University Offers Coming In 23/4 - part 2!

[WombatChocolate]

Following on from the old thread which was getting full….come and share the highs and lows of the journey that is A Levels and UCAS!

Mine hadn’t applied to Oxbridge but the obsession about it on this site is beyond weird. I am in a professional role and mix with a lot of professionals including some Oxbridge alumni and no one I know gives one shiny shit about what university someone went to and the people I do know who went to Oxbridge don’t make out they are any better than anyone else. There’s so much more about someone being a decent candidate, student, employee or person than whether they went to Oxbridge or not.

Anyway back to the point. Still waiting to hear from Glasgow and Edinburgh for maths and computing joint honours, but at least he has an unconditional in the bag for what he thinks is his preferred course and Uni. He’s checked out of school mentally though, it’ll be a shock if the others come back with conditional offers. 😂

Gosh how has he got an unconditional without grades in hand. I don't think I've heard of that before?

Must be a nightmare to stay on focus if that happens?

sorry - he does have grades in hand as we are in Scotland so he’s got his highers.

It's me I misunderstood what you were saying!

Sorry for the late reply. I'm not sure even one exists either for last year.

Ah no worries, thanks for getting back to me!!

Mine hadn’t applied to Oxbridge but the obsession about it on this site is beyond weird.

Mine hadn't applied to Oxbridge either, and my other DC is too young to have done so, but I get the obsession with Oxbridge on this site.

The enormous amount of prep and consideration + motivated, engaged, mostly middle class parents = a lot of analysis.

With all the extra tests you have to do as an Oxbridge applicant and the amount of transparency Oxbridge provide in providing results and the sheer number of colleges, there is a lot of data to obsess over.

The Oxbridge threads are a long MN tradition (I've been here since at least 2007 on and off) and they've always seemed great, if sometimes over very involved. I've admired the camaraderie and focus and am considering grooming DC2 to apply in a few years just to be on the threads . (That's a joke, for the avoidance of doubt.)

So I get it that after going through all that, you are going to be very proud or upset and it's a greater adjustment than coming to terms with a no from a different university where you don't have to jump through extra hoops and prepare for it for a sustained period of time.

The obsession on this board I personally don't get - and I'm NOT talking about anyone on this thread! - is how some posters are about London universities, particularly LSE and Imperial, with not sometimes accepting that London isn't a good fit for many, including those who live in London and want to go elsewhere. It's an insistence that a few London unis are just as good as Oxbridge, but if those posters accept that Oxbridge isn't a good fit for people and isn't the be-all and end-all, then they have to accept the same is true for London. It then becomes very much about Oxbridge and London (or Oxbridge versus London) with not much consideration for the fact that other universities aren't second or third best in the scheme of things on an individual basis, because ultimately what is best is what suits the individual.

I say this partly because on a subject specific offers thread I'm on, someone came on and asked why no one had applied for LSE when it's the best, missing that at least two people had, and then extolling its virtues as a university when no one asked. If someone had done that for Oxford, they'd have rightly been given short shrift.

I feel for @MrsFloof and I hope she stays. I agree her comment on here about earning potential was crass and not suitable for here at this point in time, but looking at her other posts, she was extremely considerate and sweet to people who had Oxford rejections, and I don't really see her crowing about things on several threads.

I also feel for all the other Oxford unsuccessful applicants and even some of the successful ones, because whether the process is fair or not is being picked over and discussed.

This!

My son (last of four) is currently waiting for offers but refused point blank to apply to Oxbridge or Durham where I work 🤣 and I certainly wasn't bothered by that. None of his siblings did either as they were not good for/didn't offer their chosen subjects.

He picked his university choices mainly by how good it was for his subject interest and for their research in the discipline as he wants to work as a research scientist. Aberystwyth is one of his top options as they are particularly good but hardly ever warrant a mention on here!

I am still nervously waiting for his offers to come in though!

The obsession on this board I personally don't get - and I'm NOT talking about anyone on this thread! - is how some posters are about London universities, particularly LSE and Imperial, with not sometimes accepting that London isn't a good fit for many, including those who live in London and want to go elsewhere. It's an insistence that a few London unis are just as good as Oxbridge, but if those posters accept that Oxbridge isn't a good fit for people and isn't the be-all and end-all, then they have to accept the same is true for London. It then becomes very much about Oxbridge and London (or Oxbridge versus London) with not much consideration for the fact that other universities aren't second or third best in the scheme of things on an individual basis, because ultimately what is best is what suits the individual.

This made me smile, my son has had London as his dream because he has spent his life jealous of cousins who have grown up there. His cousins are desperate to get out! At Christmas we had a family meal where my son was categorically told he was mad by his eldest cousin for wanting London over 'up North' where it is so much cheaper!

I think you are right about STEM courses and Imperial definitely. Some of those courses seem harder to get into than Oxbridge.

@lifeturnsonadime I'm so glad then that your DS is very likely to achieve his dream of living in London via university!

My DD was born in a central London hospital and has spent her life living in walking distance to at least one of the London universities named on here. She has always been adamant that she wanted to go to university elsewhere, no matter how good the course she wants to do is at a university in London.

Do spare a thought for me though, because whilst not wanting London, my very London-centric child - and to be fair this is more to do with her autism - also wasn't keen on looking at a certain Northern university because she didn't like the regional accent I pushed her to go outside her comfort zone by going to certain open days and she happily applied to several Northern universities, and has had an offer from one so far.

Yes some courses at Imperial are possibly harder to get into than Oxbridge, but my general point is that it may not suit certain people and students shouldn't feel pressured to apply to places just because they're 'the best'.

@Mytholmroyd fingers crossed for your son and Aberystwyth!

Oh gosh I hadn't thought about the accent being an issue @WriterOfWrongs !

It's natural though, for DC to want their university experience to be different from the one they have grown up with.

I personally would have preferred DS to look at campus universities, but they have to make their own choices ultimately. London is an itch my son needs to scratch and I get it.

After having jokingly said I'd like to be on the Oxbridge threads in the future, I take it back. A tad too much preciousness, self-focus and sour grapes at results time by a few, year in year out.

And @TooOldForThisNonsense is right, no one really cares where you went to university in the (non-academia) workplace these days.

The 'have's and have not's' really come out. For goodness sake people. All of our kids are brilliant. They are all aiming for university!

If there are any people with DC who have been redirected from Oxford (and in the future from Cambridge) then feel free to also come along to this thread I’ve started

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/4982835-redirected-from-oxford-and-cambridge-2024?reply=132178994

I will stay on this thread too (as I am hoping DD gets some other offers!) but for specific post Oxbridge pondering the other thread is there too

I have just found this thread, my DS has 3 out of 5 offers so far. Waiting for Exeter and Manchester, have offers from reading, Southampton and York.
so far we only have one offer holder day invite but we're keen to look at York as it's the only place we didn't get to for an open day.

Just to illustrate what has been said about a good fit or not.
Dd1 was supper keen on London. Only a week before the deadline she thought she ought to apply for Oxbridge as well. Didn't get in, and no, it's not sour grapes, she wasn't fust about the rejection. She really really wanted LSE.
Seeing how she is enjoying London I think Oxbridge wouldn't have suited her.

Dd2 hates the thought of London or any other big city. Will be terrible upset if she doesn't get in to C...

Well done to your DS on his unconditional

My DD has 4 unconditionals and too has checked out of school. Prelims this week and next and she has barely revised anything

Hope your DS hears Back from Glasgow and Edinburgh soon

DS finally received an offer for Bath mechanical engineering, he does 4 A levels and it's a pretty good offer (unexpected) compared to all the other offers (A star AA or Astar Astar A). Might well be his insurance choice.

Hey all. Just found this thread and as we are new to this am hoping someone here can help.
DD has been rejected for her 2 preferred options, and was really upset last night 😒
She has 3 more in the pipeline which require interview/psychometric test/video. But she is now asking what if all 5 are rejected before she sits her A-levels, it could mean she loses motivation.
Does anyone know what would happen in this scenario? Does she get another chance to choose different courses with a different deadline?
She will ask at college on Monday but this is currently hanging over her like a cloud 🙁

@lazylittlelucy i might be wrong here so hopefully someone else will be along to say. As far as I know if you have no offers then UCAS extra opens up at some point and you can apply to further universities (I think one at a time) through that and then of course there is clearing once you have your results. Failing that can take a gap year and reapply next year.

Thanks. That is largely what she concluded last night so was just wondering if we were missing anything or if there was another way.
Think she was upset mainly because she has never been rejected for anything before - has sailed through her education and life in general with no hiccups.
I personally think it's no bad thing to take a year off and apply later or possibly go via apprenticeship/training route. She wants to be a paramedic, this is all she has ever wanted since she was about 5

Yes you can apply for something else through Extra - exactly what my DD did two years ago. You just have to apply to one course at a time and wait for offer or rejection. It all worked out for the best for her and she had an offer she was excited about by April then focussed on her exams.

Think you're right there Light. Two of the courses my DC has applied to have higher offer grades and lower statistical offer rates than the equivalent course at Oxbridge or London unis. It's funny how where you live can affect a student's perception of where they would consider going.

Hi, if anyone is worried about cost of living in London, DS has friends at UCL and LSE and they go to the Hare Krishna cafe fairly frequently where it's free food all day. Also, there is an App called 'Too Good to Go' where loads of cafes / food retailers sell off food at a fraction of the price at the end of the day. We live in central London and when my kids are home, they often come home with bags of sandwiches, bread, curries and all kinds of things they picked up for a few quid after 6pm.