Could you get a place by shining at interview/entrance exam...

No, I hadn't read your spoiler, just what you'd written here. What does the fact that 'Some people don't need qualifications to overcome their insecurities' have to do with anything? My point is, move on and get over it. You have to work for yourself. That's nothing to do with being 'institutionalised' (at least I hope not!), in fact, it may even be the opposite. You can't blame other people all the time. Nor can you continue (if you count yourself as one of these intelligent people who have not tried in school) to entertain the belief that you're intelligent, and just haven't shown it yet. Intelligence is nothing without action. So get on with it.

I never claimed that exams or qualifications were an indicator of intelligence (or at least an exact indicator, I'm sure they have a pretty strong correlation!). But you can't just go around claiming that you're intelligent and haven't done anything with it yet. You may be on 'a different ladder with different rungs', and good luck to you. Yes, that might show your intelligence (if it's genuine), but that's what I'm on about. You seemed to be claiming that there are people who are on no ladder at all, yet their intelligence is lying in wait. What I'm saying is that intelligence is about being on some sort of ladder (and yes, there are many types).

I've abused your metaphor, my apologies.

I think anyone can get 3 As if they work hard, some will simply have to work much much harder than others to do this. This said, I think exam performance is more indicative of your ability to regurgitate information, and to generally work. Many intelligent but lazy people will fail exams, many less intelligent people will work hard and ace them. Oxbridge know this, and thats why the interview/tests/ written work is used - as a measure of actual ability independant of A level results; to weed out the people who DID have to work mega hard to get the grades and who dont have the potential that other perhaps less qualified have, and illustrate they have, at interview. I could be wrong but thats the way Ive seen it.



In regards to the OPs question: of course you can, a more apt question would have been ne regarding the likelyhood of you getting in.... which is basically what people have answered.

im tired.

<3

I think anyone can get 3 As if they work hard, some will simply have to work much much harder than others to do this. This said, I think exam performance is more indicative of your ability to regurgitate information, and to generally work. Many intelligent but lazy people will fail exams, many less intelligent people will work hard and ace them. Oxbridge know this, and thats why the interview/tests/ written work is used - as a measure of actual ability independant of A level results; to weed out the people who DID have to work mega hard to get the grades and who dont have the potential that other perhaps less qualified have, and illustrate they have, at interview. I could be wrong but thats the way Ive seen it.



In regards to the OPs question: of course you can, a more apt question would have been ne regarding the likelyhood of you getting in.... which is basically what people have answered.

im tired.

<3

No, you see, the thing is: Oxbridge don't want "intelligent but lazy people".

They want determination to succeed as well as potential, and although A levels may indeed not be so good at ascertaining the latter, they can certainly ascertain the lack of the former.

No, you see, the thing is: Oxbridge don't want "intelligent but lazy people".

They want determination to succeed as well as potential, and although A levels may indeed not be so good at ascertaining the latter, they can certainly ascertain the lack of the former.

If anyone is interested, I contacted a load of colleges and they said that things like depression/demotivation are enough to apply through the CSAS. I always thought you had to be seriously ill or massively disadvantaged, but it's literally if you have anything that disrupted your schooling.

Also, one college I contacted - St Catharine's - said they interview all their applicants, so if anyone is in a similar situation they might want to apply there. However, it could just be a policy for maths applicants.

This is the most arrogant and baseless thing I've ever read.

I'm so grateful to the OP for starting this thread as it just proves how worthy the study of education is. All this talk of motivation, different kinds of intelligence and exams as a measure of intelligence is great.

Haha, I'm glad someones enjoying it

My personal opinion on all this is that a person who cares about their subject would naturally do well, because they would want to learn about it - that's how it was for me when I did gcses and AS levels - I was interested, plus I had a lot of pride and didn't want to be beaten in exams by anyone . However, because A-levels are 90% fact regurgitation and 10% brains, it is easy for an intelligent person to do very badly, for example in my case where I stopped going to my lessons because I thought there was no point to learning or leaving the house or doing anything.

What got you interested in pursuing education studies btw? Forgive me - but I always assumed people applied for it because it was easier to get into than the other subjects, and because you can easy swop to the 'academic' subject after the first year. Now I consider it, it could actually be an interesting thing to study - it kidn of overlaps with psychology?