Oxbridge 2024 Entry Part 4

[Lightsabre]

New thread as our dc start the rollercoaster ride of interviews.

@mummylife123 just spoken to DD who has a friend who’s got an interview for Spanish and linguistics at Oxford and had her interview today and it was nearly all (or maybe all) in Spanish. So really I think anything could happen

For Classics rather than History, but DD was asked one question about her PS (the one thing she was frantically wishing they wouldn't ask!) and nothing about her written work, everything else has been source-based. She found one particular source difficult to discuss because she thought the piece was uninspiring, even though it was the aspect she is most familiar with. The aspects that were new to her seem to have gone better, despite initial mistakes, possibly because the interviewers were friendly - rapport seems to count for a lot in how candidates feel things have gone. Interested to see what happens in the remaining two interviews.
(Edited to clarify this is for Oxford)

Wow! Guess we will just have to see, it's clearly college dependent. I think she would be absolutely fine either way- her spoken spanish is practically fluent 🤦🏻‍♀️ But she's definitely a worrier 😂 Maybe our DDs will cross paths then! I don't like to share college publically though, don't want to out her!

Well, I don’t know what to make of things after reading about all the other interview experiences. DS had his interview today (PPE). It was only the one interview and was only scheduled for 40 mins (the interviewers logged on a couple of mins late so it was more like 35 mins). He was interviewed by 4 people. He said he thought part of it went okay, but part of it was on a tricky subject and he ended up disagreeing with one of the panel and felt they really wanted him to say he agreed with them, but he didn’t so now feels he alienated them (he’s neurodiverse, so sometimes finds it difficult to appreciate another person’s point of view is as valid as his). Oh well, proud of him anyway for getting this far.

Best of luck to all DC with upcoming interviews.

Does anyone know about Cambridge 'in person' History interviews?

Ds has 'Preparation One' before his first interview on Thursday. He found a 2 year old subject college video saying there will be a source interview involving a passage(s) for reading 'with a comment and a question to help prompt the comment' and then a written assessment.
As he has done the HAA, could it be that this is indeed now just 'Preparation' or will he be writing another equivalent of a HAA (half an hour seems too short?) Should he take a highlighter and pen and annotate?

His second interview is 5 hours later(!) and has no 'Preparation' period before.

I've asked him to email to ask but if anyone has any knowledge on half hour 'Preparation'?

I've had a look at the video myself and it says the first interview is a source passage to read and prepare. Candidates are then all asked the same questions about this so the interviewers can directly compare them, followed by some general history questions.

I think the written piece discussed as taking place at the college isn't this source. Possibly it relates to written work prior to the college moving on to HAA- which most Cambridge colleges seem to do now.

Still rather nonplussed about why his two interviews are scheduled for the beginning and the end of the day.

WombatChocolate you don't have anything to suggest that candidates interviewed by the same college as your DS had interviews of a different format do you? Do you simply mean that at different colleges candidates get different formats and you think it should be one format for all? If I've got that right then I think my response would be that actually it doesn't matter, provided that all applicants at each college are given identical interviews. Each college at this stage is an individual silo.

Thanks for this. No, you’re right, it is information from those interviewed at other colleges that have had very different interviews - and theirs fit with the Faculty website suggests are the interview assessment criteria and aspects to be covered.

I would hope the same approach was used for all the candidates at DS’s college. And I get that each college is independent and decides how to do it. I suppose, it just feels as if those being interviewed in some colleges are having a very different experience and opportunity, but I take your point.

Thank you for your help. I will try not to think about it anymore, nor to look at what people say about interviews in different colleges…because it’s that which makes the experience feel so different. I do wonder though quite how they will provide an interview score for some of the aspects they assess on, given they didn’t ask anything about those aspects. But I assume they will manage…..and of course I wasn’t there to hear it all, so don’t entirely know what happened. Thanks again.

@WombatChocolate - I think @goodbyestranger is right, provided that the process is consistent at the same college it is fair. But I do understand your point of view. I guess we need to accept as parents that different colleges interview in different ways - and some other college interview styles may suit our DC better than the one they have applied to and no one had any way of knowing what that process would be before applying. A friend’s DC has realised that the college they applied to at C demanded a higher score in one of the standardised tests (non-humanities) which meant had they applied at another college for the same subject, the score they achieved meant they may have got an interview at another college - but they did apply to the one they liked best on the open day. One of my DC’s friends applied to a C college specifically because they interview in person, only to find that this year they are not….

Whatever happens, it seems a bloody long wait until Jan 9th!

I tend to think it’s luck based. Assessments, written work and grades will get you the foot in the college door. Then it’s all down to luck based on the college choice… some do one interview, some do three. Some ask the same questions of each candidate, some just ask random questions as they go along. Another college on another day may have randomly yielded a different result.

I think there is a lot of randomness in it all.

Thinking ahead to decision day - does anyone know what time they are likely to find out? Dd has mock exams straight away when they come back after Christmas and looks like she has an exam on the morning on Tuesday 9th. Am hoping she wouldn’t find out before going into the exam…

@User11010866 Oxford asks for A*s in Maths and Further Maths and an A in a third subject, so I think it’s the same A level requirement as Cambridge for Maths?

@MirandaWest it might be worth looking back at the 2023 thread for the offer day?

That is a very good idea - thank you 😃

Looks like toward the end of January although I can’t find specific dates for this year.
Dd has exams around that time and really wish they’d have finished before offers are out.

@Maggiethecat O offer day is 9th Jan. Not sure about C.

@MirandaWest last year the offer came just after 9am (about 9.15 if I remember correctly)

@MirandaWest for my dd two years ago, she got the email before 10am. She also had mocks on the day and didn’t want a rejection to put her off, so wasn’t going to check her emails till after school. But a teacher came up at lunch and said well done, so she looked then.

@mummylife123 my son has his Spanish tomorrow also. He had his beginners language interview on Monday and there was around 3 minutes of conversation. The tutors were great, put him at his ease, laid out the format at the start- interview actually ran over by 5 minutes as they were conversing! He thinks he's done ok, but the main language is still to come.

C offer day is 24 Jan

@WombatChocolate The other thing to remember is that the interviewers for History aren't really looking for "knowledge". They want to see how the candidate absorbs and interprets new information, how they respond to being questioned, whether they can take a theory or framework and apply it to a new context. This is what gives them the best idea of whether you can cope with a new 20 item reading list every week and an hour of challenging discussion in tutorials.

So a discussion about a source on Ethiopian kinship rituals or cosmogony in c16th Italian villages or whatever else they've picked this year is far more useful than going over what's in the PS or written work. The source will be new to all candidates, they are all on an equal playing field, and means you can see if a candidate is starting to think like a historian rather than someone who has been taught to pass GCSE and A Level exams.

The written work will be assessed as part of the overall scoring. And I know it's frustrating because of how much time applicants will have spent on it, but most of the tutors do not care about the contents of the PS - it's a UCAS hoop to jump through, not an Oxford one. My tutor only really looked at ours at the end of third year when he wanted ridiculous quotes to tease us about at the end of finals dinner.

@SOWK - right, 2 papers of one subject that morning and another subject the next day!

she is prone to melt downs so it won’t be an easy time.

Cambridge different then - she was asked about a specific book that she referred to in PS and other references made to her PS!

C last year was not first thing. I seem to remember late morning but guess it could be anytime. Don’t think everyone got emails/uCAS updates at the same time.

Good luck to everyone today.
Will be getting DD up shortly for round 2 and then it will be over 😅