The fairness of an Oxbridge application

By cattle-rearing I mean they send huge numbers to Oxbridge.

Thankfully, I haven't been




Because children don't apply to schools by of own accord.

I'm far as I'm concerned education is elitist by its nature but only in terms of ability and talent. It also seems distastefully self-perpetuating. Daddy goes Oxford, gets good job because of going to Oxford, has money to send child to private school, which helps child get into Oxford...

And how many 13 year olds do you know?

*nods*

Actually this whole page has just made me want to work my arse off and apply, and hopefully get in, because it would feel fantastic to know I did it entirely with my own ability; and that maybe people who didn't make 'sacrifices' for education are as worthy of good (higher) education.

AisAis, how can you call me ignorant if you didn’t even properly read what the **** I was saying?

I firmly agree that every child deserves an excellent education. I have pretty strong views on the subject that a lot of people don't like (such as very high inheritance tax, the majority of which goes on education and health). I think on a moral level we should give everyone the chance to realise their potential, and it also makes economic sense to have the widest talent pool available to drive the economy.

Why are private schools so successful? I think the main answer is just that they select people. If you have 5 applicants per place, you can pick very good ones. Not rocket science! I mean, those private schools which aren't so popular don't do so well.

If anyone's interested... I talked to a couple of guys tonight who are deeply involved in the admissions process at my college, who essentially said that A Levels and GCSEs are useless as a guide to who's going to perform well, interviews aren't much better, and that the only useful guide (for Maths students, at least) are STEP results.

Probably they were. But for whatever reason, the interviewers thought that other people were better candidates that year. Maybe they just didn't show themselves up that well in the interview - or with Natsci, it's possible they were too focussed on one area and they didn't think that they'd do well in the more general first two years. Who knows?

I'm really worried...I applied for Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge but with a Chemistry personal statement - going on about how wonderful Chemistry is without much reference to the other sciences except one aspect that I like about biology. However in my additional personal statement I said that I wanted to specialise in Chemistry but with a biological first year, but still it was very Chemistry orientated.

Does this mean that my chances are greatly reduced? Please say no!

in advance.

I think that applies more to Maths than other subjects. What I noticed in my own subject, Medicine, was that the people who come near the top of the year have invariably done extremely well in all the exams they've ever taken. On the other hand, just because you did well at school doesn't ensure good performance at uni, and some people do find they struggle despite expectations that they will continue to flourish.

As an Oxbridge admissions tutor, there's no one you care about less than the people who'll come near the top of the university. They're the geniuses who'll shine no matter how you design your admissions process (within reason). They could have awful grades (they don't, but they could) and they'd still get in pretty much every time because they'd just be amazing at interview.

I talked to a couple of guys tonight who are deeply involved in the admissions process at my college, who essentially said that A Levels and GCSEs are useless as a guide to who's going to perform well, interviews aren't much better, and that the only useful guide (for Maths students, at least) are STEP results.