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?

Lemonysnickett

The days of being able to get into Oxbridge if you were not particularly clever but from the "right" school are long gone.

The fact is that many children from the top most academically selective public schools are bloody clever and talented and hard working. I speak as a someone who was a state school girl at Cambridge and met loads of them for the the first time there.

You have to be bright to be accepted into e.g. St Paul's in the first place. Then you have 5 years of top level education with lots of other very bright and engaged children, with lots expected of you. You are pushed to bring out your best. No wonder that in Oxbridge interviews they are impressive - and based on real merit too.

The question of the unfairness of some people being able to afford such an education for their children is a separate one. But that doesn't detract from the achievements of the kids from the top academic schools, who often spend their entire school lives working very hard and making a lot of effort.

I do know that Oxbridge interviewers will make allowances and not necessarily expect the same level of eloquence and confidence from a state school child as from a child from St Pauls.

The connection thing does make some difference. If you are at St Pauls you will probably have friends from a year or two above who are at the college you are thinking of applying to that you can chat to. The school will commit resources to Oxbridge training. Very different to the state school pupil who applies to a college selected on a wing and a prayer and just hopes for the best. But at the end of the day even the St Pauls child needs to be able to do well in the exams and the interview (and will have more expected of them due to their education).

Lemony

Oxbridge do actually interview everyone with the right predicted grades - if you have the A* at GCSE and are predicted the right sort of A levels, you will almost certainly get an interview - Cambridge interview over 80% which in 2009 amounted to around 13,000 interviews for around 3400 places.

I think the biggest difference between an indie school pupil with a tradition of sending people to Oxbridge behind them and a state school pupil is in all the preparation.

Even with comparable grades I had at least 3 prep interviews, my personal statement was given a thorough going over and our classes seemed better preparation for university in that we were being acclimatised to debate and research whereas 1 state school friend failed to get an interview and although another did but I think she was so unprepared, pressured and generally flummoxed that she fluffed it - and I would have said both were cleverer and more into their subjects than I was.

Indie schools give you confidence, along with an excellent education. The excellent education Oxbridge can 'compensate' for but the confidence you can't just acquire. If it's normal for half your year to go to Oxbridge, and 47 from my school went from my year, then the whole thing is a lot less scary than if 1 person goes every 5 years....

Agree with everything Bumpsadaisie has just said. The 50% success rate at SPGS is down primarily to the calibre of pupils entering the school coupled with the fabulous education they then get.

Clearly interviewing tutors do differentiate, which makes obvious sense. One tutor told a current first year that he could tell straightaway he was from a comp because his interview skills were so dire.

'I do think PS are important. Even if the individual tutors haven't read them, somebody will have.'

• Laweasel, except in a v. few subjects, college tutors make the decisions about admissions - there isn't anyone else, though obviously we work to the guidelines laid out by faculties. All PSs will get read, but they are virtually insignificant in decision-making. And entirely irrelevant when it comes to who gets interviewed.

frak i thought your comments were very interesting.
My DS is in Y13 at the local comp. He was on the "oxbridge" stream at school, but basically all that meant was they were taken to one of the Oxbridge fairs that are on across the country, and was taken to an indie school one morning for one mock interview. The interview was a horrible experience for him and the others from his school that went. The teachers doing the interviews were very critical of them, and the students they met at the school were rather unpleasant towards them.

On return to school he was told oh well, you'll just have to ask your parents to do some mock interviews with you at home - in aerospace engineering ffs!!

Unsurprisingly, the experience put them all off, and no one from his school applied. Given your comments about the level of preparation that your school put into the process, I think it's actually surprising that as many students from comprehensives get in as they do

and :( at your DS's experience.

Our interviews were tough - they were designed to be I suppose - and the feedback was probably quite critical but all constructive. I guess the difference was in my case the prep was organised by the school who have a vested interest in getting us in, whereas the local indie may have been trying to put other students off to reduce the competition.

Such a shame it put everyone off applying when that kind of preparation is, IMO, the key to success.

Thanks. I think that perhaps if 2011 wasn't the last year before the fee increase -and so a bulge year in terms of applications, then he may have been willing to take a punt on it. But I think all students this year have had to be extra cautious in their choices so as not to be left without any offers.

At the end of the day, it may not have been the most appropriate for him, even if he had an offer. He is quite independent minded, and was lucky to get 5 offers, he turned down a possibly more prestigious offer, and has accepted an offer from Southampton as he prefers the Uni - all he needs now are the grades

You can get into Ivy League without being very clever.
Ivy League explicitly wants future leaders in their fields. Any field but criminality considered. I don't know if you could get in with a 2.0 GPA (have to be pretty thick), but a 3.0 GPA (B average) and an amazing talent or preferably, several amazing talents, would do fine. GPA of 4.0 (max possible and not that uncommon) would still require some terrific extra-curric bits on the resume. Things like your family background puts you in the potential leadership category, though.

I don't think Oxford and Cambridge are looking for "one trick ponies" but they have both made absolutely explicit the fact that academic achievement and potential trumps everything else. This means that although they get students who are super bright and many have extra-curricular talents, this is a kind of by-product, almost; they don't actually encourage an able child who is applying to do a variety of extra-curricular things as they are so adamant that they will not generally help an application.

An independent school head mistress said in a newspaper interview earlier this year that such an attitude is a bit discouraging and extra-curricular activites and real-life work (ie in a shop or cafe, not just work experience) are vital life skills. She felt this was not a great recommendation to put to young people. This seems like common sense to me.

Ivy League on the other hand want to see a very rounded CV with a variety of real achievements. I wouldn't have said that you can be less clever to get into a real Ivy League uni than into Oxbridge (as opposed to a very good US one). It seems to me that you have to have it all to go to the top tier in the USA, but you might know different lljkk! the system there seems more sensible to me in that you may apply to a number of top tier unis, rather than the Oxford/Cambridge choice afforded young people here.

What a lot of really useful advice there is on here!

lljkk That's surprising. But good. At least DS2 now has somewhere to go. He quite fancies Harvard. Do your criteria apply there too? (it'll reassure him that his no revision plan for next month's exams may not hurt, as I've hinted it could).

I think it depends to some extent on the subject you're applying for. In my subjects , which included philosophy, they seemed to like people who could argue the hind leg off a donkey, any way round, both verbally and on paper.

Trotting up Kilimanjaro or helping in a Kenyan orphanage or having your gold DofE weren't course requirements.

People like Lindsay Lohan end up at Yale & Harvard. Not exactly brainy, but prominent achievers in other ways.

I am not reading your irony very well, Yellowstone! If your DS does a mean rendition of Wonderwall on his guitar that won't cut it. If was Grade 8 on violin by 10yo & performing solos at large concerts with ensemble orchestras, has put out his own albums, gets chattered about in the relevant media, then he'd be Harvale material, even if his academic grades are only respectable not stellar.

lib - yes of course. But it isn't a good idea to not put much effort in, given that people do read them, including tutors AND if you fail to get in, you will need a good one to get in at back-up universities.

A good Red Brick uni admission (medicine) that we looked at (not Oxbridge) said that they look for potential in an applicant. OK the academic requirements need to be met first and foremost but it a state school kid from a disadvantaged background who hasn't got the grade 7 in music, hasn't completed the world challenge and had work shadowing experience via daddy's colleagues but has managed to do voluntary work off their own bat would be favoured. So throwing money at things might actually be a disadvantage when places are tight.

lljk any crumb of comfort is welcome given the missing revision!

My lot have never done music which is sad but the lessons were beyond our means. They love music but can't perform. DS2 is very sporty but that's all apart from being clever but (currently, temporarily, foolishly) slack.

I actually meant his only chance would be to try trading on the family name. What a lousy reason that would be to get into Harvard or Yale. I can't believe that would seriously cut ice and if it did, shame on them.

adamschic I agree: even if a student does have the chance to pull strings and get a big name work placement, it might be diplomatic to avoid drawing attention to it in the PS.

more like family name coupled with Large donations that ensures an undergrad place, in some cases, Yellowstone. It used to be that if a parent had been to an Ivy League uni that they had a slight advantage at getting their DC into the same institution, but I don't know how much that works, nowadays. Said to be how GW Bush got into Yale, anyway.

Sorry Squashpie! Mooting is like a mock trial.

Oh ok lljkk. But what you said originally was that 'family background puts you in the potential leadership category'. I thought you meant Harvard and Yale had a touching faith in the power of genes.

If they want a donation, as well, no chance. None at all. Not even a cent. In fact we'd need a full scholarship for DS2 which really means financial help flowing the opposite way.

Back to the drawing board then....

Thanks Oxbridgemum. Kept meaning to google it but was usually caught up with mealtimes or staying sane with Easter hols!

Thanks for everyone's contributions. The consensus seems to be that extra curricular counts for nothing in terms of admission, but is often an indication that that person is intellectually energetic in a number of areas or that it is somehow linked to their main interest, eg. an active member of an am dram group indicates a love of language or literature (or, occasionally, the opposite, she writes mischievously ... ).

I met a rather charming young man studying physics at Oxbridge recently and he is convinced that his prowess on the rugby field did help his case...his college are particularly proud of their reputation.

However, the fact that he is also terrifyingly bright and has, at nineteen, been asked to spend some time in Cern this summer, may have had more to do with it

wordfactory one of the things that persistently depresses me about our undergraduates is the extent to which they so often think they somehow blagged their way in! As if they don't really deserve to be here. It results in them giving the most ridiculous advice about application/interview technique ... but they didn't get in because they 'fooled' the interviewer, or because they would be an asset to the college netball team, or for ANY reason other than that we thought they were, actually, academically brilliant. (Despite their attempts to bluff about something in the interview, which, believe me, we saw through.)

So I think your analysis is about right...

I think that there's a certain type of 'extra-curricular' activity that is crucial - because it shows your interest and commitment to your course, and that you will actually get something out of it.

You'd be amazed at the number of applicants for English literature degrees who appear not to like reading - and believe me, it doesn't correlate with social status in the least little bit.

aquavit it's certainly taken my second daughter two terms and a very nice end of term report from a reputedly fierce tutor to convince her she's not there by mistake.

There seems to be an odd but attractive correlation between modesty and talent amongst my children's friends at least - provided it doesn't turn into gloom.

Hi, I'm 18 and have an offer to read Philosophy and Theology at Oxford next year. In my experience, we were told through year 7-12 that all the extra curricular activities we did (D of E, Ten Tors, all the sports and music etc) would be vital for our personal statements - school always said that we would need to show that we were well-rounded individuals etc. When it came to writing personal statements, most of that was irrelevant - I didn't include any of it. You only need to show an interest in your subject, that is all that's important: I tried to show how my interest had been developed through the work I'd done in school, informed by what I had read (you really need specifics, anyone can name books so you have to make real, original-type, comments on the content) and others things I have done - debates, competitions, conferences etc. In that sense, the extra stuff is definitely necessary, talking about things like the Mock Trial competition and work experience, but only if it is subject-specific; I didn't talk about any of my sport, or volunteering or anything. The same was true for interview - a rounded interest and knowledge in your subject (not just what you have been taught in school) is important, but nothing else.

It is worth remembering, though, that you only write one personal statement for all the unis you apply to, so if another one you are considering (and you really do have to have a back-up plan) would care more about your activities outside of school then you will have to include that anyway, for them to see. But personal statements are so short there's no way you can put everything in.