HI there,
Apologies for taking such a ling time to get back to you all.
Is it a serious program or a fun program?
Well its both! There are lots of fun activities in the evenings and trips to go on at the weekends, but it is primarily a pretty intense academic course. The intention is to take people outside what they are likely to have covered at school and spend lots of time really exploring a subject that you are passionate about. This is helped by the fact that all the teachers are people who are really involved with their subject, either as grad students or tutors so they are really inspiring!
The academic side of things always got really positive reviews from parents and students since it is generally quite a different experience to school.
There was an Oxbridge application course. Though this was mainly geared at foreign people who really had no idea how the system worked. SO I don't think that side of things will directly help with an Oxbridge application.
They are pretty tough on rules, although the people who got thrown out were really quite a long way out of line (eg sneaking out to get drunk and being really disruptive in the small hours, repeatedly.) it was also over a prolonged period of time so they don't react strongly without good reason. Also bear in mind that when there are something like 650 students on the course, one of them is bound to be a bit wayward!
Another bonus is that there are usually something like 40-50 nationalities represented on the courses, so it is a great way to meet people from totally different backgrounds and cultures without traveling there.
Overall I would definitely recommend it, everyone seemed to have a really good time, and there are plenty of repeat customers over the years.