Oxbridge 2025

[SnowFairy2000]

Let's start the journey here !!!

Where the above is in bold it should read that he was previously estimated 4 a stars but one has now been refused to an'a' for his ucas. Will this hurt his application? Are all successful candidates 4 a stars or more? I know it is incredibly competitive.

No they're not. If he's doing his A levels at a specialist maths school or a top public school, there would probably be higher expectations.

Also if he's lucky enough to get an offer, it will be just be the standard STEM offer of A*AA. They make offers to 11% for fine art, physics, law & PPE, 9% for maths, 8% for biomed & medicine, 5% for CS and econ & mgmt. Not so bad compared to others really!

Thank you, I wish this was an easier process to navigate.

There is so much info on the university websites and lots of ideas for activities they can do & books they can read.

I think DD would advise anyone to find a college they like the look of (she picked hers because she could play tennis there & she thought the students on the open day sounded normal!) stick in an application and see if they like you. She had no real interview practice as her school gave her a practice interview with a politics grad from Oxford Brookes who only asked her about her tennis coaching job. No tutoring, just a few practice TSA papers and a book we passed on to someone last year. No expectations.

We didn’t pay for anything extra for interview prep or admission tests - DS didn’t even know about a book for the TSA and prepped using past papers. Neither DC felt school practice interviews were that relevant or useful. There are better example interviews online. As has been said above, there is so much stuff available from both unis online that you really don’t need to look elsewhere. My DC just gave it a go - it isn’t a time consuming or difficult process and it’s all done and dusted by mid January.

I think that it's important to remind applicants that the Oxbridge admissions tests, and then (fingers crossed) the interviews, will be really hard and they are likely to come out of them thinking they've messed things up and failed to answer questions properly. These are kids who are used to getting top marks in exams! There is zero point in the admissions tutors calling people in for a nice friendly chat, or setting exams where everyone scores highly.

My own Oxford interview was the first of the day for a STEM subject. I was asked to sketch a graph on a whiteboard and was accidentally given a permanent marker, which messed the board up for the rest of the day! It was very stressful, the interviewer was apologetic, and I sometimes think I was let in out of sympathy.

I think this is very good advice.

I also remember my Oxford interview vividly, even though it was 30 years ago, and nothing very dramatic happened.

DD will have mock interviews at college, and has been looking at YouTube resources etc but won't have any paid-for preparation. They did a mock interview at the open day talks in the summer, which I think she found helpful to see.

Can anyone recommend any good online resources to help with history PS.
Should my DS be subscribing with The Student Room etc?

I may have already recommended this, but for state school pupils there is Oxbridge Launchpad which is free.

DD used it a few years ago. She was allocated a Mentor who was a 2nd year studying her chosen subject. The Mentor gave her PS a look over and also did a couple of practice interviews which were actually realistic.

If anyone is interested the website is www.oxbridgelaunchpad.com/

Thank you @whiteroseredrose - I will pass on that info.

How are others getting on with the PS?

Mine has a loose draft that they will send to their school on Monday for review IMHO it has quite a long way to go - but maybe I am over thinking it as he is applying with top grades in hand?

Think will worry about college selection once the PS is pinned down.

Anyone know when your hear from Cambridge if you ahve been selected for interview and when these are likely to be held?

My Dd has to get hers in by this week. She’s almost finished it, just final tweaks after getting two teachers to look over it at school and a thorough edit to keep it within the character limit!

re the Oxford launchpad mentors, DD’s has totally disappeared! She was great up until the summer holidays but hasn’t responded to DD’s messages since so not sure if it’s luck of the draw but she’s felt a bit let down by hers. Shame as should have been a really helpful platform.

Interview offers go out during November for interviews in December!
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/application-dates-deadlines

DS' personal statement is going into Draft Three this weekend, he's hoping to get everything submitted early next week (just ahead of the school deadline).

Dc3 has finally submitted the personal statement, thank God, because it’s such a painful process. They’ve decided to do an open application to Oxford – their subject is only offered by a handful of colleges and they are such an anxious child, they’ve decided that picking one would be too overwhelming and if they didn’t get in, they might blame it on the wrong choice of college. Can anyone think of any reasons why an open application is not a good idea? Their school was against it saying another pupil might be applying to the same college they ended up being allocated but since no one else is applying for this subject, I can’t see why that would matter. They're at a school that sends a handful to Oxbridge every year ie it’s not Westminster or Hills Road or one of those places.

I think that the only issue might be that your DC might be assigned to a college which historically has a bad track record for state/private school admission ratios. That could be either way around! And of course the colleges would deny that they have any bias; a lot of the admission stats are due to self-fulfilling prophecies.

How do Oxbridge categorise a student who was private for GCSE and then state for A level?

The statistics track the school they are at when they apply, so "state." Contextual data (for unis which use that) tracks GCSE school. (At least, unless things have changed lately.) Admissions tutors will of course see the whole "education" section of the UCAS form!

Thanks @PhotoDad - so is the contextual data for GCSE only ie where you ranked amongst your peers in a specific environment?

If you are grades in hand would they also consider your A level results in a contextual capacity?

I've been out of the loop for a while (I'm gradually wriggling out of work commitments as I near retirement but I used to do a lot of UCAS stuff).

Current Oxford info is here. Each uni does its own thing, though.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data

thanks, I would see it as a self-fulfilling prophecy and think on the state- private it’s best probably just not to even go there in terms of analysis… there isn’t a single college that I’m aware of where it’s 100% state or 100% private so a few must slip through the net either way

There is absolutely no downside to an open application. Schools often have a deep-seated belief that colleges don’t want to admit more than one applicant from a given school but admissions tutors don’t care in the slightest.

And this must be a myth if Westminster get 90 in every year - not enough colleges between Oxbridge to spread them out! Also cant imagine the parents from Eton etc being told what to do ... "No you cant apply to Trinity because Jonny Big Pants bagged that first you need to apply to Lucy Cavendish".... as if.

I can completely see why it could be a problem with two people from the same school applied to the same college for the same subject, but since this isn’t the case I agree!

Actually I have heard anecdotally that the big schools buy to some extent into this myth and try to spread out their applicants for the same subject. Though perhaps it’s more to do with mitigating the awkwardness in class afterwards when some people get in and others don’t. As you say, if I was paying that much per year for my kid’s education I’d expect them to be able to choose whatever college they liked the look of!

Across different subjects there is literally no point thinking about it. If I’m the English tutor I’m not going to be seeking out the Physics tutors in the middle of admissions to say “hey, you guys aren’t planning to admit anyone from school X, are you? Well could you not please because I want to.” Each subject will be operating independently and will not be comparing notes.

@periodiclabel I dont think there's a problem with an open application. We went round several colleges all of which had pluses and minuses. It was very confusing.

DS just wanted to go to Oxford for the teaching method, which college was less important. So he put in an open application. He was very happy with the college he went to - as are most students when they get there.