Can I take a gap year and apply to Oxbridge?

I'm in my last year of school in Scotland, have straight As in all of my exams and am taking a rigorous combination of subjects at the moment. It never occurred to me that I could apply for Oxbridge and have a chance of getting in, but through various things I am now meeting more and more people who are of similar (sometimes lower) academic ability to me and are applying and probably likely to get places. I discussed the possibility of applying with my family and my dad was so dead set against the idea of me going to Oxford or Cambridge because he thought I'd become a snob that I ended up abandoning the idea. However, I feel deep regret that I didn't even give myself the chance of attending either. In some ways it's harder having not applied than it would have been if I was rejected.

Can I take a gap year and reapply? Is this common for students at Oxbridge? For some reason I feel most of them enter straight from school and this may be looked down upon.

Thanks in advance.


Posted from TSR Mobile

I'm in my last year of school in Scotland, have straight As in all of my exams and am taking a rigorous combination of subjects at the moment. It never occurred to me that I could apply for Oxbridge and have a chance of getting in, but through various things I am now meeting more and more people who are of similar (sometimes lower) academic ability to me and are applying and probably likely to get places. I discussed the possibility of applying with my family and my dad was so dead set against the idea of me going to Oxford or Cambridge because he thought I'd become a snob that I ended up abandoning the idea. However, I feel deep regret that I didn't even give myself the chance of attending either. In some ways it's harder having not applied than it would have been if I was rejected.

Can I take a gap year and reapply? Is this common for students at Oxbridge? For some reason I feel most of them enter straight from school and this may be looked down upon.

Thanks in advance.


Posted from TSR Mobile

I'm in my last year of school in Scotland, have straight As in all of my exams and am taking a rigorous combination of subjects at the moment. It never occurred to me that I could apply for Oxbridge and have a chance of getting in, but through various things I am now meeting more and more people who are of similar (sometimes lower) academic ability to me and are applying and probably likely to get places. I discussed the possibility of applying with my family and my dad was so dead set against the idea of me going to Oxford or Cambridge because he thought I'd become a snob that I ended up abandoning the idea. However, I feel deep regret that I didn't even give myself the chance of attending either. In some ways it's harder having not applied than it would have been if I was rejected.

Can I take a gap year and reapply? Is this common for students at Oxbridge? For some reason I feel most of them enter straight from school and this may be looked down upon.

Thanks in advance.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Thank you for all of your responses!

What about for English Literature or history? Will a gap year put me at a disadvantage for these subjects? I can't imagine many related things I could fill a gap year with bar working in a museum!


Posted from TSR Mobile

Should be fine.

Well you could spend all that year reading and reading!

Novels, historical texts, poems, everything!

That sounds quite appealing actually But I would want to do something with my time, so maybe teaching English abroad would be a good idea. I'm hesitant just to get a job in a supermarket and spend the full year doing little productive!


Posted from TSR Mobile

Most of them for medicine have to take a gap year to get the all rounder persona ready, some time volunteering in a hospital for example and building some knowledge to survive the interviews. As far as I know straight in entries are rare.

I'm in my last year of school in Scotland, have straight As in all of my exams and am taking a rigorous combination of subjects at the moment. It never occurred to me that I could apply for Oxbridge and have a chance of getting in, but through various things I am now meeting more and more people who are of similar (sometimes lower) academic ability to me and are applying and probably likely to get places. I discussed the possibility of applying with my family and my dad was so dead set against the idea of me going to Oxford or Cambridge because he thought I'd become a snob that I ended up abandoning the idea. However, I feel deep regret that I didn't even give myself the chance of attending either. In some ways it's harder having not applied than it would have been if I was rejected.

Can I take a gap year and reapply? Is this common for students at Oxbridge? For some reason I feel most of them enter straight from school and this may be looked down upon.

Thanks in advance.

As far as I know straight in entries are rare.

Most of them for medicine have to take a gap year to get the all rounder persona ready, some time volunteering in a hospital for example and building some knowledge to survive the interviews. As far as I know straight in entries are rare.

So do you have a place to study medicine currently? And you want to reject that for Oxford? Medicine is hard to get into at all - even if you were dead set on wanting the Oxford course, i'd think long and hard before turning down such an achievement.

Its a bit weird that your father doesn't trust you to not "become a snob", whatever his perception of Oxford is.

"A bit weird"….helpful

You mentioned it, not me.