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Oxbridge offer - wot u reckon?

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Elles

slightly random bump, but anyway..

In retrospect, that was a bit ridiculous. Using another account to back himself up after I had a go at him.

Tch, some people.

Reply 81

THE UNDERDOG

back to the main topic, your grades do seem fine, and work experience will boost you chances. Two other points, take lessons in how to impress at an interview, and you will most probably get rejected if your from a state school, since 1000's of private school applicants with millions of AAAAAA's will be more suited to oxbridge life.

Reply 82

platinumki

Thread starter - clearly if you get the grades, you are in with a shout. Why are you applying next year, rather than this year though?

On the issue of general/ basic knowledge, to an extent I have to agree with Baz in that levels of general/ basic knowledge in state schools is appaling (I myself attend one of those schools where vultures circle overhead and beside the gate, there is a sign that reads "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here"). A friend of mine has an unconditional offer to study medicine at Edinburgh (offers in Scotland are based on Highers therefore she is still at school studying Advanced Highers) and she failed her AH Biology prelim. We were going over the paper and one question was a data handling question: Which land animal has the greatest biomass? (or something of the sort) She had written porpoise - she thought a porpoise was "like a hedgehog."

Now, I know she isn't going to study Zoology, but still, to me this is knowledge that a young child should have. Another friend holding an unconditional for medicine,in the REAL Biology exam (last Wednesday), asked me on the bus home, what did "implicit" mean (which had featured in one of the questions). Many of my friends are tragically held back by their basic general knowledge and literacy. I chose these examples because while these girls did not apply to Oxbridge, they are the school's high achievers and I do not believe medicine unconditionals my be sniffed at.

On the other hand, while I have had relatively little contact with publicly educated pupils, what I have seen has shown little difference. I have still recieved blank looks when after using vocabularly beyond the "Blue Peter" level. (Although, that could be partly due to the accent). A yound chap (educated at the King's School, Canterbury) I met at an Open Day was talking about how he had been visiting all the vet schools but wasn't bothering going up North to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Infact, this (Cambridge) was the furthest North he had ever been. Unless Liverpool was further North?

Perhaps general knowledge is simply shocking in "the youth of today?" Schools no longer aim to 'educate,' they attempt to pour as much exam-relevant knowledge into heads as possible for a short time, exaserbated surely by the English modular system. I do not beleive there is any excuse for people not reading in their own time, but it is a failing of many public schoolers, as well as their poverty stricken cousins.

(And please, before anyone starts telling me how they have to teach themselves the course and so how on earth are they meant to have time to read, I hold three jobs, have virtually self-taught myself 2 AH, play three musical instruments despite never paying for a private lesson, and manage to read. I have no time for people whining. Get off TSR and read a book.)

Reply 83

WhatFreshHell?

Feel better to get that off your chest there?

I know what you mean: the number of people in my year at school (and this is a group of 17/18 year olds) who think the plural of 'you' is 'yous' and who think 'goodluck' is one word is quite frankly appalling - three people referred in our yearbook to having had an "unforgetful" experience. That's why General Studies doesn't seem like that bad an idea, I reckon, it forces people to have a modicum of knowledge about society, (if only theoretically).