Missed an Oxbridge offer?

People can also get ill unexpectedly or simply mess up one of their exams rather badly. It happens (especially in essay subjects). Or if they applied to Cambridge for Maths, they might fail to get the required grades in their STEP-papers, as happens to a signigicant percentage of offer holders each year. Or their offers could have been very high and hard to meet to begin with: a few years ago, for example, somebody on TSR missed an offer for English because she "only" got an IB score of 39.

Reply 5

andyroo_g

ddrebelo

I have been thinking why do some people miss their offers from Oxford or Cambridge after they showed they had capacity to meet them and got trough all the application process successfully.
Is there anyone here who missed an Oxbridge offer? Why do you think that happened?

They've only demonstrated capacity to (one would hope) get As in the subject that they've got in for. In my case, they know nothing about how good I am at politics.

Reply 6

The_Lonely_Goatherd

20

I ended up getting AAB, missing an A in French by 6 UMS marks. There are lots of things I could blame it on: the fact that my crap teachers left at the end of Year 12 and we managed to get even crapper ones for Year 13; me being more complacent than I should have been; my hearing problems, etc. It can't be pinpointed to any one thing and tbh, I don't spend much time thinking about why I didn't get an A, seeing as I'm where I wanted to be anyway :smile:

Reply 7

hobnob

Erm, interesting, but why did you post that in a thread about people who did get offers but then went on to miss them? :confused:

Reply 8

swiftuk

I missed my offer (quite some years ago), although I didn't go in the end (as they offered me a place anyay).

I managed to get a 1 and a 3 in my Maths STEPs, and they wanted two 2s. However, I had a friend who did the same and got rejected...very easy to mess those exams up on the day.

Reply 9

--

3

Hahahaha, what utter ********. I'm actually at Fitz and there is a substantial proportion of students from private schools and a fair few from public schools (I know people from Radley, Charterhouse etc here). That had absolutely nothing to do with your chances of success.

It doesn't have huge state sector intake anyway, it's much less than the national representation of state sector pupils and is more representative of applicants to the college, rather than any bias on behalf of admissions tutors (who, frankly, couldn't give a **** where you went to school).

Scapegoat your private school status all you want, but that had nothing to do with it, it probably had much more to do with the fact that your ability levels weren't up to scratch and you were intellectually inflexible - as they said in the feedback.

OP

If you say so

I also think there's a fair amount of complacency. The school I now work in has a surprising reputation for people getting and then missing their Oxbridge offers. Partly I think because all the boys know that getting less than a B is unheard of (literally - last year there was one grade in the whole school not A or B) and they know that the teachers have done everything they need to to prepare them. So some don't realise they also need to do some damn hard work.

Reply 12

Vazzyb

not that difficult really:

- many of the grade predictions (estimates of upto 60%) are optimistic.
- the interview/selection process is not flawless - they sometimes get too swayed by a smart talker or just someone with lots and lots of non-academic achievements who isn't actually that clever, or to be more "PC", clever enough to get 3As.

therefore, you will get a small number of people who will miss the AAA offer.

Furthermore, this is completely different for Maths and some other subjects where STEP/AEA offers are given - those exams are actually really hard and Oxbridge give more offers than they intend to have students - so missing the offer can be quite common there.

You'll notice that in "non-maths" subjects, its generally students applying to less popular colleges/less popular courses/people who have been pooled - who tend to miss the offer.

You talk as though grades and academic records are the only way someone can be smart?

Even Cambridge acknowledges this and will interview someone with average grades (ccc) to see if he has any other high achieving abillities)

also unmotivated people may not achive their potential, this doesnt mean they are not clever.

finally, you forget that the quality of teaching greatly influences someones grades. Not all of us have been privelaged enough to have top quality tecahing that is seen in private schools

Reply 13

hobnob

Was this really worth bumping a 10-month-old thread for? :confused:

az1992

You talk as though grades and academic records are the only way someone can be smart?

Even Cambridge acknowledges this and will interview someone with average grades (ccc) to see if he has any other high achieving abillities)
... and you talk as though the fact that Cambridge will consider applicants with average grades (provided there were extenuating circumstances) via the special access scheme meant that grades don't mean anything. :s-smilie:

They're willing to make some concessions, I suppose, but that's it. At the end of the day, degrees are mainly assessed through exams, so it's unlikely that Cambridge will be too keen on candidates who may be clever in their own special way but who are - for some reason or another - unable to translate that cleverness into good exam performance.

Reply 14

hobnob

Was this really worth bumping a 10-month-old thread for? :confused:

... and you talk as though the fact that Cambridge will consider applicants with average grades (provided there were extenuating circumstances) via the special access scheme meant that grades don't mean anything. :s-smilie:

They're willing to make some concessions, I suppose, but that's it. At the end of the day, degrees are mainly assessed through exams, so it's unlikely that Cambridge will be too keen on candidates who may be clever in their own special way but who are - for some reason or another - unable to translate that cleverness into good exam performance.

well i wasnt aware it was a 10 month thread,

no i was saying cambridge would perhaps consider people with average grades.

I also think that some institutions are aware that the quality of teaching is also an important factor in the students grades

Reply 15

wer343lit

11

az1992

You talk as though grades and academic records are the only way someone can be smart?

Even Cambridge acknowledges this and will interview someone with average grades (ccc) to see if he has any other high achieving abillities)

also unmotivated people may not achive their potential, this doesnt mean they are not clever.

finally, you forget that the quality of teaching greatly influences someones grades. Not all of us have been privelaged enough to have top quality tecahing that is seen in private schools

Yeah sure, they'll interview them. I'd imagine their chances of getting in are incredibly low. Also, what's the use of having an unmotivated intellectual on an Oxbridge course? The exams presumably require a LOT of hard work.

Reply 16

Jonty99

Yeah sure, they'll interview them. I'd imagine their chances of getting in are incredibly low. Also, what's the use of having an unmotivated intellectual on an Oxbridge course? The exams presumably require a LOT of hard work.

well how motivated would you be surrounded by people not giving a daqmn about studies.

Why would they interview them if they had no chance of getting in? I dont think Oxbridge have humouring low achievers at the top of their aims?

I wasnt saying that you were still just as likely to get in with average grades i just said that there is still a chance and why should people not atleats give it a try?

Reply 17

7589200

18

az1992

You talk as though grades and academic records are the only way someone can be smart?

Even Cambridge acknowledges this and will interview someone with average grades (ccc) to see if he has any other high achieving abillities)

also unmotivated people may not achive their potential, this doesnt mean they are not clever.

finally, you forget that the quality of teaching greatly influences someones grades. Not all of us have been privelaged enough to have top quality tecahing that is seen in private schools

I don't think Cambridge admit students based on some estimate of their "theoretical intelligence". Exam succcess, a product of hard work and cleverness is a good measure of how likely people are to do well when they're actually at Cambridge.

That argument of teaching influences students' standards is somewhat corrected by the special access scheme and their GCSE point scoring system, but, it is largely uncorrected for achieveing the offer. However that doesnt mean the AAA is unachieveable, a large number of students do manage it with some ease, and those who don't, often its due to not putting in enough hard work (whereas the same student at a private school would have achieved it easily).

The A*AA does make things worse though...

Reply 18