Open application to Oxford?

[BigToe2]

Open application to Oxford to study geography?

Son Is being strongly encouraged by the school
to do so to give him a better chance of getting in. What do you think?

Unfortunately don’t have time for any other support with personal statement. The deadline is tomorrow for submitting at my DC school.

Anyway - my DC is happy it.

Several teachers have already read it and given constructive as well as positive feedback.

Oops appears message I was responding to has been deleted. Must have been dodgy

Presumably trying to sell people something. There are so many trying to make money out of the Oxbridge process when everything you need to help with a successful application is already available on line.

Yes. It’s all there. It’s not a mystery.

@HighburyHope sorry for the slow response. Lovely to hear your DC is thinking about reading geography. Oxford is consistently No 1 in the world for geography - both physical and human.

My DC is very much a human geographer and spent a year before starting his degree overseas in Europe working with a humanitarian organisation which really shaped his choices and modules. He did find it quite challenging coming back into the teaching setting after a year at the coal face but in the end got a lot more out of the degree. The only thing to be aware of is that there isn't a huge amount of contact time so you have to be pretty self directed in your study. They also have an odd system of choosing modules where you bid for modules, you are given a certain number of coins at the beginning of your degree and then you spent them on the modules you want most because some of them are massively oversubscribed. I think it all works out in the end. He had a lot of attention from tutors and from his dissertation supervisor and spent three months doing his dissertation research in between his second and third year back where he'd worked for a year before Uni.

My DC did do a few super curricular activities before applying such as the geographical association competitions and the RGS competitions. It gives you something to talk about an interview and helps hone your interests.

All the very best to your DC.

Thank you everybody for your comments. It’s been very helpful although my son still following quite a few heated discussions insisted on submitting an open application. He really believes it’s the best thing to do considering can still
end up in the pool even if you put your preference.
Still time to change his mind but I have let it be for now.

@HighburyHope Thank you for information about your son’s experience. My son has also entered a few essay competitions and completed non compulsory projects. He has also been attending Model United Nations conferences for last 5 years. Hoping it all
helps with his application.

What is your son doing now?

@BigToe2 It was @Juja who kindly shared about her DS. Mine is still only 14! But I too am interested in what Oxford Geography graduates go on to do.

Ahh oops…..

@BigToe2 my son is now a trainee social worker on a Government funded post grad programme called Step Up. Hugely challenging but he enjoys it. He spent just over year getting experience with care leavers before starting this course.