Would a person need to be officially GnT to consider Oxford?

[ZombiesAtYourCervix]

D1 is 15 and has decided that's where she is going. She is nice, sweet and hardworking but not brilliantly clever (predicted mostly As at GCSE). She just asked if she could go to an open day sometime to have a look around (very forward planning I know but that's her)

DO I encourage her or redirect her?

Riven I imagine the Physics tutors are well able to connect with a DS like yours!

Modern Foreign Language

Yellowstone - I was thinking that too but trying to think of a tactful way of putting it! More seriously - loads of applicants are very shy or awkward in interviews. As long as he can engage with the material he'll have an opportunity to show what he can do.

Pretty much Riven

Sorry - don't mean to imply that Aspergers is just like being shy or awkward of course! Just that interviews really are about the academic subject, not social skills.

Gelatinous I see .... However remember only AS level modules are finished by the time ucas forms go in ie only the easy bit !! The more taxing modules ( only know maths and sciences) are yet to come!

I also genuinely believe that tutors try very hard to adjust to the interviewee kalidasa. That helps. Give him a quark and he'll probably fly!

Agree with Yellowstone - I have several friends with science/maths orientated sons (yes all boys) at, or who have been at both Oxford and Cambridge who are, to varying degrees, a bit challenged by the complexities of social interaction! Some of their reported responses to questions asked at interview left their Mums a bit horrified but they won places. And have been happy and successful while there.

Having HE'd and helped a child into Cambridge, you must have a good idea, Riven, of the procedure. Whichever he goes to it is likely, given his field, that he will meet and make slightly different friends to someone doing your daughter's course and, it's to be hoped, won't find the same hiccups. Good luck to him.

I thought quark was a kind of fromage frais?

Rivenwithoutabingle if your son is interested take a look at the Cambridge shadowing scheme www.applytocambridge.com/shadowing/ and the Sutton Trust summer school www.suttontrust.com/summer-schools/ and then he can hopefully pick up information himself about the application procedure, dates and so on. Of course you can also get help here

OP take your daughter to an open day but encourage her to look at other universities too.

I rather doubt my advice is out of date seeing as I am an admissions interviewer at Cambridge

Riven, he can get all the advice he needs direct from Oxford/Cambridge and if he mentioned Asperger's on the form that will be taken into account (sometimes it seems as though half the university has Asperger's, so he will be in good company, I think).

BoffinMun the grades you cite, only requiring two grade As at AS and no mention of A*'s at A2, is completely out of touch.

Cambridge requires not just A's in all AS modules but it likes over 90%. As for being let in with AAB because of a 'blip' : students are being turned away despite A*'s on the grounds of missing their STEP.

Encouraging students to apply is one this, dumbing down the requirements to this extent is another.

Saying that some students are turned away despite As is not relevant though, yellowstone. For years and years, the papers have been running shocked stories about candidates who get the best possible grades and don't get in to Oxbridge. Every year Oxbridge puts out statements explaining that they don't judge candidates purely on A Level grades and consequently may prefer to take a candidate they think has more potential or is a better fit with their system, than one who excelled at A level.

I think you're confusing stories about candidates with very high grades being rejected, with the typical grades of candidates who are accepted. They're not the same.

I meant BoffinMum.... and Encouraging students to apply is one thing.

Looking back I can make sense of what you say on the basis that the * function on your keyboard wasn't working?

Yellowstone - but BoffinMum is actually making these decisions at Cambridge!

No I'm really not Ella. I know many candidates like those. I'm referring very specifically to students with provisional offers made in January who on results day in August have their places declined having achieved A*'s but not the required grade in STEP.

I also know some students are allowed their place despite having missed a grade, but AAB at the moment would be utterly exceptional, not at all run of the mill (which is what the use of the term 'blip' suggests).

G&T is clearly not required ZAYC - in my year over 20% of the year got places in O or C - and that's not the definition of G&T is it. Then there were the oddballs like me that didn't actually want to go there and chose to go to a Redbrick instead due to the course. Its only an open-day - what harm can it do?

I'd really like BoffinMum to explain which department she's in because it worries me that what she's saying is so inconsistent with what's happening in most departments and with the guidance which is being handed to school students and their teachers by everyone else including very knowledgeable outreach officials who are supposed to convey clear messages about exactly what standard is required.

So, you're saying students sometimes get turned down when they miss an offer? Well ... yes. What else would happen?

Equally, some students receive offers of 2es as a compliment. This does not mean they are expected to get 2 es. I think you are reading too much into specific cases and maybe not trusting enough what Oxbridge says for itself?

I just find it quite unlikely that two big universities would bother to make up elaborate lies about their admissions procedure.

The guidelines I gave represent a guideline for potential applicants who are thinking of applying. A lot of people who are offered places have to fulfil much higher offers, but I have been part of admissions teams who have given places to applicants on the basis of these grades.

If we assessed on the basis of GCSE and A Level grades alone, we wouldn't need interviews, would we?

I can't because I would out myself. But honestly, your past and predicted exam results are weighted against typical results for your school and whether you are a Special Access student, and we also take other things into account including the interviews, for which applicants receive an average mark.

Ella what I'm saying is that if students are turned away with AAA having missed one grade in STEP then it's going to be very unlikely that many students will be allowed in with AAB. The latter is what BoffinMum*'s first post suggested. Cambridge doesn't even particularly like re-marks after A Levels where a student has missed a grade.

I'm not clear where I've suggested that 'two big universities would bother to make up elaborate lies about their admissions procedures'! I don't think MN is yet an official sourse of information for either Oxford or Cambridge. But in the real world of admissions the grades BM cites are nowhere near what the generality of students applying to Cambridge have or have to have, they are not what the university itself puts out officially either and it's right that information is kept fairly consistent except for special access cases which by their very nature are different.

Agreed that the grades you cite might just past muster for special access but that's all.

Would you out yourself by saying which discipline you were in? It's a big place!