Continuation of Oxbridge 2025

[BananasAllofIt]

I for one still have a kid waiting to hear about interviews. Thought I'd carry it over...

@maybemedmum Well done to your DC

@ofteninaspin all these memories come back don't they....my DC2 was also ill on the day of her second college interview - a great relief it was online as she stayed at home and slept for 4 hours then managed to keep it together for the interview.

My DC has only had one. Does anyone know if this is good, bad or neither?

Oxford or Cambridge?
I think it depends on the subject.
My DS has a friend who had one interview for at Oxford.

DD got 2 more offers today - KCL and St Andrews (she already has Warwick).
EPQ will be handed in in 2 days. Oxford interviews done. Time to kick back and relax for her now.
Good luck for those with interviews this week. It’s great when they are done and it’s just Xmas to look forward to. Just a few more days to go.

Great news. Well done your DD-I can’t remember-is it for MFLs?

Thanks @elkiedee and sorry about your tech issues.

DS has three other offers, just waiting on Durham so he’s happy enough after the initial PAT disappointment

If this is Oxford then it means definitely in or definitely out.

Which subject was this for InformEducateEntertain?

DC's second college interview yesterday she said was much less formal than the first two last week - said it was much more of a chat. Is this the norm? Or just the college is more relaxed perhaps than the first one, which sounded brutal? She's worried she didn't look at clever as the questions were so general that she felt she couldn't shine.
There's a part of me hoping that that's because they knew she'd already had a grilling last week, but another part of me hoping it's not because they think she wasn't worth the second interview so just couldn't be bothered. I need to stop trying to second guess as it's pointless but I can't help it!

As I understand it, Oxford aim to interview 3 candidates per place? So, if someone is sent to be interviewed at a second college, it likely means that they have been deemed 'worthy' of a place, but has not made the 'top cut' at the initial college (which may have very limited places). So maybe they are sent to be reinterviewed at another college that has more spaces for that subject, or whose candidates are not scoring as highly overall?

If it's the same as Cambridge, they score interviews out of 10. So maybe there are colleges where the top candidates are scoring around 7, but at other colleges there are those who are scoring 8, but are still not the 'first cut' in that college because there are a few scoring 9? Something like that?

Whereas at Cambridge, they pool as many as they offer direct places to, but only one in 5 of those pooled will be offered a place (for independent school candidates it's more like 1 in 10 at the pool stage).

@quartzz But also with the caveat that there are enough applicants - for MFL they interview 90% of those who apply and then make offers to 45% of those.

another part of me hoping it's not because they think she wasn't worth the second interview so just couldn't be bothered

If they thought that, they wouldn't have re-interviewed her at this very busy time.

Can I ask where can you access those stats - would like to know what equivalent is for History at C.

@pandapoop This is where it came from - MFL is a complete outlier!

https://www.uniadmissions.co.uk/application-guides/oxford-acceptance-rates/#:~:text=Oxford%20English%20%26%20Modern%20Languages%20Acceptance%20Rate&text=Oxford's%20English%20%26%20Modern%20Languages%20course,rate%20and%2023%25%20acceptance%20rate.

I think this checks out against the Uni's own statistics.

Here's their Cambridge equivalent:

https://www.uniadmissions.co.uk/application-guides/cambridge-acceptance-rates/

@AsTearsGoBy it's History at Oxford.
DD doesn't actually want to go as their first choice have now made a good offer so I'd like to know if we can just lay it to rest now. Seems possibly not.

Wow those are very interesting stats. Thank you.

I notice that different subjects have a bigger or smaller gulf between 'offer' and 'acceptance' rates.

Also would be interested to know what the net offer rate for those who were interviewed.

My colleague sent me this that she was sent regarding figures for Maths last year.
the graph is interesting.

https://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Mathematics-Feedback-2023-Department.pdf

@Gina555 That's really interesting, thank you. A quick Google threw up a similar document for modern languages - and the Somerville one was identical, so they are clearly uni-wide. But no graphs...

https://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Modern-Languages-Feedback-2023-Department.pdf

The context for MML though is the low number of students taking it for A level: about 7-8000 for French or Spanish, much lower for German.

And the other thing about the "less competitve" courses of MML and Classics is that the applicants have the highest GCSE scores of all subjects, and for accepted candidates only medicine is better. www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/average_gcse_grades_of_applicant

Both online interviews for C completed this morning. All went well it seems; she couldn't stop smiling. Usually very self-critical so think that's probably a good sign, but who knows. Now the long wait begins -- only just over six weeks to go! Plenty to distract us in the meantime, thankfully. Have a good break all, and thanks for the company these last few weeks.

All done here. Four interviews at two colleges in two days (standard for medicine, so spared all the second-guessing of what numbers of interviews mean). Hard to tell how it went, but not too long until we find out.

Hope everyone gets a bit of a break over Christmas.

Gina555 - It's Chemistry!

DS has completed the third interview, and that's it. He said it was fine and seemed quite happy.

He has received an offer from where he is delighted to go, so... an offer from Oxford would be lovely but rejection won't crush him. Now we can relax and enjoy the holiday!

That’s great news.
My DS has all offers in from other Universities and has one Oxford interview left to go…then we can start to enjoy our holiday 😀

My DS has had two maths interviews so far. One went better than the other he said. Another tomorrow - I’ll be glad when all this is over!!!