Oxford open day next week :how are we supposed to fit it all in? How do we know which colleges to look at

[Opendaymaddnes]

Hello I'm trying to get my head around the open day and distances. The subject talk is quite early but it looks like we could spend all day at the subject talk area meeting tutors but we need to look at accommodation options also and colleges.

I've googled the best colleges for her subject and I hope to visit three? Does this sound like a plan? Is this what uther people do?

@Opendaymaddnes if the insurance is gettable, that’s fine to like just one more. However most dc need to think seriously about their second choice because with 24,000 applications and 3,700 places, you know what the odds look like!

Dd liked what she saw but she is not sure if she wants to apply as her chances of getting in are so low.
She wants to do law and wants to maximise her chance of getting in one of the good universities for Law and not really fussed where it is.
She understands that each and every Law course and university has its own merits and weaknesses and would be happy to end up in any one of her choices.

I had no phone coverage either! Drove me bonkers .

DS has decided that he will apply to either O or C but hasn’t decided which yet. C open day on Friday and school “next steps” days this week should help him clarify which.

He really liked Oxford on Wednesday; viewed several colleges. He knows the city well as it’s quite local to us. As a city he prefers Oxford to Cambridge, and the journey is easier, but I don’t want him to go for what is easiest.

He figures he has the predicted grades so he will apply but will not set his heart on it. This seems sensible to me. His other favourites have been UCL, Exeter and Warwick. He didn’t like Bristol. We will visit KCL and LSE in the autumn.

I’ve looked for an Oxbridge applicants 2026 thread but I can’t see one yet. If there is one please point me in it’s direction!

Agree re: phone signal and data - made using the app almost impossible.

@ProfessorLayton1 It is only 1 choice out of 5. She will have to do LNAT anyway for other universities so why not try?

@TizerorFizzShe would probably apply to three LNAT universities and the LNAT requirements for all these universities are more or less the same. Oxford / Cambridge interview for their law course whereas the rest of the LNAT universities don’t.
I am not saying what she thinks is right bearing in mind that she is only 16 , she could see the support some school children get when they apply to Oxbridge ( both state and private ) which she doesn’t have from her school.
She has started doing what was recommended in all the open days so will have to see if she changes her mind.
What I learnt from all the open days , is that it’s hard work wherever you choose to do law!

@ProfessorLayton1 Not sure the pass mark required for all is the same. However time to decide!

@Waspie has lse autumn opened yet ?

We missed London and I can't seen when the next open days are ooen

Unlike the other unis we have not had a feedback form it was only the phone issue that was negative

Who fills in feedback forms ?????

I get ds to do them. It’s his opinion that counts.

Golly, I thought everyone thought they were utter waste of time. What feedback is anyone going to give that isn't good. Oxford was slick and well organised. Durham likewise.

Ds definitely prefers being able to prebook a space at the talks that he’s interested in to make sure that he gets in. He could do that at Exeter, Bath and Bristol but not at Oxford or LSE.

I also don’t understand the point of pre booking a space at the open day when there is nowhere to check into - just say it’s an open day and turn up if you fancy!

Live in Oxford, the 26 year comes out around Nov 25 when the 25 August/Sept freshers have started good luck to Ds , oxfords central city centre has always had a poor phone signal WiFi it's to do with the solid stone building, good luck

I went up in the 90’s and my parents came with me. I remember most people being with their parents and felt a bit sorry for the students wandering around on their own. I’m going with my dd to Cambridge next week and have been researching the different colleges not to tell her what to do but so I can be a bit more useful than “that’s nice dear”. Ignore the rude posters.

Tbh reading Law isn't harder than many other subjects.

Is DS wasting an option applying to Oxford as we don’t realise until the open day that they use the GCSE for scoring and he has a couple of 5s- from subjects he didn’t bother with at the time. I never knew unis looked at GCSE - it never came up when my dd was applying . He’s predicted 3 A* and has come on massively since GCSE .

If the 5s are in subjects unrelated to his degree choice, it won't matter. Also, what kind of school is he at and how good are their results generally? A school that has poorer GCSE results compared to the average means they will take this into account when looking at his results. They compare to the cohort at similar schools.

Law is competitive, so Oxford does look at the number of 8/9s at GSCE for all subjects. It's not a big part of the total assessment - but can be the handful of points that make a difference. It was for some kids I knew - they re-applied to Cambridge with same GCSEs in the following year and got in.

Cambridge does not add GCSEs grades to their candidate assessment in the same formalised way that Oxford does.

Apologies, LSE is in July not September. I’m not sure if they are doing another in the autumn as they seem to follow a different schedule to all of the other universities.

KCL have one on 5th September but I’m not sure about UCL.

Yes, LSE is on Thursday this week. Last one that we’re going to (thank goodness, need to let my bank balance recover!).

At Cambridge we interview nearly everyone, in Oxford they don't interview so many.

Cambridge Law is very inclusive and those from state schools (especially those who have been at them all the way through secondary and not just switched to state at sixth form) stand a really good chance of a place.

Advice re why studying law when asked. Don't fluff it and pretend you have a great interest in the law if you don't. But also don't say you are applying for it cos your parents said History and Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic won't get you a job. Say you'd like to study something different from A Level

@MonGrainDeSelthanks for that advice. Is there somewhere you can see school results . I’m not sure where they would stand. It’s a state school but a good one .

They are probably on your school's website somewhere. Or you can look at the DfE tables for some information. Essentially, you probably have a good idea of where your son sits in his cohort, and this is the info they are interested in. They want to see that his results are better than his peers' results or at least that he sits higher rather than lower in the spread of results.