending interview. Hope they go really well.

@Panicmode1, one end of term, DS2 and I turned up to collect DS1 and he'd not even begun to pack! DS2 and I then packed for him, at high speed but we laugh about this now!

DS1 - continuing his laid back attitude, is still waiting to hear back from his law course about whether they'll accept the latest letter and grades transcript from his college (still no degree certificate forthcoming) and allow him to continue on his course - or not. There are 6 days left until the deadline....Gulp.

Meanwhile, DS1 and DS2 are doing another round of TC and Vac Scheme applications alongside their law course. DS2 continues to miss Oxford a lot and I wish he'd stayed on another year to do a Masters, as I'd encouraged him but he was so keen to progress into a city career. However, with the odds stacked against getting a TC, it could be years before this transpires. Thankfully, both DCs are enjoying their law conversion Masters courses in the meantime.

Thanks @PettsWoodParadise - DS has to have completed an internship by the end of Y2 (I think) with a prescribed (engineering) firm...he tried (rather half heartedly) for last summer vac but he didn't really try hugely hard, and it seemed that most firms wanted second or third years who are more useful, having had some lab time and a bit more experience by then.

Fingers crossed one of his applications come good - he has another interview in Oxford on the 1st Dec - so is meeting DH in London the day before to give him his suitcase for when he comes home, then heading back to C, going to Oxford in the morning of the 1st having the interview, heading back to C for a boat club dinner in college before whizzing to LHR for the following morning to fly out for Varsity ski trip...I hope he makes the flight....! I'm tired just typing all of that.....

I'm going to send DH next summer vac @mutterphore! He would FREAK if DS did that...😂

Thank you all so much. DD2 seemed to quite enjoy the experience. She spent her first term being a bit gutted that she didn't get into C but has made the most of the opportunities her current uni has offered. She isn't sure whether to get a job or apply for a PhD. My attitude is to see what comes up. DD1 was in the same position at the end of her Masters and took the PhD route.

Best of luck to everyone else's DC applying. @goodbyestranger you'll have to message me with what your DD4 is planning to do. Bake Off is beckoning...

Haha I'm watching the sausage roll judging as I type Malbec :)

DS is also deep into applications and expending a lot of energy on rounds of tests and interviews. He has 2 good internships behind him but it seems very competitive breaking into the field he wants to be in. He's very keen on securing an offer before Christmas break.

Good luck to your DS @beeswain. I hope he secures an offer soon in his chosen field.

Happy Bridgemas! Hope the wind down to end of term, internship hunts, job hunts are going well for all your YP. This time next week and DD will be home.

DS is meeting friends for a Bridgemas lunch and secret Santa. I can't believe there's only a week left of Michaelmas, it seems to have gone really quickly.

DD4 has spent the morning somewhere at the other end of Cowley to get an -x-ray having finally gone to the doctor with an injured wrist (went over her handlebars early this week - doctor suspects a fracture). But after a two hour wait in the empty waiting room they said they couldn't do the x-ray due to the doctor not having actually signed the authorisation exactly right. She's so short of time atm she said she's not going to hang around in the JR so she'll go back to nursing it herself. It's an obvious problem for rowing but she says at least the river is red flagged for now. She's had two interviews this week, one involved a full day getting to London and back (hurrying back for the Oxmas Ball). Then there was another on Friday morning starting at 8am urgh.

Hey parents of current Oxbridgers! Any of your kids at Cambridge doing HSPS? I just saw over in WIWIKAU that it's possible that applicants will be given a written text and/or pictures to analyse during their interview. Nothing about this on any of the official (snd unofficial) YouTube videos about HSPS. If so, what kind of pictures? My DDs interview is in a couple weeks. Thanks.

Parent of PBS student here but similar interview component last year. DC was shown a statistical graph and was asked what could be inferred from it.

@TravellingLightToday ah ok. I was imagining a photo of some disaster but a graph or map makes sense.