Continuation of Oxbridge 2025

[BananasAllofIt]

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

DD is still waiting for C @Coldilocks

Around the top 12%

DC just received an interview for PPE at O.

He didn’t do GCSEs and our local equivalents were done a year early in a country where they had pretty much the entire first year of the curriculum at home due to Covid so decent results but certainly not a clean sweep by any stretch.

That's great news @RunningOverTime. Feel free to PM me his college and I'd be more than happy to share info

And there you were ready to wait until 29th!

Coldilocks · Today 11:06

Am I the only one waiting for Cambridge?

@Coldilocks

What subject is this for and is there not info in the college website as to which subject interviews have been sent out?

In any case, don't worry. Some DOS' and admissions people in certain colleges are just slower than others. Just because someone might have heard from one college for a given subject, has no bearing on another college's interview decisions for the same subject.

But those sort of are perfect GCSEs when they are contextualised against the achievement of the cohort. If you go to a school where the average score is 9x9, 1x 8 and 1x 7, and you get 9x9 and 2x7, your contextualised gcse score will be negative. Whereas your daughter's would be very positive, reflecting her huge out-performance. For courses that put a lot of weight on gcses for shortlisting, it can really have an impact. Which is their aim, of course.

@tortoise18 Correct. It can be a bit tricky when bumping up against the top, and especially when 9s and 8s are counted as the same.

Unlikely to be the case as 7s aren't scored, 8s and 9s are counted as equal for O and it is with in context of school results.

There's a chart in here which shows number of 8s and 9s at GCSE for E&M and offers and there are very few with under 9 GCSEs at 8s and 9s. May vary by subject.

Economics and Management 2024.pdf

I totally agree that DD did very well, especially as she took her GCSEs in the first year of numbered grades, when strings of 9s were far less common. She should have done well, as she comes from a family of academics, but went to a school with 2 suicides in the weeks before her exams, fellow pupils taking drugs in registration and others who thought it would be fun to put hydrochloric acid in water bottles in chemistry lessons.

However, many applicants don't have perfect GCSEs and it's frustrating the myth continues that Oxford will only accept candidates with all 9s and A*s. Hopefully this year's applicants will also include some with great potential but less than perfect results who will be given the same opportunity to prove themselves as DD was. Her tutors could see her potential and were willing to take a risk when they could have taken an easy option.

I know it's not as clear as it should be but contextual GCSE are not calculated relative to the performance of other students in your school. They are calculated relative to other applicants to Oxford from schools with a similar GCSE performance to your school. Obviously that makes quite a difference.

My DD doesn't even have 1 GCSE because she is at an American High School. I am very glad I don't have to look at all these numbers. We are still waiting to hear if she has an interview or not though and I'm starting to go a bit around the twist here. She is asleep (its not 9am yet) and doesn't seem remotely bothered.

That makes more sense. Do you know how they group the settings at all please? Is it progress 8 or something similar?

Yes see the pic below

Alan Rusbridger of LMH did some great videos on YouTube which explained how they move from application to interview to offers. It's a few years old now, but I believe the principles are the same. There was a link on the previous thread I think. I'll see if I can find it.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/alan-rusbridger-lifting-lid-oxford-admissions

Thanks for posting the Guardian article. I thought it really didn't tell us anything we've not already read here on Mumsnet in terms of how things are done. I guess it feeds any obsessive need to dwell on the process though it makes zero difference to anyone's situation really.

There was an article I read this year about how Cambridge are now going to drop the state school / independent school categorisation for admissions data purposes. This is because, having achieved their target of around 75%-80% state school students for some years now, they see that, the bulk of the state school candidates who actually get in are, in fact, no different in terms of socio-economic markers, to those from independent schools - ie. a disproportionate amount of the state school entrants are from grammar school areas (Bucks, North London, Kent, Essex). In addition, the tutors know full well that colleges like Hills Rd in Cambridge are full of their own children and, while academics may not be 'high earners', the children of Oxbridge academics are hardly educationally disadvantaged. So, now the focus is shifting away from the school sector in and of itself towards POLAR and ACORN data and specifically, they are trying to increase students from under-represented areas away from the SE and London - eg. Wales, the NE and Scotland.

Yeah, with a DC at a London state school, I can kind of see the point but wish they'd waited until next year...

Hi just found this thread. My son is hoping to do music at O. He has a couple of interviews coming up, found out last week.

The wait is over. Interview!

Congratulations Coldilocks!
The wait for Oxford continues...

Congratulations to those getting interviews.

Still waiting too.

DD heard yesterday that she got an interview at Oxford. She only checks her emails twice a day so she wasn’t getting obsessed. She is pretty relaxed about it all as she has another great offer she would be happy with.
DD definitely didn’t get all 8s and 9s at GCSE.
Getting an interview is based on much more than just grades as so many posters here have shown.

Fabulous news!