A Question About Oxford

I've been encouraged to go for Oxford, but I'm worried that I'm gonna get a B in AS Further Maths come results day...I screwed FP1 for some reason.

Will this ruin my chances completely, please?

Thanks

BBD14

Nearly everyone has missed out how he clearly mentioned what he knows of the process is anecdotal and based on a very small sample size, and thus not representative. He acknowledges that what he said is not fact and could very possibly be individual, isolated experiences.

That said, I had a perfectly lovely interview experience. Being from south India, I have a very different accent, not even the type you hear on TV (that's a north Indian accent). Everyone around me concurred; while some said their interviews were difficult or hadn't gone well, no one had any complaints with the interviewers' conduct or anything. One girl, who did cry in her interview, blamed it on her nerves, and was offered tissues and a couple of minutes to recover by her interviewers. Again, this is anecdotal and hence not entirely accurate, but my sample size is larger and thus far more representative.

I'm sure there must be surveys on interview satisfaction which will show most people thought their interviewers were professional and friendly (and, if rejected, that it was not the fault of the interviewers). fluteflute must have them somewhere :P

I don't think surveys exist - results would be interesting to see, but I doubt anything surprising would come out of them! (More interesting would be surveying applicants to see how they thought their interview went, and compare that to the actual outcome... but also probably not worth the effort.)

Nearly everyone has missed out how he clearly mentioned what he knows of the process is anecdotal and based on a very small sample size, and thus not representative. He acknowledges that what he said is not fact and could very possibly be individual, isolated experiences.

That said, I had a perfectly lovely interview experience. Being from south India, I have a very different accent, not even the type you hear on TV (that's a north Indian accent). Everyone around me concurred; while some said their interviews were difficult or hadn't gone well, no one had any complaints with the interviewers' conduct or anything. One girl, who did cry in her interview, blamed it on her nerves, and was offered tissues and a couple of minutes to recover by her interviewers. Again, this is anecdotal and hence not entirely accurate, but my sample size is larger and thus far more representative.

I'm sure there must be surveys on interview satisfaction which will show most people thought their interviewers were professional and friendly (and, if rejected, that it was not the fault of the interviewers). fluteflute must have them somewhere :P



Dude, shut up. He's clearly stated that he withdrew his application from Cambridge two weeks after submission. When another user brought up the inconsistency in his submission dates, it was clarified with a perfectly logical explanation - that he had submitted all 5 applications and hence by that measure it was late, which was not the best choice of words, but was nevertheless a sensible clarification.

He was quite clearly not rejected from Oxford or Cambridge. He also acknowledged it was all anecdotal and unrepresentative, if you would care to read his original post (or the first line of my post). Stop harping on and on about this, you're just being unnecessarily nasty.

PS: I hold an unconditional offer at Oxford myself, if that gives me "credibility" in your eyes.

You are Dravidian from India - what do you know about the UK ?

Nearly everyone has missed out how he clearly mentioned what he knows of the process is anecdotal and based on a very small sample size, and thus not representative. He acknowledges that what he said is not fact and could very possibly be individual, isolated experiences.

Are you reading the same posts I am?

He said explicitly in his second post: "The interviewers are often incredibly rude and other applicants arrogant to start with." He bases this on his one or two anecdotes and tries to ameliorate it later, but that's clearly not the stance he took to begin with.

Also, I'm calling him out on the truthfulness of his anecdotes. If someone has a genuinely bad experience, fair enough - but I detect a large amount of BS in his story.

Give it up man. Stop your BS. We all know S. India is Dalit land

It's somewhat fair though, lot's of people Romanticise this idea of Oxford/Cambridge but they aren't worth it. The interviewers are often incredibly rude and other applicants arrogant to start with.

There are comparable northern universities which are less prone to snobbery. Also, Oxford and Cambridge have a horrendous obsession with foreign students and such, notable for sometimes being at the expense of other students studying at the university.

So true. Everyone just has this image of living in a beautiful old building and walking round a beautiful airy library filled with 1000 year old books, and drinking tea in quaint little cafes and talking about philosophy. Most people end up living in the 60s part of college tbf...

No, just no.

?

You say everyone has that view of Oxford when I doubt anyone I know ever had that view of Oxford - you'd have to be living in cloud cuckoo land.

well everyone at my college has that view! obviously they're from cloud cuckoo land then

What, everyone at your Oxford college or are you talking about Sixth-form?

I can only speak anecdotally in this response about Oxford but what I can say about their interview process was quite frankly, from a professional point, disgraceful. Absolutely horrendous.

A headteacher to me recounted the time a student phone him crying, because the interviewers had been so cruel to the kid. They had feigned sleeping and snoring noises in response to one of her questions. They then told her, thanks, she was free to go home.

So she books a train back to Wolverhampton, gets on it, and then, lo and behold, once on the train she received a message about how they wanted to see her again and return to the interview room. Suffice to say, she told them to **** off and left.


Others have said they were discriminated on accent. People from where I am have a fairly thick accent, which can be strange to people who haven't heard it before, but not to the point where it isn't understandable. However they've had interviewers tell them to speak clearer, or more "Appropriately" essentially asking them to a fake a posh accent, rather than be themselves.

As I say, this is anecdotal, and may not fully reflect all of the interviewers at Oxford, and I mean it in no way to disrespect them. I can only speak from vicarious experiences and trustworthy accounts.

I've been encouraged to go for Oxford, but I'm worried that I'm gonna get a B in AS Further Maths come results day...I screwed FP1 for some reason.

Will this ruin my chances completely, please?

Thanks

BBD14

The cruel fact is people with thick regional accents are regarded as peasants by academic people ... Get real. If you want to get on speak English.

The cruel fact is people with thick regional accents are regarded as peasants by academic people and are unlikely to make serious progress in most professions.

inb4. Yes there are obvious exceptions to this rule. But someone who is completely unaware of this fact is simply not a well socially developed person because they give every appearance of having been brought up in an uneducated environment and they remain locked into a limited local or regional perspective. Get real. If you want to get on speak English.

Obtaining a grade B in a single AS is not at all going to be decisive. Your GCSEs, the reference from your school, and your performance at interview will count for a lot more.

The priority at this stage is getting an interview. The BMAT is crucial for this so right now, that's your biggest priority.

I hope your username is not based on the grades you expect to get...

Good luck

I can only speak anecdotally in this response about Oxford but what I can say about their interview process was quite frankly, from a professional point, disgraceful. Absolutely horrendous.

A headteacher to me recounted the time a student phone him crying, because the interviewers had been so cruel to the kid. They had feigned sleeping and snoring noises in response to one of her questions. They then told her, thanks, she was free to go home.

So she books a train back to Wolverhampton, gets on it, and then, lo and behold, once on the train she received a message about how they wanted to see her again and return to the interview room. Suffice to say, she told them to **** off and left.


Others have said they were discriminated on accent. People from where I am have a fairly thick accent, which can be strange to people who haven't heard it before, but not to the point where it isn't understandable. However they've had interviewers tell them to speak clearer, or more "Appropriately" essentially asking them to a fake a posh accent, rather than be themselves.

As I say, this is anecdotal, and may not fully reflect all of the interviewers at Oxford, and I mean it in no way to disrespect them. I can only speak from vicarious experiences and trustworthy accounts.