Oxbridge 2025

[SnowFairy2000]

Let's start the journey here !!!

@Britneyfan a friend was told at their open day that whilst C can overlook GcSEs to an extent it was largely pointless to apply for Cambridge maths unless the DC was predicted A* in both maths and FM.

They just literally have the pick of the crop of excellent maths students so highest grades in all maths exams was really a minimum.

Who knows if this is actually true but their DC went to Oxford to do maths which is slightly less competitive for the subject.

Also, you do seem very anxious and invested which I totally get but just be careful that no matter how laid back he is your DS doesn’t pick up your desire and end up feeling he has let you down if he doesn’t get an offer. If he isn’t that bothered then it might be that such a high pressured environment with so many outstanding maths brains wouldn’t be where he is happiest?

@Gocompared I am aware I sound slightly (or more than slightly!) unhinged on here but honestly that says much more about my current mental state than it does about how invested I am in an Oxbridge place… I have bipolar disorder and there are a number of acute stresses currently all converging at once, including a recent unexpected death in a close family member. I’ve also been acutely unwell with COVID which always messes with my mental health. Was running a fever during the previous discussion! So I’ve been very anxious but this was really just the straw that broke the camel’s back - I would have been exactly the same I think if this was the normal UCAS deadline and I’d found something out last minute making us confused as to what to do for the best in similar circumstances. I’m feeling a lot more stable today now it’s all been sent off. At least for the time being 🤣 We went for Emmanuel in the end so let’s see.

@IThinkIMadeItWorse thanks for your advice, yes I do know about STEP etc and what a high bar it is for maths generally! We shall see. But basically just having a stab at it.

@PhotoDad that is such a crazy high bar to set for a student! And lol at getting the photo - my son would be exactly the same! Glasses 100 percent of the time and smiling!

DS has applied for Maths at Oxford. Booked the MAT the day bookings opened.

He received an email from Oxford Admission Tests on Sunday telling him they had received his UCAS form, but had he entered the MAT? If so, he needed to update his MAT with his UCAS number.

He went in and updated it on Sunday and it still says pending. The email says they check them manually so I do understand they're busy, but it's the deadline tomorrow and I'm worried it might all go wrong!

He finished his UCAS application and sent it to his school a month ago and since then it feels like constant stress! He had to change his college choice because someone else had chosen the same one. I keep waking in cold sweats about it all.

Also he hasn't received any offers yet. To be fair, his form was only submitted to UCAS by the college on Friday, but I am impatient and need an offer to settle my nerves!

Please note all the stress seems to be me. DS is relatively laid back about it! I am not stressed because I'm obsessed with Oxbridge, it's just the whole momentous life moment! Plus other things in life are stressful, so I think I'm redirecting.

@FiveFoxes sorry for all the stress (also you @Britneyfan) - the one thing I don't think you should be worrying about is receiving any offers yet. It's Monday and it went in on Friday! Give it a few weeks at least - many "top" unis won't offer until May. DC put their application in today leaving a couple of spaces blank as they're still not at all sure what they want to do where (you can only do the course they really want at Oxford and one other).

For the third choice they've put in a completely different subject to the one they really want to study and that's only vaguely nodded towards in the PS but that's for Bristol, which claimed at the Open Day they didn't look at PSes but went by grades alone, in which case dc is a shoo in. So this will be the test case ... I am praying the other choice after Oxford offers sooner rather than later, which would be such a help, but often that uni is very late to the table ... Doing this for the third time is definitely easier in having an it-will-all-work-out-for-the-best attitude but of course your dc doesn't have that perspective and you still want an easy ride for them!

There will be schools submitting forms tomorrow so i would hope as long as the admission test was booked on time Oxford would have some leigh weigh built in for matching ucas numbers with applications. Ds still says pending too. I'd be devastated for him if it all went badly because the system didn't match his ucas number.

@periodiclabel I am more impatient than worried really!

@Cubic At least we're not the only ones and I am sure it's fine. I just wish it was sorted!

@FiveFoxes Deep breathes may be required for some time to come I'm afraid. DS applied for Maths 2 years ago and Oxford was his first offer, the others came trickling in over the following couple of months which was really stressful at the time as he'd been led to believe (by over enthusiastic admissions officers) that he'd have one or two before Christmas!

@BackToWhereItAllBegan Oh!! While I wasn't actually expecting offers after a couple of days, I was under the impression that some universities offered quite quickly. I will need to learn to be patient!

Good luck to all doing tests this week! DS has his first offer (Leeds) which is way faster than expected.

My ds ucas number is now matched, hope your sorted too xxx

@PhotoDad well done to your son, that's one in the bag and hopefully some pressure off for him.

Yes, great news @PhotoDad - good luck to everyone doing tests in the next couple of weeks. Really happy the tone of this thread has stayed so kind and civil to date, never seen it before and hope it continues!

Thanks, we're going to potter around the Leeds campus during half-term (open days always clash with his other commitments...)

The ESAT test centre is literally over the road from the cathedral where he's in the choir, so he'll head straight from the afternoon sitting to rehearsal and evensong! But I'll cook him a special treat when he gets home. Hope all DC doing tests feel that they've done their best, which is all we can ask.

Best of luck to all. Congrats to @PhotoDad's DS - mine also had unconditional offers from Leeds and Bristol within 48hrs of school submitting last week - but he is grades in hand and had offers from both last year. He was holding a deferred unconditional from Durham for 2025 - but has had to withdraw and reject that in order to apply to C - that was a painful moment. He has reapplied to Durham but no guarantee of another offer - and will likely have to wait until April/May to find out either way. Bird in the hand situation - but might well have neither by the end of this process.

It took a couple of days after DS submitted his UCAS last week for the Oxford site to change from 'pending' to say it had matched.
Suprised to get 3 offers through this morning - York, Leeds and B'ham - happy DS!

My DC is in a similar position. Had applied for deferred entry last year and got her 3rd choice (C pooled her but didn't pick her up). Now she has grades in hand and so is trying O, and some others including that third choice again. She only submitted yesterday so now the wait begins! Hope she gets some speedy offers too, though her course is quite tiny so I suspect it will be a slow process.

Well done to those with offers, it's fab to have some positive feedback!

Well done to all offer-holders, it does relieve some stress... but, equally, many unis wait for ages so you can't read anything into not receiving offers quickly.

Dd received no offers at all yet but some of her friends are coming in with them - predicted 3 A* so you’d think that would be enough for one at least by now! I know they all offer at different times but she’s stressing already. Applying for MFL so not highly competitive either.

Very much depends on when the universities / departments process them - eg on arrival or all in a batch. I've heard LSE don't look at any until the Jan deadline has passed (don't know if that is true or applicable for all courses) and one of the unis my DD has applied to doesn't even acknowledge receipt until about March.
Last year my DD had only 1 offer by christmas while her peers were claiming more.
At least with Oxbridge there is a clear timeline!

Some universities offer really quickly but often the most prestigious universities don’t offer until very, very late in the cycle – sometimes not until the very last day .

Durham, UCL , LSE, St Andrews , Edinburgh, Warwick are a handful that spring to mind is being notoriously slow – but not always and it varies from course to course and also sometimes if you are eligible for a contextual offer or not.

I remember DC2 getting offers very quickly from Leeds, Newcastle and Bristol – but then I know other people who waited for ages for Leeds in particular.

I had a chat with someone socially who does admissions for a very good university, who said they nonetheless did not consider themselves top tier and therefore had to woo students with things like quick offers, in contrast a bunch of universities know they will be vastly oversubscribed and simply don’t have to bother with these tactics.

As others say, you can’t read anything into silence and shouldn’t panic

Best of luck to her. Mine didnt apply to Oxbridge last year but was over the moon with his Durham offer which was obviously his first choice - so it was hard for him to reject this now unconditional place and take to risk of rejection this time by reapplying - also the long wait for Durham will be tortorous if C doesnt pan out.

Thanks those of you offering no-offer reassurance- some of her chosen unis are the ones listed above as being slower on the whole - but it’s hard when her friends are getting offers already. York for example is one of her choices and a couple got offers almost immediately but she’s heard nothing. I think one offer before next week’s MLAT would have been nice for piece of mind.