破译“牛津剑桥”密码(下)
How to crack the Oxbridge code
Belgian aggression. That was the main reason for the outbreak of the first world war, the young man said without a moment's hesitation. The historian interviewing him for a place at an Oxford college had not heard that one before. "Visions of plucky Germany standing up to the vicious Belgians appeared before me and it was difficult not to laugh," recalls Mark Whittow, a history tutor at St Peter's College who has been quizzing Oxford candidates since 1984. He managed to keep his composure, however: "I talked to him politely about the role of Belgium for the rest of the interview and then sent him on his way." With that unfortunate slip the young man had driven a horse and cart through his chances of getting a place at one of the country's top universities. It was a pretty spectacular fall at the final hurdle for someone who would have had to clear several earlier ones to get a couple of 20- minute interviews at Oxford. First there is the official form to fill in from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas). Then come the personal statement, a recent example of school work, the university's own history aptitude test and predicted A-level grades. These five stages are part and parcel of one of the great ordeals of late adolescent life in Britain. This month, the enormous task of allocating offers of places to thousands of students at hundreds of universities kicked off for another year. While it will be at the forefront of the minds of young people and their parents for the next three months, the pressure will be all the more intense for those navigating the peculiarly elaborate processes of Oxford and Cambridge. The selection procedure for the two universities is a national obsession. Stories of eccentric dons asking cruel or unusual questions abound. The tale of the would-be undergraduate who responded to an interviewer's demand to "surprise me" by whipping out a lighter and burning the newspaper his questioner was idly reading has entered Middle England folklore. Politicians such as Gordon Brown distrust the process. Alan Bennett has basked in critical acclaim by writing The History Boys about a class of young people preparing for it. And 108 parents last year paid ￡3,800 - more than a year's university tuition fees - to boost their offsprings' chances of getting through it.
But is the system really so byzantine that bright young school-leavers cannot rely on their intelligence and potential alone? Do they also require a hefty dollop of expensive preparation? One man who thinks so is a serial Oxbridge reject who now works as a barrister in London. He applied unsuccessfully three times to Oxford and once to Cambridge, for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. He frankly admits that at his first interview - "nothing went right, it was a disaster." And he realises that he committed some cringe-making howlers, including namedropping a cousin who had been a brilliant classicist at the same college. But the biggest problem, he feels, was the poor advice given to him by his minor public school. "It is almost more difficult if you went to a public school unless it is somewhere like Eton or Winchester where they prepare you really well," he says. "The interviewers assume you have had the same level of training and expect you to perform at the same level." It is certainly true that some leading public schools have got the application process down to a fine art. Special classes are arranged to help students think about their subjects more deeply and mock- interviews are conducted. Eton got close to 100 of its most recent cohort of 250 into Oxbridge colleges - a 10-year high. Perhaps the unfortunate barrister would have benefited from the services of James Uffindell, an Oxford graduate who now makes his living from, as he puts it, "outsourcing the sort of service that the best private schools do". His company, Oxbridge Applications, reported a turnover of ￡450,000 last year and is growing by 10 per cent a year by offering a range of services to applicants who want to boost their chances of getting in. "I founded the company because I had been curious as to why some people get in and some people don't," he explains. "The proportion of state and public school pupils at Oxbridge is about half and half but 90 per cent of the 17-year- old population is in the state sector. Clearly, there is something going on here." A graduate in PPE (politics, philosophy and economics), he says his own experience of Oxford made him realise that where there is an "asymmetry of information", there is a market for a company like his. "I had excellent preparation when I applied to Oxford, and I just assumed that was the way it was for everyone. But when I got there I realised that it wasn't the case at all and a lot of my friends had had no preparation at all." Similar companies, such as the Princeton Review, exist in the US to help Ivy League candidates prepare for their four-hour SAT test. But few are as thorough-going as Oxbridge Applications, which has found ways to make money out of every stage of the process: writing a personal statement, picking the right course, picking the right college, any extra subject- specific tests and the interview itself. Uffindell says applicants should "minimise their risk" by not choosing the most popular colleges, (advice he cheerfully admits to following himself. Rather than applying for one of the famous, beautiful colleges in the centre of town he opted for Mansfield, an unfashionable institution that was upgraded from being a hall of residence in 1995 and is Oxford's smallest undergraduate college. His company's help with choosing a college is relatively cheap: ￡60. And then there are the mock interviews, conducted in the company's office on Bond Street overlooking some of London's most expensive jewellers. Uffindell says: "It is not about saying 'make 85 per cent eye contact, have a firm handshake and polish your shoes'. And it is not prescriptive - we don't want them to give scripted answers. It is simply about making them understand what the admissions tutors are looking for." Such advice and interview practice, spread out over a weekend, costs ￡850. It reflects the importance of the interview to the whole Oxbridge process. As the number of students getting straight A grades has increased, admissions tutors have struggled to differentiate the brightest students. The school's own assessment of a candidate's abilities has also become less useful after data-protection laws gave students the right to see what had been written about them, prompting teachers to become less frank. Another package from Oxbridge Applications is an ￡800 "mentoring" service, which includes three onehour consultations and promises "inside knowledge of the admissions process and the collegiate system", as the company's colourful brochure puts it. That "inside knowledge" comes from Uffindell's "network" of 300 Oxbridge graduates, who advise the company.
His single most expensive deal is the ￡3,800 "premier service", which includes a guided tour of one of the universities, a residential reading weekend and private consultation with a former Oxbridge admissions tutor. Parents should also expect to pay a ￡2,000 "success fee" if their child gets an offer. If it seems pricey, he says an Oxbridge degree is worth it. There is an element of selfselection at work here, as ambitious students with pushy parents are more likely to shell out for Uffindell's services. The company also refuses to work with hopeless cases who do not stand a chance. "We can't work miracles and we don't want to get a reputation for helping stupid people get into Oxbridge," Uffindell says. Nonetheless, while the overall success rate for Oxbridge applicants in 2005 was 26 per cent, the company claims that those who use its services have a 46 per cent chance. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge has kind words for Uffindell and his company. The apparent ability of parents to buy advantage for their children flies in the face of their strenuous attempts to be as fair as possible. Both universities run school roadshows and websites with lots of information designed to demystify the process and explain clearly to candidates how they should prepare. Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge, says that playing the college game is "pointless" because, like Oxford, the university runs a pooling system. It allows colleges to select candidates who applied to other colleges that have already filled their quota. "For years people thought that by applying to New Hall [one of Cambridge's womenonly colleges] their chances would be higher," says Parks. "Well, the college got fed up with only seeing weak applicants and decided it would much rather pick up people that had not got into their first choice college." Also, not everyone is convinced of the benefits of intensive interview preparation. Martin Stephens, high master of St Paul's, one of the country's leading academic private schools, does not believe dons are looking for a highly polished performance. "I think the interviewers want to see some rough edges on the candidates," he says. "If you do too much preparation, you end up trying to work out what you think the interviewer wants to hear, rather than just answering the questions. Nothing shows up more than insincerity." Parks agrees, saying admissions tutors see too many "over-coached applicants who have prepared answers and try to steer the interviewer on to a line they have carefully prepared". He recommends applicants should do a mock interview with one of their teachers. "You should never go to any interview without some preparation but paying lots of money for it is of questionable benefit." He also has a warning for those genuinely brilliant students who will perplex their teachers by not getting a place: "A lot of them get very bored by their subject because the curriculum just doesn't turn them on. But those who come across as if they can't be bothered don't deserve a place." Despite the disagreement between Oxbridge and James Uffindell, there are areas of consensus between the two sides. The first is that admissions tutors care not a fig about their future students' prowess on the sports field or any leadership skills they may claim to have developed as part of a Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. Some personal statements - the few hundred words that applicants are given on Ucas forms to describe themselves - suggest their authors believe tutors like nothing more than standing on the touchline cheering on the college rugby team or going to dingy bars to hear their students' skills on a turntable. As Dr Stephens puts it: "The ravenous hunger of a don for a first-class degree must not be underestimated. They are ruthlessly concentrating on matters academic." For help avoiding such drafting errors, Oxbridge Applications charge ￡120.
Here's the headmaster of St Paul's advice free of charge: "The most important thing is to be passionate about your subject and to show it." Parks also recommends putting down anything that shows enthusiasm for the subject. "Genuine hobbies that illustrate an interest in a subject are also useful, so helping out in your local animal shelter will look good if you are applying for veterinary medicine. Helping at local archaeological digs or visiting historical sites is something that should be a natural thing for someone applying to study history to want to do." Uffindell says too many people forget why Oxbridge takes such pains over the time-consuming interview exercise. "You've got to remember, there are lots of courses at other universities that have more applicants per place who are on track to get straight As but which do not interview," he says. "Oxbridge doesn't interview because the dons get some sort of power trip out of it. It is because, unlike almost anywhere else, Oxford has its tutorials and Cambridge its supervisions. They will be teaching these people one-onone for years, and they want to see what they are getting." Both Uffindell and Parks say many candidates do not realise that they will probably be asked about what they put on their personal statement. Often candidates' claims to be well read in a subject are exposed as barefaced lies. Parks thinks a lot of candidates have every intention of reading particular books when they put them on their application forms but are amazed, come November, to be quizzed about them. "A lot of science applicants like to claim to be keen readers of New Scientist but they have probably only read the November edition. When I say to them, 'Well, you must have really enjoyed the special edition in July,' their faces just drop." Despite the importance of the interview, Cambridge is keen to "de-emphasise" it in future by using more information about students from other sources. This year, for example, it has been investigating whether information about how candidates performed in the individual units of their A-levels - rather than simply the overall grade - could help them improve their decision-making. The fulfilment of official promises to toughen up Alevels could also allow the university to base its selection more on exam results. Whether or not the emphasis swings away from performance in a don's study and towards performance in the examination hall, it seems likely that wealthy and ambitious parents will still be able to give their children an advantage. As Whittow puts it: "What the university is trying very hard indeed to do is to create a level playing field where it doesn't matter what your background is and what school you have been to. But we have to face up to a brute fact, and that is that education works. We all know that if you have more intensive teaching and more stimulating teachers, bright people will respond to it. You can't ultimately get round that fact." While some parents believe specialist coaching is necessary, it seems that a good education, some intelligence and a passion for your subject are the three essentials for cracking Oxbridge. And, of course, a basic understanding of the origins of the first world war. Jon Boone is the FT's education correspondent
破译“牛津剑桥”密码(下)
剑
桥招生负责人杰夫?帕克斯(Geoff Parks)表示，玩这种入学游戏是“毫无意义的”，因为像牛津一样，剑桥也有一个共享系统。它允许该校其它学院选择录取那些申请了其它录取额已满学院的学生。
“多年来，人们认为，通过申请 New Hall学院（剑桥旗下的女子学院之一），她们的成功几率会高一些，”帕克斯表示，“其实，学院已经厌倦了只能见到实力较弱的申请人，宁愿选择那些没被第一志愿录取的人。”
寻找璞玉之质
同时，并不是所有人都对大量面试准备的益处深信不疑。英国领先学院派私立学校――圣保罗中学(St Paul's)的校长马丁?斯蒂芬斯(Martin Stephens)认为，大学老师寻找的不是极为优雅的表现。“我认为面试老师希望在申请者身上看到某些璞玉之质，”他表示，“如果你准备得太多，那么最终你试图回答的就是你认为面试老师想听的东西，而不仅仅在回答问题。除了不真诚以外，什么都没表现出来。”
帕克斯赞同这种看法。他表示，招生老师看了太多“训练过度的申请人，他们准备好答案，并试图将面试官引到他们已经认真准备过的套路上。”他建议申请者应与自己的一个老师进行一次模拟面试。“如果没有什么准备的话，你就不应参加任何面试，但要为此花太多的钱，可能就不值得了。”
对于那些确实有才华、但没申请成功而令老师困惑的学生，他还有一条告诫：“他们中许多人对他们的专业感到非常无聊，因为这些课程提不起他们的兴趣。但那些对此表示无所谓的人，就不配申请成功。”
尽管牛津、剑桥和詹姆斯?乌芬德尔之间存在分歧，但在双方之间有意见一致的地方。首先是招生老师不关心那些无价值的东西，包括他们未来的学生在运动场上的威力，或者他们由于参加爱丁堡公爵奖计划(Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme)而表现出的任何领导才能。
展现你的热忱
一些个人陈述（申请人以大专院校招生机构的规定格式，提交的一份介绍自己的数百字书面文字）表明，其作者认为大学导师无非就是站在边线上，为学院橄榄球队呐喊助威的人，或者是到光线昏暗的酒吧，在唱机前倾听学生技能的人。正如斯蒂芬斯所言：“绝不能低估导师对一流学位的绝对重视。他们极为关注学术问题。”
帮助学生避免在个人陈述中出现这些错误，Oxbridge Applications公司的收费金额为120英镑。圣保罗中学校长的建议则是免费的：“最重要的是，要对你选择的科目充满热情，并把它显示出来。”帕克斯还建议，记下所有显示你对这个科目兴趣的东西。“如果你有一些真实的兴趣爱好，显示你对某个科目感兴趣，也很有用。因此，如果你正申请兽医专业，那么在当地动物收留所帮忙的经历将对你有利，对于那些申请攻读历史专业的学生，参与当地考古挖掘或参观历史古迹是自然而然的事情。”
乌芬德尔表示，有太多人忘记了牛津与剑桥为何要在这种耗时的面试中如此费神费力。“你要记住，在其它大学，有很多专业会很热门，一个入学名额会收到更多申请，这些申请者都有望获得全A，但这些大学没有对他们进行面试，”他表示，“牛津和剑桥之所以不面试，是因为这里的导师们对此掌握着大权。原因是，与其它学校不同，牛津和剑桥都有自己的导师制度。这些导师将一对一地教授这些人达数年之久，他们希望看到成果。”
乌芬德尔和帕克斯都表示，许多申请者都没有意识到，他们可能会被问及关于他们在个人陈述中提到的内容。申请者自称对某个科目涉猎很广，通常被认为是毫无遮掩的谎话。
帕克斯认为，许多申请者在填写申请表时，都打算将阅读某类书籍填写进去，但当他们被问到时会感到吃惊。“很多科学专业的申请者喜欢自称是《新科学家》(New Scientist)的忠实读者，但他们可能只读了11月刊。当我向他们说起‘好吧，你肯定非常喜欢7月的特刊’时，他们就低下了头。”
入名校三大要素
尽管面试相当重要，但剑桥希望未来使用从其它渠道，得到的更多关于申请者的信息，来让面试“变得不那么重要”。例如，今年的做法是，放弃仅仅评估总成绩的做法，通过对申请者A-level考试的单科成绩进行评估，看看相关信息是否可以帮助做出更好的决定。政府方面实现其强化A-level考试的承诺，可能也会让这所大学将其遴选重心更多地放在考试程序上。
不管关注点是否从导师对学生表现的评估转向考试成绩，富有且具有远大理想的父母似乎仍将可能让他们的孩子具备一个优势。
就像惠托所说：“这所大学真正试图努力去做的是建立一个公平竞争的环境，在这里具有何种背景以及曾读过什么学校都不重要。但我们必须面对一个残酷的现实，那就是，教育会发挥作用。我们都明白，如果你拥有更精深的教育方法和一批更能激发人的老师，那么聪明的学生会对此做出反应。这是一个你最终回避不了的事实。”
虽然一些家长认为专业指导是必要的，但良好的教育、一些聪明才智和对专业的热情，似乎是扣开牛津和剑桥大门的三个必要因素。当然还包括对第一次世界大战有基本的了解。
