Oxbridge 2025

[SnowFairy2000]

Let's start the journey here !!!

@sunnycoldday true. Our school has v high FSM, very low socioeconomic scores, so we do things a bit differently to a nice leafy grammar school. We also have a fantastic relationship with our outreach college who are great with advice and support. So we play the game our way. Probably not the same way Eton do.

Yes, no topics problem I guess.

https://www.uniq.ox.ac.uk/

Any state school applicants who may tick some widening participation boxes, please take a look at this. DD was fortunate to get a place on the PPE residential. It gave her a true flavour of what the tutorial system would be like & supported her with TSA practice. She also went on an interview workshop after the TSA. Everything was funded and it have her plenty total about in her personal statement.

It's a brilliant scheme. Thoroughly recommend it too

@HewasH2O is there any hope of getting on it if you don't tick the widening participation boxes?

In DD's year only 1/7 were successful. They do shuffle participants around though, so you can put down several choices. There is a lot of info on the website about how they offer places, but you must be at a state school, as it's a WP scheme.

DD met postcode criteria. The deadline is midday on 23rd. Get your DC to apply this weekend or they will never know if they could get a place @Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky .

Do consider the various essay competitions including Woolf Essay writing competition (girls only), assuming a new date will be announced soon:

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/events/newnham-college-woolf-essay-prize

other colleges (not just for girls) doing competitions are varied incidung:

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/events/fitzwilliam-college-essay-competitions-2024

DD entered one, got a prize, got into the college awarding the prize. Got an award winners day at the college and fell in love with it. Loving her time now at that very same college. The essay competitions often include science subjects and not just what you think of as traditional essay topics.

School told us that with least disadvantaged polar and acorn and no other contextual it was a complete waste of time applying for uniq. Which is fair enough.

DC has been on a masterclass as linked above, would recommend.

With UNIQ, where you are in the country may have an influence. We are in a mid ranking postcode for both scales with no other criteria, but not many people from the area go to Oxbridge. DD got a place on a residential course and found it very useful. Upthread someone mentioned Opportunity Oxford; this isn't something you apply to, you're signed up to it by the university when they make an offer. DD is on this too, which was a surprise, but will be highly beneficial. There are any number of taster courses run by the colleges and departments, as well as college outreach links with different regions, so well worth researching.

I couldn't work out how to find the ranking on Acorn despite registering

Free webinar:
:https://www.caths.cam.ac.uk/outreach/year-12-to-13-webinar-series

We were in this position a few years ago. DD used Oxbridge Launchpad which offers a free mentor service for state school pupils.

www.oxbridgelaunchpad.com/mentoring-scheme

DD's mentor read through and commented on her personal statement and did a practice interview which was really helpful.

@Cubic DS was an Oxford Physicist. Happy to answer questions if it would be useful.

We have done it. I doubt she will get it but you never know. The only contextual thing she may have is that her dad is unemployed. We are in Polar 4 classification based on postcode.

@whiteroseredrose that's very kind of you, thank you.

The main questions at the moment are around the pat and the best way to tackle it. Ds is at a state grammar but no pat support in school.

@Cubic. We actually used a tutor. We figured that the PAT would be the most important thing for interview selection, and that the private schools would offer it so we wanted to be on an equal footing.

Also state grammar so we hadn't spent any money on education previously. DS loved the tutorials, he came out absolutely buzzing. The tutor is in north Lancashire but did some online tutorials too.

That was a few years ago. I think there is more on the Oxford Physics website about the PAT test than there used to be so that could be a starting point.

DS’s school has received no Oxbridge offers this year. That’s very bad as historically at least 3 kids each year go to Oxbridge.

Changes to Cambridge STEM application tests outlined here: https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/26964

i.e. University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) instead of the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) and

Joint Engineering and Science Admissions Test (ESAT) rather than the Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA) and the Engineering Admissions Assessment (ENGAA) - there will also be a cost where there wasn't previously.

My DS has just completed the Christ's College (Cambridge) Open Day (a day of online presentations followed by a visit in person). The online stuff was excellent and really gave a good impression of the college. DH took him to the in person open day and they had a chance to speak to an admissions advisor. Think DS is going to go ahead and start the applications process (though he'll probably choose a different college - not Christ's). He attends state school in Scotland. No real encouragement from the school to go for Oxbridge and minimal extra support in terms of the application process 🤐but we have a family member who attended 20 years ago who might be able to support him a bit.

Applications for the Newnham College Y12 Essay Writing Masterclass Programme in Humanities & Social Sciences are open to UK women until March 11th. Attend webinars, a supervision, and receive feedback on your work! Apply here: https://cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bKmfiJafTIzemPA 
#oxbridge #cambridge

Thanks @PettsWoodParadise my daughter meets a lot of the widening participation criteria and this is very helpful for her.

Just on a couple of points from up the thread:

Cambridge MML is not as literature-heavy as it used to be (although it's still quite literature heavy) and anecdotally also not as literature-heavy as Oxford. I did it 30 years ago, first DS is doing it now and there are more cultural and linguistics options available than there were, as well as the possibility of learning a third language in fourth year.

Also, someone said there aren't inter-collegiate admissions other than "the summer pool"? The winter pool gives offers to quite a lot of candidates to colleges they didn't apply for...

Stating the obvious, but it's necessary to dripfeed prep for applications early on to allow for teenager priorities and other commitments. Back in September, DD was a little light on personal statement content for the MFL part of her course and not really making much effort to do more. I found a podcast of recommended films, including one that directly linked to her history A-level, the topic of her MFL presentation, and an outside interest, and was apparently one of the best films of all time to boot. Met with the usual teenage scorn; what did I know and why was I interfering? This week DD says, "there's this film I really want to watch..."

@TenSheds which film is this? Also have an MFL applicant who probably needs to have more ‘out of school’ stuff to list… has a PT job which takes up a lot of time so films are good as take less time to fit in 😃

DS 2 considering engineering at Cambridge. He’s at a very well thought of state school but it’s requiring improvement at the moment so not sure how that will affect things re contextual offers.
He went to a full day application conference at Haydock race course last week. Students, tutors and admission people were there to offer advice and
answer questions particularly about PS and entrance exams like STEP. They also did some mock lectures in various subjects to give students an idea of what to expect. If anyone is in the north west and interested they do these several times a year.
School is taking them to Cambridge in July for an open day. Obviously this all depends on summer mock results so it’s all academic at the moment…