Oxbridge Applications

In my opinion a lot of what "the gobby applicants" and "ridiculous little sixth formers" say is more valuable than the bile that so consistently comes from your fingertips on this forum.

Yes, people do post on here who don't have a clue, but the majority of replies to questions are made by people in pretty good positions to answer them. The success rate of the applicants on these boards must compare favourably with that of those who attend workshops by Cambridge Applications, largely (I imagine) because it's roughly the same self-selected group. This site is an awful lot more useful than "a cock flavoured lollipop", and an awful lot more fun too.

And that's saying something.

Perhaps they can't tell you anything more, but, as far as I can tell, they do offer face-to-face interview practice, which is something TSR cannot do. Regardless of any economic or ethical points, there is a huge difference between theory and practice. I could explain the rules of tennis, the technique behind all the shots, the strategies to employ during the game; however, will somebody on TSR then be able to go out and play tennis to a high level? You may argue that the example of a physical sport is a poor comparison, but how about an academic example? I could say to somebody that they can differentiate a function by considering the gradient of a function $f(x)$ between $x$ and $x + \delta x$ and tell them to let $\delta x \rightarrow 0$, but does this mean that they could sit a high-pressure, timed exam and differentiate an example, say $x \cos x$ in under two minutes? The ability to perform well in a pressure situation, such as a university interview, is gained through experience of those pressure situations, not by reading TSR.

Anyway, I was wondering how long til you threw your student-union worshipping, Access-scheme loving two cents into the mix. Surprised it took this long, actually. I expect better next time. C- for you, mister.

But how useful is face-to-face interview practice anyway?

After reading the recommended books on TSR, doing practice questions and asking any questions they needed answered in the Maths forum, I would say that they would certainly be able to differentiate that in under 2 minutes, whether under pressure or not.

In response to your suggestion that TSR is enough to prepare for a question like that in an interivew, look at my first paragraph.

My school offered it to people who were interested, and I found it really useful as a confidence exercise, and also an idea of what an interview could be like, as well as some usefule (though also some useless pointers).
I say if your school will pay for it, go for it as it can help make you less nervous and expell the rumours surrounding Oxbridge interviews. However, it's not worth the cost of the weekends, and the way it targets your parents is awful.

So why are people so passionately against it? All it is is a service that they charge a fee for, like a private school, outside tuition, private healthcare, etc.

Well, I think what people resent is how the company essentially advertises itself as a legal way of "buying" your child a place - provided you can afford it. That's probably a gross exaggeration, but I think a lot of people (particularly those who haven't used / wouldn't use / couldn't afford to use their services) are nevertheless secretly worried that it might actually work that way. That's why they're so quick to lash out against the company, and in a sense that's not entirely unjustified, because if it were possible to "buy" a place, it would completely defeat the universities' admissions policy based solely on "academic merit".

Ironically, Oxbridge Applications actually benefit from causing a bit of outrage every now and again, and they might even deliberately provoke it. In a way, they live by mystifying themselves just as much as they live by mystifying the Oxbridge application process. If nobody thought of them as slightly dodgy, they'd be nowhere near as successful...

I see what you mean, though I have to admit I've never seen marketing that suggests you can "buy" a place. I realise they use scare tactics, like "X many people with straight As didn't get an offer last year", but while it's a scare tactic, it's still true. The general idea - if you have straight As, you're not guaranteed a place, but we can help prepare you to maximise your chances - is pretty much exactly what they do.

I'm still shocked at quite the strength of people's negative feelings.

I disagree here. Target 10,000, run by Oxbridge Applications, is involved with far more applicants than OA are directly. If anything, they're demystifying applications for the masses.

They possibly would benefit from the mystique, but I reckon they'd benefit more if there weren't the outrage, and people just saw them as a service they can use or not.

What we need is TSR members who are now at Oxbridge to get together and provide a similar service for the price of a pint and a pizza. That WOULD be good value.