GCSE Results - The Next Step

Hello everyone!

I have just received my GCSE results for 2024 and I am mostly pleased with what I got.
In terms of letter grades, I had 9 A Star and 3 A Grades. I’m hoping to score well in the A-Levels I have chosen for next year.

I was just wondering whether or not this would seem like a fair amount of results and quality that Oxford University would want, since I feel slightly worried about the fact that I almost would had another A Star but was three marks off being a difference.

What do you think?

Thanks.

Reply 1

Kdipstar

Original post

by theleochen

Hello everyone!
I have just received my GCSE results for 2024 and I am mostly pleased with what I got.
In terms of letter grades, I had 9 A Star and 3 A Grades. I’m hoping to score well in the A-Levels I have chosen for next year.
I was just wondering whether or not this would seem like a fair amount of results and quality that Oxford University would want, since I feel slightly worried about the fact that I almost would had another A Star but was three marks off being a difference.
What do you think?
Thanks.

You have a very positive profile and Oxbridge would require at least AAA so you are on task for that. If your parents are politicians or members of the establishment then I'm sure they could make a few calls here and there. Don't forget Boris Johnson went to Oxford and there is no way he or any of his offspring got those grades.

Reply 2

theleochen

Original post

by Kdipstar

I would love if my parents were in that position, but they emigrated so that we could have a better life so it would make me and my siblings a first generation university students. Whilst living in a low POLAR4 and HE quintile, I don’t know if this is contextual but doesn’t affect me.

Reply 3

Kdipstar

Do you best and see how far you go. Remember if you don't get into Oxford it's no bigge, it will be there loss. Good luck 🤞

Reply 4

Stiffy Byng

Original post

by Kdipstar

I assume that you are joking. The days when parental influence could waft a person into Oxford are, I am glad to say, long gone. Boris Johnson, a lazy man with a mediocre intellect, should never have been at Oxford, but those were the bad old days. He was notorious throughout the university for being a total ****, and his tutors at Balliol disowned him (one doing so in elegant Latin).

OP, you have a chance, but be sure to identify at least one other university you would really like to go to, because as you know Oxford places are hard to obtain.

Reply 5

Kdipstar

Original post

by Stiffy Byng

I assume that you are joking. The days when parental influence could waft a person into Oxford are, I am glad to say, long gone. Boris Johnson, a lazy man with a mediocre intellect, should never have been at Oxford, but those were the bad old days. He was notorious throughout the university for being a total ****, and his tutors at Balliol disowned him (one doing so in elegant Latin).
OP, you have a chance, but be sure to identify at least one other university you would really like to go to, because as you know Oxford places are hard to obtain.

My tongue was in cheek firmly, but the percentage of public school kids getting a pass into Oxford is still bewildering. Class and background does play a part unfortunately. It's not a level playing field.

Reply 6

Stiffy Byng

Original post

by Kdipstar

About 29% to 30% of undergraduate entrants to Oxford and Cambridge have attended private schools. This is indeed disproportionate, because only about 8% of the pupil population attends private schools (the figure may be about 14% or more at sixth form level), and of course only a limited percentage of the pupils who attend private sixth forms apply to Oxford and Cambridge. Those relatively few who do apply do well.

The Telegraph and The Times are wrong to claim that Oxford and Cambridge are biased against private school pupils. The papers make that claim in order to instill in some middle class parents a false sense of injustice. The same parents think that Stalinism has arrived because the VAT scam is about to end for private schools, most of which are about as charitable as Elon Musk. You get more philanthropy from Pol Pot than you do from the average for-profit school. Some of the older ones do some actual charity work. City of London School and Gresham's School spring to mind.

A small percentage of pupils obtain almost one third of the available places at Oxbridge. Most of the other available places are obtained by pupils who have attended good State schools, often located in leafy areas in the South East of England. Socio-economic advantage remains real.

The universities try to mitigate the effects of this by access projects and by looking at applicants in context. They do OK in some respects, but not in others. The percentage of Oxbridge undergraduates who are from ethnic minorities exceeds the percentage of ethnic minority people in the national population aged 18 to 25. Unfair exclusion from Oxbridge of ethnic minority students is no longer a thing. Inclusion of people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, regardless of ethnicity, is less effective. This reflects societal problems in the UK which it is not the job of any two universities to fix. It was arguably easier for a working class person to go to Oxford and Cambridge in the 1980s (when we had full maintenance grants and no tuition fees) than it is now. The two universities are mostly about as middle class as you can get. The same is true of many universities in the Russell Group.

But nobody gets in because of Daddy these days.

OK, maybe if Daddy is a billionaire who donates an entire building to his old college, the Fellows of the college might say (with Groucho Marx) "These, Sir, are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."