Monday 24 August 2015

Thinking of applying to #university at Oxford or Cambridge?

A few thoughts this week from our Director of Consultancy Services, Brian McGee, in answer to those who perhaps feel the Oxbridge application process is unfair.


We frequently hear news about super-bright students who fail to get a place at Oxford or Cambridge and the cry goes up that they are biased against candidates from particular groups. The truth is quite the opposite in my experience.

Oxford and Cambridge universities have worked incredibly hard to make their selection processes as comprehensive and fair as they possibly can, with a raft of procedures to ensure that only the very best candidates in each cohort are offered a place. This is in stark contrast to other elite universities in the UK, who appear to be so overwhelmed by the number of applicants for each place that their systems sometimes seem quite simply a lottery and quite unfair to many candidates.

Oxford and Cambridge have the advantage of the college system, which means that applications are directed to the admissions tutors in each college, who, along with their admissions teams, assess each application individually against carefully constructed selection criteria for each subject. These criteria are open and transparent and published clearly on their websites.

Students applying to Oxford and Cambridge will have submitted their prior qualifications and marks, predicted grades from teachers, a detailed personal statement and a reference from their teachers. In addition to this, Cambridge ask for extra detail about results and an additional statement to address the candidate’s specific interest in the Cambridge course, as they realise that the UCAS statement requires a broad brush expression of interest in five possibly quite different courses. Oxford have increasingly developed their own tests to supplement the increasingly unreliable predicted grades.

Both universities interview significant numbers of applicants in order to ensure that they haven’t missed something on an application and to iron out the problem of highly-crafted personal statements which are not a reflection of the candidate’s own interests and aptitudes. Far from being the threatening and eccentric experience of folklore, these interviews are carefully structured in order to test an applicant’s thinking skills, usually aiming to move away from the student’s comfort-zone to areas they have not considered before, so that the true signs of critical thinking and curiosity begin to emerge. The interview process is explained very clearly on the university websites and in the various visits they make to schools and colleges, so that candidates will know what to expect.

Once this process is complete, both universities then carry out a systematic moderation across colleges, so that a good candidate in one college is not compromised by an unusually strong cohort for that year. Oxford does this during the interview days, with applicants often being interviewed by two or three different colleges during their stay. Cambridge uses the Pool system, which enables college tutors to draw an exceptional candidate from the pool if they feel they deserve a look; they may then re-interview that candidate before making a decision.


No system is perfect and both universities acknowledge that many very good candidates will be disappointed, but compare this with other universities, some of whom simply do not even appear to have read some applications, and it becomes clear that these two institutions have truly tried everything they can to develop open, transparent and fair systems.

Do you need help with planning and writing your Oxbridge application or preparing for interview? 


We have a range of services which are tailor-made to support teenagers with each stage of this process.


For an informal discussion call Claire on 01865 522066 


Or email consultants@independenteducationconsultants.co.uk


For more information, visit our website via the link  http://independenteducationconsultants.co.uk/oxford-and-cambridge-university-applications/


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