Can Anyone Recommend an ELAT Tutor?

[FirstChildtoUni]

Hi there,
Hope someone can help please?
Dc is thinking of applying to Oxford or Cambridge for 2025 entry, English Literature, and has asked if I can get them some tutoring to prepare for ELAT.

I'm completely clueless so would have to take my chance with googling a tutor, so if anyone has experience and could recommend a tutor, I'd be very grateful!

Many thanks!

Oxford is not using the ELAT for the next admissions round: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/about-oxford-english-literature-admissions-test-elat

Cambridge will be using their test though.

Thanks for responding. I think dc is keen for some support for a Cambridge admissions test (teachers at school don't seem to have experience of this).

DD is a current English Literature undergraduate at Cambridge. I can’t make suggestions as she did all the research herself as it was what she was aiming for. It wasn’t called the ELAT last year iirc, more an admissions test, submission of some past school work and separate interview and think she found some test examples, read widely and just went for it.

Cambridge, each college and each faculty do put a lot of information on their website and tutors shouldn’t be needed. DD had to agree not to divulge too much or tutor for entrances as that could be unfair on those who can’t afford it.

Why do they think they need a tutor? Use the info online (which is designed to give fair access to all) and save your money. The whole point of the admissions tests and interviews is to spot potential, not to create an unfair advantage for those who can afford to pay for support.

Also, without wishing to sound harsh, if they need help to pass the admissions tests, won't they struggle with the weekly tutorial system?

Thanks for your responses. My child has done the online research, looked at the information given by the universities, spoken to the Director of Studies at colleges etc. She knows what she needs to do but lacks confidence, which is why she asked for support.

The Cambridge admissions test (which has past papers available online) looks to me to be about close reading and comparison of texts. These are skills that any English teacher should be able
to teach and your DD must be already covering in her course. I don’t think you need a specialist Oxbridge admissions tutor (and I’d run a mile from anyone claiming to offer such services as they are usually snake oil merchants with no inside knowledge - at the best they employ former undergraduates but they don’t have any real insight into how admissions decisions are made).

It makes a lot of sense for your DD to do a practice paper in timed conditions and I would suggest she asks a teacher to look at it for her and give her feedback. They do not need experience of that test specifically as it is the same set of skills of literary analysis that they are teaching regularly. If they are a decent English teacher they can tell if she is analysing those texts well and give her tips on how to improve.

Thanks - She's got the practice papers and has one piece of written, assessed work ready to submit, needs to decide on the second. Her English teachers are helping her at school, perhaps that is all she needs then?
I appreciate you taking the time to reply! She has done a lot of research into the courses at various universities and Oxbridge is definitely not a "be all and end all" for her. But she does want to prepare herself as best as she can going into her UCAS application. She is very much a planner.

Did you know that Oxford totally messed up their online for the first time ELAT last year? There was so much disruption that at some schools the test didn’t work successfully at all and Oxford decided to discount the ELAT for everyone altogether and base decisions on who to interview on submitted work. There were even some problems with the portal for submitting work.

Confidence comes in multiple ways. In this scenario her school have already identified her as capable for applying so encourage her to take confidence from that. Also confidence from understanding the process so if she has done the research, planning test papers and talked to DoSs then that should help too.

I didn't know that!

The administration of last year’s tests were contracted out to a new provider (TCS) who hugely cocked them up. Oxford have now ditched them and are this year using Pearson instead, who are huge in online testing and presumably (hopefully!) what they are doing.