Help with the process please, no experience

[Perzival]

Hi, My ds is doing well. He's taking maths, further maths, physics and chemistry with a*'s estimated. He goes to one of the worst state grammars but the best our area can offer.

Myself and dh didn't go down the typical paths with our qualifications. I ended up doing mine later in life via a college and he did his through work. So we have no experience an nobody in the wider family with experience either.

Ds wants to take physics and we've paid for a pat tutor every other week (all we can afford but will inc over Summer).

He wants to apply to Oxford, Durham and Warwick. We have no clue and school aren't really guiding us.

He applied for widening participation as our younger ds has very complex needs and he's classed as a young carer. We earn ok and live in a nice part of one of the poorest towns in England. He didn't get on any courses but is in a waiting list for one at Durham so fingers crossed.

We've booked the open days at Durham and Warwick and his school have organised a trip to Oxford.

What should myself and dh be doing please? Have we missed anything, is there anything we can do to help please?

Any advice would ve much appreciated as we font want to let him down and aren't too sure about what we should be doing.

Given his prospective grades and his role as a career I’d say he has an excellent chance at Oxbridge. My ds is there but he was at a boarding school for 6th form and so they organised the applications so I can’t help, sorry, but there is a specific Oxford thread and everyone is very helpful - try asking there?

@Member786488 thank you. I'll have a look for that thread- I didn't realise there was one.

Very best of luck to your son! He sounds like a very fine young man and one who will make the most of his opportunities. I am no expert on this kind of thing but I believe the University of Manchester has a very strong reputation for science, probably including Physics. That's where Brian Cox works. A friend's daughter is there and he taught one of her modules. Might be worth a look.

You don't need to go on open days everywhere before he applies as it becomes expensive, but I think going on one or two is very helpful to get a better idea of what universities are like.

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g . We live quite close to Manchester and have family in Manchester, ds1 has ruled it out as he wants to try somewhere new and have the experience of being away from home. We go into Manchester as our local town centre.

I wondered if putting down that he was a young carer would go against him at these universities? Does anyone know if this is the case please? He wouldn't be able to help as he'll be away from home during term time.

It absolutely won’t go against him. He may get a reduced offer, bursary or other support, so it’s a positive thing!

one thing I would say is have a look at the student finance calculator now, to see the loan he’ll be entitled to. If not the full amount, parents are expected to contribute. Will you be able to? conversations now about finances are much easier to have now and then he has the info to factor into his choices like getting a PT job or not.

Hi,OP -

I am a former STEM admissions tutor. I have a lot to say and will follow you. I am rushed so will postpone most of it, but I want to assure you that being classed as a young carer will work very much for your DS at the places you have mentioned, particularly coming from a poor town near Manchester.

I have decidedly mixed views on U Manchester and I understand the desire of DS to experience someplace new. But their Physics is so exceptional that if he doesn’t have an obvious 5th choice for his UCAS form it is worth a thought. It isn’t so much Brian Cox (although he is great PR) as the Graphene Institute and the 2 Nobel Prizes behind it. These have attracted a huge amount of funding and young talent. The excitement reaches right down to undergraduate level.

Best wishes to DS. Please keep posting questions

Didn’t see thst @Bunnyannesummers had already posted. She also works at university and she is a great source

Thank you both for your replies. Ds2 has a disability social worker as we have PA's as well. They've offered to put something in writing but school have said they will be doing the ref, is it worth getting the social worker letter as well and seeing if we can submit it along side it?

I'll show ds1 what you've posted @poetryandwine, thank you.

@Bunnyannesummers thank you also. We have looked and I think he will get the maximum load (earnings are good locally but not mumsnet good 😉) dh's parents have offered to help also as he's the first on both sides to get this far.

Hi, OP -

You can check and see if UCAS will accept an additional letter from the SW. If mot I would give the SW letter to the referee and ask them to both mention its existence and use its content

Must run for today. Cheers

Thank you @poetryandwine

FYI Cambridge offers upto £3,500 pa to students from poorer backgrounds. Not sure if you would qualify. I think the household income needs to be below £62,215 pa. ( They offer over £10 million pa!)

I think you may be too late for your son to apply for the Sutton Trust Summer schools but he may yet get on one of their online courses etc.

I would also look at which unis offer good disability and young carer support.

The school should have a careers adviser assigned to them and/ or a member of staff responsible for ucas. Could be worth approaching them.

There are on line mooc courses available such as future learn.

My (admittedly quite out of date) experience of applying to Oxbridge from a state school that couldn't really offer detailed advice about the process is that I turned up to my interview not really understanding the importance of the collegiate system. So I could talk loads about the course and why I wanted to do it, but I fumbled my answers to why I'd picked that particular college (the real reason was it was one of the few to accept students under 18). So my advice would be for your DS to think really carefully about what college he's applying to at Oxford, and to be able to talk enthusiastically about aspects of that college he thinks would work well for him and how he hopes to contribute to college life.

Cambridge also considers contextual offers see below and of course their website.

The University of Cambridge is committed to ensuring that we offer admission to students of the highest academic potential, irrespective of social, racial, religious and financial considerations. To achieve this, every applicant is considered individually in an holistic assessment using all the information available to us. As part of this process, the University considers additional information that provides a more complete picture of the educational and social circumstances that underpin students’ applications, academic performance, and performance in our assessments.
We believe it’s important to be transparent about the kind of information we use for this purpose and how it affects the selection process, and so this page sets out what contextual data we use in the admissions process, where they come from and how they’re appended to an application.
It should be noted that we don’t use contextual data to systematically make conditional offers at lower grades, or to make allowances for a poor academic record. This information is simply intended to provide academic assessors with the fullest possible picture of an applicant, and the context in which their achievements occurred.
We use up to three types of contextual data (where available) as a way of obtaining a more in-depth profile of an applicant:

• data on individual circumstances – whether an applicant has spent time in the care of a local authority (declared in the UCAS application), whether they have been eligible for free school meals (declared in My Cambridge Application or verified by UCAS), and any information provided in the Extenuating Circumstances Form (where submitted)
• geodemographic data – the socio-economic characteristics of an applicant’s local area, and rates of progression to higher education in an applicant’s local area
• school/college data – the GCSE performance, A Level performance, and recent history of offers to Cambridge or Oxford, of an applicant’s school/college

This is out of date now. (I have done Oxford admissions in recent years.) Oxford interviewers are not allowed to ask about college choice- many students may have applied as an open offer or been reallocated to that college. And they don’t care why a student chose a particular college anyway, or whether they will contribute to college life - selection is purely on the basis of academic merit and potential.

Choosing a college can feel like a big deal but everyone ends up thinking their own college is the best regardless of whether they applied there. About a quarter of Oxford offer-holders get an offer from a college they didn’t apply to originally. So tell DS to go round a few on the trip to Oxford, and then just go on his gut, and don’t stress if he then gets reallocated to be interviewed by a different college. Which college you choose will not affect your chances of getting in, as there are nowadays a lot of mechanisms to prevent that.

He will definitely get contextual flags for being a young carer and it will be to his advantage- his teacher should mention it in the “extenuating circumstances” part of the UCAS reference too.

It sounds like he is doing very well and you should be very proud of him.

Hi, OP -

A YP in my family did UG Physics at Warwick and really enjoyed it. With both Warwick and Durham being campus universities, is that important to DS? What other features would he like to have at his university?

He will have so many choices it is worth trying to isolate what matters to him.

Forgive me for asking, but does he know one may apply to Oxford or Cambridge, not both? That application is due in Oct but other choices can be added to the UCAS application until the Jan deadline. With Oxford and Cambridge and their individual Colleges being so rich, they offer a lot of financial aid and are able to keep residential costs down, so no one should make the mistake of thinking them unaffordable.

One thing to be aware of is that pupils who have spent their lives aiming for Oxbridge have been practising their interview technique. The admissions tutors know this and know that pupils like your DS haven’t had the same chances. But if he decides to apply, he will probably gain a lot of confidence if he reads up on Oxbridge interviews and perhaps talks with a teacher - maybe whoever is organising the trip to Oxford - about how to prepare, insofar as one can.

If Oxbridge doesn’t appeal that’s fine too. DS is a gifted young man. He should try to figure out a few places where he would thrive, and aim to attend one of them. I would not let the school railroad him into applications that are good for them, if these unis do not interest DS. Best wishes

Thank you all for your responses, I'm very grateful for them.

Ds has is aware that he can only apply to one of either Oxford or Cambridge. He has noted the dates and that he has to take an entrance exam. School are registered to let him take the exam there.

We are incredibly proud of him, we just want to make sure we support him as much as possible and don't want our lack of experience to hold him back.

Interview practise sounds like a brilliant idea thank you.

He's happy to be placed in a pool for a college. He likes Oxford and Durham because of the colleges (he ruled put Lancaster for other reasons) and Warwick he likes because of some of the work they've done. He may change his mind when he sees them.

Once again thank you all for your replies, if it's OK I may post at different stages asking for your further advice as the application process proceeds?

Do keep posting, OP. Several regulars who haven’t weighed in yet would be happy to help you with more specific questions.

Thank you

On interview technique, there is a mock interview video on the Physics department website and masses of other information on the Oxford website. Colleges and departments often also organise live mock interviews at open days or school visits.

Oxford interviewers are pretty good at spotting where someone is just demonstrating training and polish, and over-prepared candidates often fall down because they don’t actually listen and think in the interview. It is not about knowing the answers or coming across in a certain way, it’s about showing how you think when faced with a problem outside your experience or comfort zone. So by all means try to get a teacher to give him a practise interview to boost his confidence but don’t worry if it doesn’t work out.

I don't have specific advice - certainly not to the level of other contributors to the thread! - but it's worth noting that we had almost no input whatsoever to our sons' applications, other than a quick check they were meeting the closing dates.

Their school was well-versed in all aspects of the process, from the widening participation initiatives [S1 said "I knew I wouldn't get onto that [local one] when the form asked if either parent had been to university" ] to the LNAT. They both got places at Cambridge, S2 just finishing - oooh, last exam a couple of hours ago.

It sounds like your son's school is similarly on the ball, so that's reassuring. (They may need a bit of pushing over the young carer thing.)

And I second p&w's note about the affordable accommodation! Ours ended up being eligible for the full loan, and they've had no financial issues at all.

@Perzival Is there a worst state grammar in the Manchester area? I am assuming it’s not Inadequate rated!

Have you had a talk from the school about uni entrance yet? Most schools do this. All grammars are experienced in dc applying to uni annd surely this one understands the process? Has any other student been to Oxford? Is anyone else applying? Maybe you should speak to his Head of 6th form to understand what DS needs to do and when.

@TizerorFizz possibly outing but yes it was rated inadequate at it's lasted ofsted (2022 I think) and has since been taken into a trust. The school is great despite it's rating and isn't representative of our experience of the school, quite the opposite.

Ds has had 'the talk' but we've yet to have the parents version which is in a couple of weeks.

My concern is more with our lack of experience and how this will impact him. I believe it must be easier and less stressful to apply to universities such as the ones mentioned when you have or people in your circle you call on have experience of doing so or even going to them. I'm guessing that's why yp whose parents haven't attended uni are inc in wp criteria.

School will support us and guide us but I feel it's better to seek out as much information and help that we can. I don't want to let him down.

The Oxford and UCAS websites have lots of information about the specific and general processes involved.

There is a specific 'guide for parents' on the UCAS site, but you can have a look at any part of the website - even the areas for 'providers' (the universities) and 'advisors' (schools) which don't specifically say that access is restricted.

https://www.ucas.com/discover/advice-parents-guardians-and-carers