Oxbridge 2024 Entry Part 5

[YouOKHun]

Good Luck everyone whatever the outcome!

@goodbyestranger I agree, @Tindrum ’s description does not match my DC experience of O at all either.

It doesn't surprise me. I would expect it would be harder to get a first at Oxford where I imagine there is a lot of competition, as opposed to Leeds where the spread of achievement is likely to be a lot wider.

Getting a first is supposed to be the small end of a bell curve .

Which is why I side-eye Imperial giving nearly half their entire cohort for one year a first.

@goodbyestranger Doesn't a first also matter for further studies (masters, PhDs etc)? Genuine question as this is my eldest and I studied abroad so have no idea about how it works.

@WriterOfWrongs Imperial obviously doesn’t follow the bell curve

A first will help if your DC wants to do postgrad at Oxbridge but very few Oxbridge postgrad courses make offers contingent on a first. I think the BCL is an honourable exception. Usually you need to be predicted a first if you're applying in your final year but the offer will be for a 68, 67, 66 or whatever, for the vast majority of subjects. Obviously better to get a first and more critical possibly if you're applying after graduating. But you know, students at Oxbridge get firsts too, just not quite so many as in some other institutions.

Tbh that's correct for Masters', less so for DPhils/ PhDs.

I didn’t mean the general bell curve, I meant it should have its own.

I wonder whether it’s something that will lure overseas students (and their money) into choosing Imperial over Oxford.

Just coming on to say that there is all sorts of people and all sorts of varieties of experience at Oxford and at Cambridge. All sorts of students too. The vast majority manage to get decent 2:1s after three years of it. Your average student is bright but not a genius.

There are people who work really really hard and make it their focus. There are people whose main interest is their choir/rowing/directing plays/doing journalism and they keep their work going as much as they need to make a respectable fist of it.

There are people whose main friends are outside college across the whole uni, people who make their best friends in their staircase in the first term and stick together for ever after.

It's not like boarding school though. No one tells you to get up and go to your lectures. Or checks up on you. In my day the role of the director of studies was so laid back as to be almost horizontal. He fixed my supervisions for the term and that was it. No one told me how to understand the lecture list or how to approach work. Guess it may be different now but Imagine kids still have to work a lot out themselves.

I have been wondering whether I'd encourage my eldest to apply in a couple of years. I guess she's the right level academically. I think it suits kids who are reasonably resilient and whose self worth is not entirely based on being the best all the time. And who have an enquiring mind and like to think and talk about things.

When I got to Cambridge I became a very ordinary student indeed - one of many many ordinarily bright kids headed for a 2:1. It was good - from big fish in small pond at school to tiny minnow in great big lake at cambridge. It relieved me rapidly of various narcissistic fantasies I had about myself which was def a good thing.

I also have had the experience of being both rejected and accepted - applied to oxford first and didn't get in not least as was way too immature for it really. I was totally gutted as had my heart set on it.
After a while the gutted feelings abated and I decided to work hard for a level and the apply again.

Applied to cambridge the following year and was accepted.

This might be something for DCs who didn't get into oxford to consider in the fullness of time. Just cos you didn't get an offer doesn't mean you might not next time around. Nothing is set in stone and if you want to go to Oxbridge - have another try if your results are good.

Could the extremely high first rate at Imperial be partly due to the largely scientific degrees it offers. Much harder to get 70%+ for essay based papers.

This could have been written about my DD as well (physics O). To the point where I though she might drop out in her second term. But she hung on in and I think in the long run it will have been good for her, she's learnt a lot of resilience.

That said, she's worked out how to make it work for her now (in second year). STEM students definitely have a lot of work, but she has time for three set social activities a week, plus a few nights with friends, so does have fun, but definitely agree not as much as elsewhere. And as others have said, there's lots of socialising between colleges.

So this does make my feelings mixed for my DS, waiting to hear from C. I would love him to get an offer, as I hate the idea of him being disappointed, or feeling like he's not good enough. Especially as he's already gone through a lot of real crap stuff already. But I do genuinely think he might be happier somewhere else. Although that's maybe just me trying to prepare for a rejection. As you can see, I'm tying myself in knots. Given what I decide to wish for won't make any difference, maybe I should try not thinking about it til 24th!

Yes definitely.

But still, I imagine they’ll have to bump the difficulty up unless they are happy with nearly 50% firsts.

All the UK universities are luring overseas students as they pay more fees. (interesting news that O gives 177 offers to Chinese applicants and M I T only 3).

@goodbyestranger Very clear thanks (although I had to google BCL 😉 )
We have plenty of time obviously and many things can happen in the meantime but I’m a planner and I like to understand the rules of the game!

Yes I know.

Do you mean MIT in the US?

That's far lower than I'd have thought @User11010866 - what's your source?

Assuming you are talking about the US one (there is an MIT in Manchester), the figures here suggest it's much higher iso.mit.edu/about-iso/statistics/international-student-statistics-2019-2020/

The table showing MIT taking a third of their international students from China looks much more likely

Curious to see so many Mongolians and Albanians. Not sure why particularly though

Most of the offers were from the schools in US. For the MIT early action this year, only three offers ( two IMO gold medalists and one in the US informatics Olympiad team)

Only three from mainland China.

But Early places are only a small portion of the places surely

EA of MIT takes more than half of the admittance. The 54 in the upper link is the total number of undergraduates. The total recruitments by the US top 10 universities each year from China is less than the number of Oxford.

@HeartstringsLily, I've sent you a PM.

I am laughing at the idea that Imperial is too easy so everyone gets a first. My DC at Imperial said they are reviewing why so many fail Year 2 on his course. His degree is fiendishly difficult and those students work very hard.

Wait until the Imperial offers come in soon. There will be threads from parents who’s DC turn down the offer because the courses are so grueling.

I agree that 50% firsts raises eyebrows. I suspect it has more to do with the final year(s) of the course being weighted disproportionately to the first two years. The final years are more about independent work, and I suspect at that point 50% do outstanding projects. I think many DC scrape through the first two years (I also accept the possibility that this is the nonsense DC tells us to explain his rather uninspired results 🤣 and justify our continued financial support).

More and more employers are doing blind recruitment.

And the upshot for many is that they end up with more Oxbridge graduates than before, regardless of the stats for the firsts.