Please explain how uni applications work!

[Wantofeelgood]

Hello, I’m just confused and school ( state) is no help.DD is nearly 16 doing highers next spring.
she’d like to go to uni and secretly would like to try for Oxbridge. Though she, feels she doesn’t have a chance. I don’t know, but think you may as well aim for the stars.
I’m struggling to get the school to explain the process - though have a chat tomorrow. So far I’ve had,’yes don’t worry we have lots of kids apply to uni..my kids love to play sports’ off the guidance teacher.
surely if youd like to apply for Oxbridge you’d need to be doing extra tuition and stuff?
a neighbor, who has since moved so I can’t ask him, went to a fee paying school where they seemed to be taught so much more, so I think we are starting from a lot lower baseline.
is there anyway I can find out what she needs to be doing?
thank you!

You’d be better posting on the Higher Education board - they discuss Oxbridge applications there.

I assume she’s hoping to start uni in 2025? Oxford and Cambridge application deadline is mid—October.

Im not a huge expert on this, can't remember much, but ds went to Oxbridge from a state school. There is a lot of help out there, don't worry too much.

The first thing is to be clear what courses she wants to apply to (can be different at different universities, but it's unusual for them not to be roughly the same subjects, maybe called something a bit different). Then what each university she's interested in requires for each course. Eg for ds, to apply for Computer Science at Cambridge he needed to be aiming for certain grades, plus he needed to do a specific extra exam.

The next thing is to understand the timescales abd deadlines - and I can't remember them! Ask your daughter what the deadlines for Oxbridge and other universities are - they are different.

Your daughter should be capable of finding all this out online but may want you to do it jointly.

Then find out about open days and visits, and see whether she/you both can go. Not absolutely essential but I would say not far off. If it's financially impossible, talk to the school - they should know about support grants for travel.

At that point you should both be in a better place.

Ds did have 4 sessions with a tutor to practice for the special exam, so that he understood what that would look like. That was all.

What Oxbridge are looking for is oeople who love their subject and people who like the teaching method. 1:1 or 2:1 coaching that they do is very intense and not everybody likes it. Their interviews are designed to work out who will enjoy that teaching and do well at it.

Hope thats some help.

That’s terrific help, thank you all.
I can see I need to stop panicking and research the colleges, she can too.
thankyou for your last para permanant that helps a lot.
She’d apply next year. I believe in Scotland they can apply this year but she decided she was too young. Which seems pretty mature to me!

As others have said, the deadline for Oxbridge applications is early, October I think. There are entrance tests for some subjects and then interviews.

DS did Physics so had to do the Physics Admission Test. We booked a few sessions with a tutor to prepare for that. For us it was good value because he came out buzzing from each session.

For DD we were told about Oxbridge Launchpad which supports state school pupils applying to Oxbridge. DD was given a 'mentor' who was a second year student in her subject. The mentor read through her personal statement and suggested what to drop and what to beef up, and did a couple of mock interviews with her. This was all free.

Oxbridge has a much earlier deadline and you can only apply for Oxford or Cambridge, not both.

I believe they both require advanced highers (preferably 3) so going after 5th year is not really feasible for most I’d have thought.

Cambridge anyway also make offers to Scottish students on AH bands not just grades which seems a bit harsh when in terms of UCAS points both an A1 and A2 are equivalent to A* at A level

my eldest was going to apply to Cambridge but he went off the idea and I can’t say I’m sorry!

Have a look at these pages. The website is not currently active but you can still pull some info off it.

Which subject is your DC considering applying for?

questions.clydesideproject.org/

resources.clydesideproject.org/

camscot.org/

www.zerogravity.co.uk

targetoxbridge.co.uk/index.html#section-3

I'd suggest that she has a look at the UCAS and My World of work websites and makes an appointment to see the school careers adviser who can talk her through the process.

I’ve had,’yes don’t worry we have lots of kids apply to uni..my kids love to play sports’ off the guidance teacher.

Wtf does this teacher think playing sports got to do with uni application? (Other than that the student may prefer certain unis if they're good for their particular hobbies).

surely if youd like to apply for Oxbridge you’d need to be doing extra tuition and stuff?

Not a lot, for some just doing past papers of the relevant entrance test may be sufficient. They shouldn't really need extra tuition for these. Though I'm not sure how Scottish higher map to rest of U.K. A levels - in general a good grasp of yr 12 A level content in the relevant subjects should suffice.

The main exception seems to be if they need STEP for maths at Cambridge and a few other courses.

speak to the school careers advisor

Thanks all! You are a lot more use than the school, I must say.
I didn’t mention DD is thinking of Oxbridge as DH said not to. So I’ll research and , as always, rely on the amazing people on mn x

Might be worth checking for Oxbridge age restrictions if not 18 when start Uni … particularly if wanting to study medicine.

Oh thank you. I was persueded to not research this year, but you are right, I should know never to take anything anyone says without checking!

My son applied to Oxbridge this year. He made the decision to do this in June and from then spent quite a bit of time reading around his subject and more recently preparing for the entrance exam. It will depend on what course your DD wants to do but for my son, the knowledge required for the entrance exam was focused on the A-level syllabus which has considerably more content than Higher. He had to put in a lot of work to cover this material.
However, other courses have no entrance exam but you would need to be well read around your subject to cope with the interview.
We haven’t found our ‘high performing’ state school particularly helpful in the process but there are organisations out there that will help. Unfortunately, we didn’t know about these until after the UCAS form was submitted but were lucky to discover this https://camscot.org/ with enough time to set up a mock interview and they have lots of useful info on their website.
They ask for Higher grade bandings (not just grades) and typical offers will be two band 1s & one band 2 at AH but again depends on the course.
Cambridge have a lot of webinars with info about applying, subject masterclasses etc. from January onwards, so have a look on their website and register for info.
It is a pretty tough process and more so for Scots, the stats show that quite clearly.

My DD did US Ivy League applications instead of Oxbridge but her school treated it as though it was Oxbridge applications and found her a "mentor" to support her. The unis themselves also put her in touch with alumni to have a chat ahead of submitting her applications.

Standard state school - so if none of that support is available it might be worth contacting the unis to ask if they can give her access to any support.

Brilliant, thank you so much. I thought working out the milk sterilizer was daunting when she was a baby!
I had no idea you can apply yo Ivy League. Rather think this will all be way above her .