DD refusing to consider Oxbridge: are her reasons valid?

[ArtichokeDip]

DD is in year 12 at our local school. She has never related to the studious high achieving crowd at school. They are not the people she finds it easy to be friends with. She is quite a hedonist and enjoys parties, clubs, dancing, long nights out.

At GCSE she got exceptional grades for her school: 5x9, 4x8. Her passio is English Lit and she wants to study that at uni. Her A-level English teacher says she is already consistently working at A star level and that seems to be true for History and for RE too. This week the school asked her to join a new Oxbridge application prep group they are trailing . DD declined.

DD is convinced she won’t make friends at Oxbridge because she believes everyone will be very studious and there will be few people who enjoy nights out like she likes. She says there will be too much study and not enough fun. Are these valid reasons? How much is it worth pushing back and trying to change her mind? She currently only dreams of applying to big Northern city unis with busy night lives: Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle. All great places but is it crazy not to explore Oxbridge applications if you have a chance?

My DD got straight 9’s at GCSE’s and didn’t apply. She didn’t want the pressure. TBH seeing how she fell apart in a levels it was the right call.

You do have to really want it. There are so many hoops to jump through and to stand a good chance it helps to have super curriculars - winning national essay competitions etc. GCSES are only part of the picture.

They don’t count 8s and 9s as the same anymore - or at least it doesn’t say so on their website. But they definitely do look at GCSES in terms of your school cohort.

@Fatsnowflake yes it seems that Oxford have altered their website text re GCSEs (see screen shot) but if you look at feedback - for instance Biology they are still treating 8s/9s/A star the same in their analysis and various subjects also refer to contextualised GCSE Score. See reference below to how that is calculated on page 4 from some 2020-21 feedback. This lumps 8s and 9s together but they may now have a new method. I think the challenge remains that Wales still uses Astar which means they need to keep 8s and 9s together to have a level playing field.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data

https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/History-2020-2021.pdf

https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/admissions-feedback

@Fatsnowflake Winning national essay competitions? Who actually goes in for them? You don’t need that at all.

I was giving an example. I didn’t say you need to win essay competitions.Oxbridge run loads of subject related ones for Year 12. But getting highly commended or just entering is good practice for lots of humanities ones.

Dd won a Trinity College Cambridge one, a Magdalene College one and also got on a couple of Oxford Law/Language based residentials she applied to.

For English there’s the Tower poetry competition or the Foyle Young poets’ award if you’re creative. Or super curriculars can just involve wider reading: looking at critical theory.

None of this is needed as such but in a competitive field you do need to stand out and many others will have these things.

And loads go in for them! Some of the big independents actually run classes.

You don't need to win, or even enter, the essay competitions. From what I have read, Oxbridge admissions acknowledge that these are dominated by people from fee-paying schools and therefore not something easily accessed by other applicants. Reading and listening to podcasts are perfectly sufficient to show supracurricular knowledge.

My son went to Cambridge , he graduated a couple of years ago. It is a fantastic experience but it is also a hard slog. They have to really want it. They are taking more state school students now but that doesn't mean it isn't hard for them when they get there.

@nearlyemptynes Why is it hard for them? I find Oxbridge educated parents have Oxbridge educated dc and they fit in pretty well from state schools. Many go from highly selective grammars so are not feeling odd one out at all. Why would they?

Access programmes, summer residentials and essay competitions are all super curriculars. No one needs to enter an essay competition - it was just an example and many are state school only. Dd is state educated and not a selective state either. But Oxbridge offer lots of outreach opportunities. Oxplore is aimed at state schools.