An important part of Oxford’s schools outreach is the regional link programme, which has assigned a college to every UK local authority to act as their first point of contact within the university. Under our schools officer Joe Organ, Brasenose now makes regular visits to our link areas, including a September road trip around North Yorkshire schools. This year, Joe brought along Brasenose students Phoebe (English) and me (Physics and Philosophy), and we were joined by representatives from St Catherine’s College, Cambridge: Schools Liaison Officer Jessy Ahluwalia and English student Hope (all pictured on an evening walk round Richmond after a busy day).
The basic schedule for the trip is to visit a few schools each day and spend a couple of hours in each, talking about the Oxbridge admissions process and conducting interview practice workshops. Most of the prospective applicants we met were Year 13s and in the middle of sorting out their applications, so Joe and Jessy started off with Q&A sessions on personal statements, then moving on to admissions tests and interviews. Phoebe, Hope, and I all offered memories from our personal experiences of applying, and any advice we had – something I think I would have found very useful before applying myself. It’s so important to make sure people know that Oxford and Cambridge really aren’t as scary as they seem; the interviews aren’t designed to catch you out, there’s no secret handshake you have to know, no dress code you’re assessed on…and when you (hopefully!) get in, it’s not just a bunch of private school kids from the south!
After the talk, we would split up into smaller groups and go through some interview-style questions (as the only “pure” scientist there, I often got a hefty crowd). This was actually tremendous fun – certainly for us having been through the interview process, and lots of the sixth formers enjoyed it too. The thing about interview questions is they are genuinely interesting on an intellectual level, and if you can just focus on the questions themselves, you end up finding them very engaging. I suspect the groups appreciated seeing my terrible effort at solving one of the practice questions I was now setting them, proving that it’s not about getting it all right first time! Special mention also has to go to an orchid Joe used for a Biology question, which we all got very attached to and ended up naming Sharon. Sharon even got her own visitors’ badge at one of the schools we visited.
In total, we visited nine schools in the area, including in Harrogate, Richmond, Tadcaster, Ripon, Ilkley, Northallerton, and Knaresborough. Students from several more schools came along to some sessions, and we were also very happy to be joined sometimes by current Oxbridge students who had been to the schools we visited.
It was a pleasure to get involved in some of the fantastic access work Brasenose is doing under Joe’s leadership; the trip was a lot of fun, not least because of our tetchy sat-nav, also called Sharon – long story – but most of all it was hugely rewarding to be able to meet such a lot of very bright potential applicants, and hopefully to have encouraged them to keep going and believe in themselves.
If you’re thinking of applying to Oxbridge, why not come along to an Open Day in June or September? We can promise you an enthusiastic welcome at Brasenose!
By Freddie Hinds (Physics and Philosophy 3rd Year)