Oxbridge applications - requirements other than the academic

[squashpie]

Hi,

I know two friends' children who have offers from Cambridge. They are both great kids, one boy, one girl. They are obviously mega-bright and should do very well on the academic side of things. Also, the boy plays an instrument and rows and the girl is something like grade 7 on the piano.

Do you need to have all the 'extra' stuff to be accepted into Oxbridge. Is that how they distinguish between all the bright kids out there: by their extra curricular achievements?

I suspect that colleges would be fighting over someone who sat there naked with a monkey on their shoulder... (Evil )

IME academics is key, plus interview performance.

Lots of info here

Before my interview, the tutors for my subject gathered together all the interview candidates and said "I don't care in the least if you're great on the rugger field or grade 8 violin. I want to teach people who are good at maths."

I'm certain that having a top class set of grades is a good start, but neither necessary nor sufficient to get accepted for most courses. What the interviewers are trying to assess is which of the candidates are likely to excel if they get accepted, so they are looking at potential as well demonstrated success academically; they are also trying to choose candidates who are independent and resilient enough to cope with the demands of the Oxbridge system (where you have to fend for yourself an awful lot). Importantly also, as the system is tutorial based, and often on a one to one basis, I think they also tend to pick people they think they will enjoy teaching: people who are interesting and interested, but not arrogant etc. At the end of the day most interviewers are faced with far more candidates who would be good enough than they have places to offer, so there must also be a subjective element to it.

Nope - if you talk to admissions tutors what they are really interested in is whether they are very keen on the subject they have applied to read and can show they have read widely around it and can discuss/debate intelligently.

My Cambridge interviews (admittedly in 1992!) were entirely academic.

People with grade 7s and all the rest of it are two a penny at Oxbridge anyway. I don't think it counts for that much in the admissions stakes, particularly if one is not from a privileged background where you might expect to be herded into all those sorts of extra curricular activities.

I echo the view that extra curricular stuff doesn't necessarily matter all that much. It doesn't hurt, but it is not a requirement.

Chances are, the person interviewing you may well teach you and they want you to hand your essays in on time, turn up, and have something interesting to say. At my interview, I was asked, fairly unenthusiastically, what extra-curricular stuff I hoped to get involved with, and my interviewer then told me that he hoped I wouldn't do too much of it.

However, he did seem genuinely interested in my completely unprepared attempts to draw parallels betwen his area of expertise and the subject I'd written my extended essay about (which, incidentally, was outside the curriuculum I'd studied for my exams).

I am not sure how much heed they pay to personal statements these days, but I do think it's worth using them to demonstrate that you are borderline obsessed by the subject you want to study. So, by random example, if you want to show off the fact that you are a fantastic musician, and you want to read German, maybe you could talk about the importance of the Lieder tradition in German culture. Make links between the subject you want to read, and the things you have done / studied so far.

DD thinks her DofE etc made no difference, but the extra stuff she sorted herself to demonstrate her passion in the subject were more regarded (She signed up for Adult French conversation classes, organised her own exchange trip etc)

Her boyfriend is also at Cambidge, and he got a B at one of his 3 A levels, but demonstated amazing passion fo his course.

mummytime where on earth do you get that the message Oxbridge is giving out is that if you are an all rounder maybe you should now be looking elsewhere (such as Ivy League, who want all rounders)?

Oxford and Cambridge are not saying that if you excel at things beyond the purely academic, push off. They are simply saying that if you excel at things beyond the subject you propose to study that won't be sufficient to merit an offer unless you also excel at the subject (or have potential to excel at the subject).

It's only common sense that students applying through UCAS need to be mindful that their target audience may need to be broader than the tutors at Oxford or Cambridge, however arrogant the students in question are.

From what I understand the Ivy league are not too far down the pecking order intellectually from Oxford or Cambridge, I haven't heard they shell out places to second raters....

When you write your DC's PS for them, do remember the old saying "Jack (or Jill) of all trades, master of none".

If you really think that your DSprog has a genuine OxBridge chance, then any PS that you concoct on their behalf has to be aimed at getting that all-important interview at which they can bluff, con or cuddle their way to an interview at which they can then show their true worth: that means the PS has to be stand-out & racy.

But if DSprog is sub-OxBridge, then PS has to be the basis of admission: that means safe & reliable enough to support a standard offer. Remember that Cambridge will give you an offer of 2 E's far more willingly than Durham will give you 2 A's & a B because they have met you....

Ivy league state explicitly that they will offer places to candidates who seem to fit their ethos, not just the brightest (so may offer places with lower scores in SATs if they have other things to offer). Cambridge certainly has been stating explicitly that it is not interested in extra-curricula, but a love of subject. I also know from my time at Oxford, of someone who was sent down because they spent too much time at Cricket/in the boat club and were on course for a 2ii rather than at least a 2i. This is the reason they are not so interested in the extras, they will celebrate them but it is the subject which matters.

Of course Ivy league offer a liberal arts education, which encourages breadth. So they look for breadth.

mummytime since you were at Oxford I'm surprised your arguments are a little bit blurred.

From experience my DDs friends who DID get in to Oxford were the ones who had done some sort of reseach project or gone further with their subject to show a real passion.
Grade 7 on the piano is amazing, but doesn't count for much against someone who has spent their summer doing their own research into X subject for their gold crest or on an expedition with BSES and is applying to geography which they fundraised to go on themselves. People who've done this can talk about their research often passionately and at great depth showing thier commitment and genuine interest in the subject.

DDs friends who got into cambridge all did fantastically academically on their AS grades, thats all we can see which made them have the edge over others.
To get into Oxbridge you dont need hundreds of extracurricular activities, you simply need a few things you've done in depth which really relate and show a skill relating to what you want to do. A misconception is you need to be musically, sporty, act, arty, head pupil and have helped kids in africa. All great things but not much use to someone wanting to study history unless you are interested in medieval instruments, studied how sports have evolved since the Victorian times, wrote a play from a period in history, looked at paintings from different decades, through being head pupil inspired others, helped kids in africa as you learnt about the history of their country and so have a deep understanding of the origin of the problems in such countries. You see the difference?
Good luck!

PS agree with mummytime- the girls i know who've got into oxford are certainly extremely bright and do have interested beyond their subject but they show an incredible passion and knowledge of their subject.
One girl I know wasn't the type you 'expect' to get in- she was quite shy, lacks confidence but extremely intelligent, had a few things but a lot less than those applying who play netball for england, are in the national orchestra and head girl... she had worked all summer on a research gold crest award project, spending her summer in science labs conducting her own investiagation. She could talk about this endlessly and knew everything these is to know about her topic and got in to study Biology. Deservedly so.. the emphasis is definately your subject and passion NOT all rounders

Spending too much time at the Union = a primary cause of getting sent down from Oxford, I remember.

by which I mean debating and hacking at the Union rather than drinking in the bar (although that has its place)

I used to be an admissions interviewer at an Oxbridge college and can confirm that I paid not a jot of attention to whether someone liked ballroom dancing, jewellery making or hockey, though I have to admit that truly outstanding ex-curricular achievement (eg national youth orchestra or suchlike) combined with flawless academic achievement did give pause for brief admiration!
What I did do, though, is use the personal statement as a basis for some interview questions. So if you said, for example, that you have a passion for reading novels, I might have asked about the last novel you read and what you thought of it, and if it turns out it was animal farm and you read it for your gcse but can't quite remember the plot, then that might very well count against you! But other than that, I really didn't much care - as someone said above, a masterful personal statement often denoted little more than a school with a very dedicated attitude to Oxbridge admissions!

Yellowstone, I am a Scientist, I was there as a graduate, it was past 11 pm!

I am proud to have been at Oxford, I would love one of my kids to go; if it is the right place for them. One has the passion in their subject, but I doubt will get the flawless grades. One is definitely more Ivy League material. The other is too young to tell, but it could be Oxbridge material, if they don't decide to be a fashion designer.

Mummytime your point was perfectly clear and well made.

I had a friend who worked in admissions. The thing that sticks out from all the different tutors requirements, was that you have to be hugely interested in the subject you want to do, read around it, have opinions.

Just getting As isn't enough if you only know all the info you needed to get those grade. But if you got As and got them by going over and above in terms of research around the subject you will do a lot better.

great to get an interview...but so may children excel academically these days lots of A*s etc..so surely to get an interview in the first place they must take account of something else?

......also ..how much does the school you went to affect your chances...eg St Pauls's 50 % oxbridge..is this through connections or Oxbridge making their job easier..if you got int St Pauls then you must be clever etc etc.(wrong assumption in my view).

They get very few applications from state school compared to private.

That's why stats like that exist.

I do think PS are important. Even if the individual tutors haven't read them, somebody will have. But not to say oh "look what a wonderful well rounded person I am" but to convince them your love and knowledge of that subject goes beyond your grades. You can do that with reference to lovely well rounded things you have done but that is the way round to it. It is all about the subject over and above anything else.

The people with A* who fail to get an interview have not done this, as I understood it.

I got in and didn't go. They didn't really care about all the shiny extra-curricular stuff I'd done beyond wanting to know how I balanced it. I was asked, how I was going to revise for my A-levels with the Easter National Youth camp. My musical acheivements were easily 'explained' by the fact I was taking music A-level otherwise they might have asked about that, they asked me why I gave up competitive gymnastics (injury, not a lack of dedication), MUN wasn't really commented on but it was good debating experience and I think helped me when they were asking tough questions in the interview.

But tbh I don't think they distinguish by looking at extra-curricular achievements, in fact I don't think all-rounders do that well at Oxbridge. I definitely felt that I wasn't obsessive enough about my subject for them and wouldn't have the time to do other things so I turned it down.

A good personal statement is the key to getting into other universities without needing to go for an interview

mummytime sorry, didn't mean to be sharp. I don't think what you meant was clear though, because the implication seemed to me to be that you believe Oxford and Cambridge are looking for undergraduates who are one trick academic ponies and that's not what so many of them are. I'm constantly amazed at the level of achievement in things that many do outside their subject, both the successful applicants from school and undergraduates already there.

That having been said, I can think of many examples of students there or with offers who are just very bright, with a clear bent for their subject, who've never sat a music exam nor played for the county (let alone country), who haven't incarcerated themselves in a lab for a summer and who are 'normal' in every respect. Very good grades however.

Ivy League I know little about, beyond the liberal arts broad spectrum thing. But surely you don't get into Harvard or Yale without also being incredibly smart?