Oxbridge applicants 2026??

[Justlurkingmostly]

Is there a thread for this year’s applicants - I can’t seem to find with a search. Thanks for signposting 🙏

This is bringing memories back of this time last year. I remember ringing ds after his online interview to ask how it went for him to reply, 'Shit!'. He felt he'd missed obvious comparisons (history) and just sold himself short. At one point one of the interviewers said, 'Stick to what you know!' He said his only hope was getting pooled and having a second interview but the date for that came and went. He got an offer and has just come back home his first term. Although easier said than done, it's best to try not to think about it too much after the event but YP feeling it went badly doesn't mean all is lost.

13 Jan is the day when offers will go out for Oxford.

In the interests of balance:

DS told me after his final (in person) interview that he'd 'nailed it'. Also History. Also got an offer (and subsequently a first).

His brother the following year (in person) felt he'd seriously messed up. Also History. Also got an offer (and subsequently a first).

It's almost impossible to know.

Ohhhh-kay, your sons are super clever and went to Oxford.

Meanwhile got a super stressed DD waiting to join her Teams interview, a barking dog and need to get other child up and out with me. Argggj.

Surely the one place people can talk about Oxbridge without being accused of showing off is the Oxbridge thread?

PPE Interviews done and DS has survived, said it was tough but gave it his best shot. He says now going to totally forget about it till Jan. I need to do the same !

Glad your DD had a better experience in her second interview. My DD had her 3rd yesterday and felt it was much worse than the first two. Not a total car crash but she found one of the tasks that she was sent in advance very tricky and she felt it threw her off for the whole rest of the interview. One of the interviewers was very stony-faced throughout and she says she waffled a lot and really struggled to get to the point. Anyway, like your DD she has found the whole process absolutely knackering and is really hoping she doesn't get called for another interview! We shall see.

Best of luck to all those awaiting interviews and for those who are done, I hope your DC can just put it all to one side now and enjoy the Christmas break.

@carpedaim (great name, love that Swedish crack), you're right it was churlish of me. In me defence, I'm battle-scarred from having read near identical posts about a sequence of clever children and how classics is the hardest degree from when I was on a similar board during my son's (unsuccessful) Oxbridge application five years ago!

Obviously everyone's welcome with their wisdom, but I find sharing angst with parents of current applicants to be the most useful for me.

@deathbyprocrastination three interviews! Poor love, must be exhausted.

One of mine has now had her first. And it was OK. She's just glad it's over.

Yes, a lot of adrenalin inevitably followed by a bit of a come-down!

Well done to your DD for getting through her first one

Fair enough! First time here so no battle scars (yet), and it's useful to read all perspectives

Good luck to everyone!

I must say it's lovely to have a forum to share war stories on a rather niche experience. As someone who went to a very average (foreign) Uni with no entrance criteria other than 'fill in this form' and married to a DH who went to, in his words, the University of Life🙄 , it's so nice to chat to parents in the same situation. Many thanks to you all! And good luck to those with pending interviews, can't wait to hear how they all get on.

i have not been posting much, but DD did in person yesterday too, and felt it went okay. I think now we wait until end of Jan for the result.
And to get back to whatever school had been doing since Sep- I think there’s lots that she had been ignoring with ESATs and Interview prep. Good Luck everyone who is going through interviews and waiting for the results

Cheers.

Very obviously the post simply shows that two indistinguishable interviewees -same educational background with presumably near identical potential (same final degree classification) reading the same subject can have very different takes on how their interviews went. Yes, it was actually churlish to snap at the post. You'll also be aware that there are far more firsts handed out than in the past; it's really not so unusual these days as to be a great boast. Thanks for an injection of sense carpedaim.

Also the parents' thread is full of families all or most or several of whom go to Oxford/ Cambridge. It seems fairly common.

All interviews done here thank goodness. I’ve realised that the stress won’t end here tho - either a sad dd if no offer or if there is an offer we have the immense stress of having to get the grades with such an opportunity available to her !

Ive been astounded how mature and calm she’s been about it all.

Second interview done and dusted. She actually really enjoyed this one! Really nice to have it done with (unless she gets pooled in which case we might hear something tomorrow).

Has anyone's dc got an offer from St Andrews for maths yet?

Yes! I think I saw some stats though that showed that very few of those offered, don’t get the grades. someone correct me if I’m wrong.

Let’s hope so. That would be the worst scenario of all.

Actually if you look at the different numbers for offers and acceptances, it's a bigger gap than you'd think. Of course some people who get a place might go somewhere else, esp international applicants, but if you look it's around 3/4 of those who are offered places, don't end up going. A large proportion of that 25% I guess is because they don't get the grades.

I do know a fair few that this happened to. Friend's daughter went to a college and of the four offered places for the subject, only two got their grades. I also know people who didn't get the grades, but were let in anyway.

I think it's a bigger proportion at Cambridge as the grade requirements are higher (ie A star AA for humanities, A star A star A for sciences. Colleges are also allowed to set their own offers).

So yeah, that's a fun further thing to worry about!

In 2024 Oxford made 3793 offers (of 23,061 applications) and 3245 students were admitted. I make that 14% not taking up their offer, for whatever reason.

One of those was a friend who took a specialist degree course at Surrey which needed higher grades than her offer for music at Oxford. It definitely isn't alwsys a case of missing the grades.

My son has had his two Oxford interviews. He was happy about how the first went but not the second. Statistically it’s likely that he won’t get a place so I feel quite sad about that now. Which is a bit silly because he has other great offers and a couple of years ago I would never have dreamed he be in a position to apply or would do so well as to get an interview!

Both DTwins now finished, two and three interviews respectively. They seem fairly happy with how the interviews went and claim they can now relax over Christmas. We'll see. They are lucky each to have St Andrews offers if needed so that does take pressure off.
Good luck to all these wonderful youngsters- they seem so much more impressive than my peers and I were at the same age

DC just got a message informing her she will have a third interview Friday. This is at a third college. Does this mean the other two colleges have definitely decided no? Or that something happened in one of the first interviews that made people think this college is a better choice for her? Or something else altogether?

She's being pretty sanguine about it, but it's unexpected.