Oxbridge Admissions Tutoring- Uniadmissions, Medicmind etc.
Discussion
Has he chosen his ALevels yet? What is he taking? Did you research Unis first and what Aleveks they need for the various courses? All equally as important as the admissions test.
A lot of Unis offer undergrad Sumer schools that not a lot of schools outside of the public school system know about so that may be an option next summer for him. Attending a summer school at a leading uni in his personal statement or interview is going to be viewed a lot higher than drinking cider in the park with his mates. Not that medics don’t do that they are some of the biggest alcies going
A lot of Unis offer undergrad Sumer schools that not a lot of schools outside of the public school system know about so that may be an option next summer for him. Attending a summer school at a leading uni in his personal statement or interview is going to be viewed a lot higher than drinking cider in the park with his mates. Not that medics don’t do that they are some of the biggest alcies going
Breadvan72 said:
NewNameNeeded said:
...
FWIW I didn't apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Outstanding universities, for sure, but I would not have fit in with many of the type of students that go there, and that is a really important consideration. University is so much more than the degree...
You may perhaps have done yourself a disservice there. Oxbridge is not all Boris Johnsons, and you can in any event ignore the Boris Johnsons while you are there. The point that I am trying to make is that stereotypes can be unhelpful, and people should not be deterred from applying to Oxbridge by stereotyping. FWIW I didn't apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Outstanding universities, for sure, but I would not have fit in with many of the type of students that go there, and that is a really important consideration. University is so much more than the degree...
I was lucky enough that my parents taught me well and pushed when growing up in the midlands, but the car that dropped me off at Oxford in the quad was a rusty 10+ year old Fiat Tempra!
On my course in my college (PPE... oh dear) we had everything from a very working class girl from a Welsh mining town, to a son of an investment banker, to an ultra chilled old money trust fund guy.
At first I was a little intimidated by those with unlimited parental money; but soon you realise that in many ways this is a disadvantage (did they really do it themselves
)I’m not quite sure how you would train to get into Oxbridge - I was very lucky and my economics tutor spotted something in me (god knows what) and we have been friends since. One of 8 interviews and I got a fluke. The first three were terrible. He was the forth and I never looked back.
I’d say encourage your kid to read well and develop some independent ideas and philosophies - get him to have “something to him” on interview.
It was an incredible experience.
If you want any other thoughts on the process I’m happy to help by PM.
Edited by 0a on Tuesday 14th July 22:04
I arrived in Oxford in 1981 in a brown Austin Princess. My college (Wadham) was not posh, and we only had one token Etonian in my year, as a sort of protected minority, but as a provincial kid from a Midlands Comprehensive I was somewhat in awe of the confidence of the smooth public school kids from the south. Then it turned out that one of the smoothest and coolest kids (still a lifelong friend) was in fact from a Council Estate in Bath, and the public school kids were bundles of nerves, just like me.
I agree with Oa's point about reading. Read everything on every subject. The Tutors like students who are well read, well informed, and have genuine (not just CV-ramping) interests outside their subject. Part of the Oxbridge student experience is that working hard and being unashamedly into your subject are not regarded as uncool. Of course, the students laze around, drink, do drugs, cop off, and so on, but nobody will laugh at you when you get up while everyone is lying about in someone's room listen drinking Tequila and listening to the Velvet Underground and say "I'm off to the library".
I agree with Oa's point about reading. Read everything on every subject. The Tutors like students who are well read, well informed, and have genuine (not just CV-ramping) interests outside their subject. Part of the Oxbridge student experience is that working hard and being unashamedly into your subject are not regarded as uncool. Of course, the students laze around, drink, do drugs, cop off, and so on, but nobody will laugh at you when you get up while everyone is lying about in someone's room listen drinking Tequila and listening to the Velvet Underground and say "I'm off to the library".
I like this plan.
One of the fun things about being at college, in between the drinking and cavorting, was that there were so many beautiful libraries to work in. You could choose the main university library, which has four buildings, two of which are old (from C15 to C18) and spectacular, one of which is 1930s and interesting, and one of which is 1970s neo-brutalist, or your faculty's library, or your college library, or other college libraries (most college libraries are very beautiful). I still have a ticket for the main university library (The Bodleian, known to students as the Bod, known to academics as Bodley), and once every three or four years or so a point comes up at work that is so obscure and so not online that I have to go and look it up in the Bodleian. This inevitably means that I end up in The King's Arms, known as The KA and a massive centre of Oxford boozing.
OP, to distract your son from the idea of all the boozing and falling off punts with girls called Campaspe, suggest that he clicks on images of Duke Humphrey's Library, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Codrington at All Soul's College. There are worse places to spend many hours. I think that there may be a beautiful medical library at the Radcliffe Infirmary, the old teaching hospital (now replaced for most purposes by the huge John Radcliffe where the medics do their clinical work). My father, who moved to south Oxfordshire in the mid 80s for work, died a few years ago in the great care of the University of Oxford NHS Trust, looked after in his last weeks by wonderful medics, including students, with endless skill and compassion. It's a great medical school.
One of the fun things about being at college, in between the drinking and cavorting, was that there were so many beautiful libraries to work in. You could choose the main university library, which has four buildings, two of which are old (from C15 to C18) and spectacular, one of which is 1930s and interesting, and one of which is 1970s neo-brutalist, or your faculty's library, or your college library, or other college libraries (most college libraries are very beautiful). I still have a ticket for the main university library (The Bodleian, known to students as the Bod, known to academics as Bodley), and once every three or four years or so a point comes up at work that is so obscure and so not online that I have to go and look it up in the Bodleian. This inevitably means that I end up in The King's Arms, known as The KA and a massive centre of Oxford boozing.
OP, to distract your son from the idea of all the boozing and falling off punts with girls called Campaspe, suggest that he clicks on images of Duke Humphrey's Library, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Codrington at All Soul's College. There are worse places to spend many hours. I think that there may be a beautiful medical library at the Radcliffe Infirmary, the old teaching hospital (now replaced for most purposes by the huge John Radcliffe where the medics do their clinical work). My father, who moved to south Oxfordshire in the mid 80s for work, died a few years ago in the great care of the University of Oxford NHS Trust, looked after in his last weeks by wonderful medics, including students, with endless skill and compassion. It's a great medical school.
Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 15th July 13:33
I attended straight from my state comprehensive and although it took me a term to get over being away from home for the first time, I fitted right in, and look back on my time there with great affection.
The tuition model is excellent, and all of my tutors were amongst the leading lights in their fields.
I did one of my advanced degrees at Imperial, and found it very underwhelming in comparison. The lack of a college system was a big negative for me, as was the lack of passion for the subject in the students who I taught.
On top of the academic quality, the college system allowed me to take up sports seriously for the first time in my life, including rowing, which I still enjoy, and boxing for the university against Cambridge, which remains a high-point in my life.
I should have been better prepared by my school for the process, but the left-leaning teachers did nothing to support me; several told me not to waste my £10, as it wasn’t for people “like you.”
Looking back, I should have known about the differences between the colleges, and about how the admissions process worked. I simply got on a train from Newcastle, arrived the day before the interviews, and assumed I’d do fine.
The tuition model is excellent, and all of my tutors were amongst the leading lights in their fields.
I did one of my advanced degrees at Imperial, and found it very underwhelming in comparison. The lack of a college system was a big negative for me, as was the lack of passion for the subject in the students who I taught.
On top of the academic quality, the college system allowed me to take up sports seriously for the first time in my life, including rowing, which I still enjoy, and boxing for the university against Cambridge, which remains a high-point in my life.
I should have been better prepared by my school for the process, but the left-leaning teachers did nothing to support me; several told me not to waste my £10, as it wasn’t for people “like you.”
Looking back, I should have known about the differences between the colleges, and about how the admissions process worked. I simply got on a train from Newcastle, arrived the day before the interviews, and assumed I’d do fine.
I staged a teenage rebellion by saying that I would not apply to Oxbridge because it was full of posh idiots. I wanted to go to Hull, I said. Then the excellent, (probably left leaning) Oxbridge graduate teachers at my Midlands sixth form college arranged a visit to Oxford. I sat in the sun dappled garden of Wadham College talking to a very impressive third year undergraduate. I realised many years later that she was Mary Ann Sieghart. I noticed that the author of one of my main A level history books was Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Wadham (RIP, lovely, revered, amazing Cliff Davies). That was the end of my rebellion.
My A level history teacher (Somerville College, 1967) gave me some one to one tutorials (in effect mini Oxford History tutorials) in the autumn, and I took the entrance exam in November (History, Latin, and a general paper), went for two days of interviews at Wadham, Keble, and St Peter's in December, got absolutely hammered in The White Horse with an Ulsterman who was also applying to Wadham (he got in, we are still friends), heard the news of John Lennon's murder in my dad's Princess on the way back, and just before Christmas 1980 received a letter telling me that I had been elected to a Scholarship at Wadham with effect from October 1981, on condition that I obtained two Es at A level (in those days Oxford was only interested in its own entrance exam).
My UCCA bolt hole was Warwick (I liked it at interview), but they wanted two As and a B. Leeds and Liverpool rejected me, and The School of Slavonic Studies in London never replied, so I never did get to find out about the history of Poland (well I did, but later).
I spent the rest of the sixth form in the pub or in bed with my girlfriend who had got in to Lincoln College to read English (in which she got the top first in the university in 1984 - we had split up by then). I did literally no work for my A levels, did a bit better than two Es, and that was that. Great and glorious days.
OP, best of luck to your son!
My A level history teacher (Somerville College, 1967) gave me some one to one tutorials (in effect mini Oxford History tutorials) in the autumn, and I took the entrance exam in November (History, Latin, and a general paper), went for two days of interviews at Wadham, Keble, and St Peter's in December, got absolutely hammered in The White Horse with an Ulsterman who was also applying to Wadham (he got in, we are still friends), heard the news of John Lennon's murder in my dad's Princess on the way back, and just before Christmas 1980 received a letter telling me that I had been elected to a Scholarship at Wadham with effect from October 1981, on condition that I obtained two Es at A level (in those days Oxford was only interested in its own entrance exam).
My UCCA bolt hole was Warwick (I liked it at interview), but they wanted two As and a B. Leeds and Liverpool rejected me, and The School of Slavonic Studies in London never replied, so I never did get to find out about the history of Poland (well I did, but later).
I spent the rest of the sixth form in the pub or in bed with my girlfriend who had got in to Lincoln College to read English (in which she got the top first in the university in 1984 - we had split up by then). I did literally no work for my A levels, did a bit better than two Es, and that was that. Great and glorious days.
OP, best of luck to your son!
Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 15th July 13:32
Hi everyone! I can not possibly thank you enough for your replies, very informative, first hand experiences and do appreciate the humour too! All of you seem to be reiterating how we feel about it. The thoughts of spending £6,500 is completely forgotten for now. The temptation of James trying for Oxbridge is still there! We actually had 3 beautiful days in Cambridge last year and he fell in love with it - both as a place and what we saw from a guided tour around the university. Oxford is next on the list as soon as the dreaded Corona allows.
Thank you all once again, there is lots of grains of wisdom in your posts, so please, keep them coming!
Thank you all once again, there is lots of grains of wisdom in your posts, so please, keep them coming!
OP, this may be of interest -
https://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/news/2020/july/mentori...
https://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/schools
https://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/news/2020/july/mentori...
https://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/schools
My daughter is just reaching the end of her first year at Medical school, so I have some relevant experience to share.
She took a very analytical approach to meeting the entrance requirements:
Take a look at the requirements for work experience / volunteering. You don't have to do any more than the requirement, but you certainly can't do any less. She volunteered weekly at a local hospital and had a job in a local pub.
Oxbridge medical courses aren't for everyone. You do three years of pure theory before having any sort of patient contact or practical work. My daughter decided that wasn't for her and chose a course which had patient contact from the very start.
It was a year or two back so don't jump on me if I get the terminology wrong, but there are two entrance tests - the UCAT and the BMAT. UCAT is the mainstream one, BMAT for the "elite" universities. The great thing about the UCAT is that you can take it when you want and you get the result immediately. Prepare, prepare, prepare for the UCAT and take it before you finalise the UCAS form. Once you have the result you can select universities based on their admissions policy - there is no point in applying for a university if you don't meet their minimum score for the UCAT. SImilarly, if you have a great UCAT score then it's worth applying for universities which use the test score as a primary selection criterion for interview.
If your son is at a grammar school then they will probably provide training for the multiple mini interview (MMI) format which seems to be widely used. If they don't then track down somewhere that does as it isn't something you would want to tackle unprepared.
Attend the open days and listen - most places will tell you what they are looking for at interview (and "I decided to be a Doctor after my mum survived cancer" isn't the correct answer!).
My daughter did Biology / Chemistry / Maths at A-level. She was least confident at Maths so we got her a tutor (local lad at £25 per week) - I don't think she really needed it but it gave her a confidence boost which I think helped a great deal. I don't think Biology is a requirement for med school but she has said that it covered some of the stuff they were taught in the first year.
She got three offers and accepted the one she wanted before the fourth place got back to her. First year went very well until the middle of March ....
And finally - what do you call the person who graduated at the bottom of their class from the least prestigious medical school? "Doctor"!
She took a very analytical approach to meeting the entrance requirements:
Take a look at the requirements for work experience / volunteering. You don't have to do any more than the requirement, but you certainly can't do any less. She volunteered weekly at a local hospital and had a job in a local pub.
Oxbridge medical courses aren't for everyone. You do three years of pure theory before having any sort of patient contact or practical work. My daughter decided that wasn't for her and chose a course which had patient contact from the very start.
It was a year or two back so don't jump on me if I get the terminology wrong, but there are two entrance tests - the UCAT and the BMAT. UCAT is the mainstream one, BMAT for the "elite" universities. The great thing about the UCAT is that you can take it when you want and you get the result immediately. Prepare, prepare, prepare for the UCAT and take it before you finalise the UCAS form. Once you have the result you can select universities based on their admissions policy - there is no point in applying for a university if you don't meet their minimum score for the UCAT. SImilarly, if you have a great UCAT score then it's worth applying for universities which use the test score as a primary selection criterion for interview.
If your son is at a grammar school then they will probably provide training for the multiple mini interview (MMI) format which seems to be widely used. If they don't then track down somewhere that does as it isn't something you would want to tackle unprepared.
Attend the open days and listen - most places will tell you what they are looking for at interview (and "I decided to be a Doctor after my mum survived cancer" isn't the correct answer!).
My daughter did Biology / Chemistry / Maths at A-level. She was least confident at Maths so we got her a tutor (local lad at £25 per week) - I don't think she really needed it but it gave her a confidence boost which I think helped a great deal. I don't think Biology is a requirement for med school but she has said that it covered some of the stuff they were taught in the first year.
She got three offers and accepted the one she wanted before the fourth place got back to her. First year went very well until the middle of March ....
And finally - what do you call the person who graduated at the bottom of their class from the least prestigious medical school? "Doctor"!
Edited by this is my username on Monday 20th July 07:29
this is my username said:
Oxbridge medical courses aren't for everyone. You do three years of pure theory before having any sort of patient contact or practical work. My daughter decided that wasn't for her and chose a course which had patient contact from the very start.
I think this is an important point. The difference between medicine at Oxbridge and other medical schools is probably greater than the difference between Oxbridge and other high end institutions for the other vocations/professions so is an important consideration (on top of the usual differences between Oxbridge and the others).Add to that differential factor (1) the college system, and (2) the tutorial system, both already touched on above.
Back in the day, some people did three years pre-clinical at Oxford or Cambridge and then went to London for the clinical bit, but I think that may be rare or not done at all now, and AIUI both The John Radcliffe (Oxford) and Addenbrookes (Cambridge) are well regarded as teaching hospitals. I also hear good things about the big London teaching hospitals such as St Mary's, The Royal Free, Guy's and Thomas', and so on.
Re colleges, the point about Oxbridge colleges is that they are quite small (hundreds rather than thousands), and that they are the focus of the academic as well as the pastoral and social life of the student. London colleges have grown so big that now each one is a university, even if the federal University of London is nominally in charge of the degrees, and AIUI the colleges at Durham are residential and pastoral but do not do the teaching, so they are perhaps closer to what many universities call Halls of Residence. I may be wrong about that.
At Oxbridge your primary social and recreational interactions are usually with your college, but, depending on the subject that you study, you have more or less interaction with the university. Science students, law students, and most of all medics have more interaction with the university, whereas humanities students tend, save at exam times, to have more to do, academically, with their colleges (students tend also to be farmed out to one or two other colleges for teaching on particular topics, as the colleges have reciprocal arrangements to cover each other's gaps).
The college thing may be at its biggest in the first year, when the student will live in college, eat in college, work in college, and party in college. In later years, the student may live out, and much depends on how well endowed the college is. The richer colleges can accommodate for each year of study. At others you go and rent a flat or a house (a grotty one back in my day), and annoy the Townie neighbours with your undergraduate antics. Town vs Gown is not as much of a thing as people suppose, but there are some pubs where you might get chinned if you bang on about rowing.
NB: the living conditions at some Oxford Colleges (Cambridge less so) can be much more Spartan and basic than many people assume. Not all of the old buildings have been internally modernised, although increasingly things like en suite facilities are becoming a thing. In my undergraduate years, you might have to walk across a quad in the snow to have a shower or a bath, and the seventeenth century rooms were often freezing cold (but also large and beautiful, with amazing vistas from the windows). The food was dire! Posh colleges had posh food*, but my college was not posh. Things have changed since then.
*Lunch with a friend at Merton circa 1982 -
"May I have some of the chicken please".
"Guinea Fowl..., Sir."
Back in the day, some people did three years pre-clinical at Oxford or Cambridge and then went to London for the clinical bit, but I think that may be rare or not done at all now, and AIUI both The John Radcliffe (Oxford) and Addenbrookes (Cambridge) are well regarded as teaching hospitals. I also hear good things about the big London teaching hospitals such as St Mary's, The Royal Free, Guy's and Thomas', and so on.
Re colleges, the point about Oxbridge colleges is that they are quite small (hundreds rather than thousands), and that they are the focus of the academic as well as the pastoral and social life of the student. London colleges have grown so big that now each one is a university, even if the federal University of London is nominally in charge of the degrees, and AIUI the colleges at Durham are residential and pastoral but do not do the teaching, so they are perhaps closer to what many universities call Halls of Residence. I may be wrong about that.
At Oxbridge your primary social and recreational interactions are usually with your college, but, depending on the subject that you study, you have more or less interaction with the university. Science students, law students, and most of all medics have more interaction with the university, whereas humanities students tend, save at exam times, to have more to do, academically, with their colleges (students tend also to be farmed out to one or two other colleges for teaching on particular topics, as the colleges have reciprocal arrangements to cover each other's gaps).
The college thing may be at its biggest in the first year, when the student will live in college, eat in college, work in college, and party in college. In later years, the student may live out, and much depends on how well endowed the college is. The richer colleges can accommodate for each year of study. At others you go and rent a flat or a house (a grotty one back in my day), and annoy the Townie neighbours with your undergraduate antics. Town vs Gown is not as much of a thing as people suppose, but there are some pubs where you might get chinned if you bang on about rowing.
NB: the living conditions at some Oxford Colleges (Cambridge less so) can be much more Spartan and basic than many people assume. Not all of the old buildings have been internally modernised, although increasingly things like en suite facilities are becoming a thing. In my undergraduate years, you might have to walk across a quad in the snow to have a shower or a bath, and the seventeenth century rooms were often freezing cold (but also large and beautiful, with amazing vistas from the windows). The food was dire! Posh colleges had posh food*, but my college was not posh. Things have changed since then.
*Lunch with a friend at Merton circa 1982 -
"May I have some of the chicken please".
"Guinea Fowl..., Sir."
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