#how did bojo get into oxford fr

[oswinsdolma]

i've been reading a bunch of modern aus lately, and i've noticed that quite a lot are a bit uncertain about how the british education system works. it's not a problem by any means, but for anyone who wants it, here is a brief explanation:

we don't say "grades", we say "years", e.g. 7th grade would be year 7. we also don't say things like freshman/sophomore/senior etc. it's just the numbers.

however, some primary schools split into infants and juniors, infants being from yR-2 and juniors being y3-6

we also have a national curriculum all throughout compulsory education, which means everyone studies the same thing, more or less. there are discrepancies at GCSE/A-level with different exam boards, but in general, most people take either the same, or very similar exams, and are taught the same skills.

you start primary school when you are four or five in year R, and continue through primary school from years 1-6.

at the end of year six, you take the SATS, which are a really insubstantial national standardised test for english, maths and spag

it is also optional to take an exam called the 11+ at the end of y6. if you pass, you can go to grammar school. these can be state or private, and are basically redundant nowadays, and just used so parents can say that their child passed the 11+ and got into the Smart School. These are usually single gender and low-key cult like, but otherwise, are exactly the same as normal state "comprehensive" schools.

secondary school is from y7-11. at the end of y11, everyone takes the GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). you have to do english, maths and sciences, plus several other subjects. most people have between 7-13 GCSEs, and if you fail english language or maths, you have to retake until you pass, even into college.

GCSEs are graded on a scale of 9-1, 9 being an equivalent to A** and is the top 1% of the students who got 7+, and 1 being an F/U. the pass mark is a 4.

the grades you get in your GCSEs are kind of irrelevant, except they determine which subjects you can take for A-level.

After secondary school, you have to stay in full time education for another two years (allegedly, though ik a few people who dropped out), and most people do A-levels (Advanced Level Exams). Instead of doing loads of subjects like at GCSE, you pick 3-4 and study them for two years. these are a LOT HARDER than GCSEs.

if you do four a levels, you're kind of a try hard. honestly, if you do it, good for you, but as a cultural thing, so many people who did four a levels were the most insufferable people who only did it to gloat, and then couldn't handle the workload.

oh, also this entire system is pretty much 100% exam based. for 2/3 of my a levels, i had a coursework essay that was pre graded, but it was only worth 20% of my final grade, and those were rare occurrences. at GCSE, unless you do art or something like that, everything is exam based.

A-levels are graded on a scale of A*-E, and then a U if you literally get nothing. which happens more often than you might think.

this is the bit that i see a lot of people get confused about. in the UK, we don't call university "college". college, to us, is where you take your a levels. if it's an independent institution, it's a "college/further education centre". if it's attached to a secondary school, it's called a "sixth form" (because y12 was year six of senior school in the old system).

i'm sorry i'm trying to be as clear as i can but our education system is complex af

your A-level grades determine where you can apply to uni, which you HAVE to do through a system called UCAS.

UCAS (the university and colleges admissions service) is a national system where you put in all your details required to apply for uni. you start it in the june of y12 and send it in by January** IN MOST CASES

to apply for uni, you need to list all your qualifications/details, predicted grades, personal statement essay and teacher references. this all gets submitted by your school.

HOWEVER. if you are applying to medicine, vet, dentistry, oxford or cambridge, the deadline is in october, and you have to submit written work, do multiple assessments and do rounds of interviews in addition to everything else (would not recommend).

you can also apply to conservatoire for music/drama schools, which tend to have their own deadlines and systems because they're not technically universities

okay nearly at the end

the closest thing we have to an Ivy League is the Russell Group, but it's not as prestigious. Russell Group unis tend to be higher ranked, offer niche courses and demand high grade requirements.

Oxford and Cambridge are not normal universities. i CANNOT stress this enough. you apply through ucas, but the courses themselves are unique and highly competitive (the one i applied for had like 10 spaces)(i got rejected lmao). also they are arranged in colleges within the uni, so it's like a collection of tiny unis linked by a larger institution. colleges are not subject specific and most of them have weird cults. if you're writing oxbridge students, google it, not just for accuracy, but because it's absolutely hilarious.

interviews are also more like interrogations. i was reduced to tears on several occasions, and you also have to swear not to reveal the questions you were asked (everyone does it anyway but STILL IT'S WEIRD). for example, one of my interviews, i was given a poem about feet and asked to analyse it on the spot over a blurry zoom screen. they don't ask you about yourself. they don't ask you about school. they just quickfire questions at you for forty minutes and roll their eyes when you take more than a few seconds to answer.

we also don't have majors/minors. you choose one subject that you apply for specifically, and spend 3-7 years studying that subject pretty much exclusively. the only deviations from this might be if you were taking archaeology and took an art history class or something — everything is really closely related.

we can also drink at 18. not that an age limit has ever stopped anyone in the uk from getting drunk. getting pissed in a field is a major pastime for anyone from the ages of 12-28. it's a problem.

instead of having dorms at uni, most people live in flats. there will be like ten people on a corridor with a shared kitchen. you only live in university housing for your first year, unless you are at oxbridge, in which case i think it's mandatory to live in your college for your whole course.

community college and private universities aren't a thing either. when you apply to uni, you apply to student finance (unless your parents are absolutely LOADED and pay for you) and get a loan for your tuition, and also a maintenance loan based on your household income, which is used to pay for rent, food, etc. you cannot be exempt from financial aid but a lot of people do not receive enough, particularly in recent years when the cost of living in the uk has gone up so much.

university is roughly £9-10k per year (depending on where you study) which is a Lot. but why are people in the US paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, are you guys okay???

also, if you're scottish, university in scotland is free. they also have a standard four year systm rather than the three year system in england and wales (idk about ni i didn't apply there). why?? because the english government is absolute shite and they got rid of the state university programme for england (blame the tories)

don't do your research on the student room. just don't. for your own sake.

and a couple more cultural things before we leave off

we all wear uniform until we get to year twelve. everyone. even the four year olds.

Nottingham Trent university is just the butt of so many jokes and I really don't understand why (they're not even the lowest in the league table 😭😭)

Durham is full of Oxbridge rejects who are in denial about it, and is also the butt of a lot of jokes

everything i have mentioned so far is about STATE education. private education runs on different tracks: you have prep schools, which run from yR-8, and senior schools that run from y9-11, and most of them have attached sixth forms. there is a massive cultural and economic divide between state and private school kids, because they get so much more help applying for uni, and also there is so much nepotism in our government. like. politicians wear their old school ties in parliament so they know who to give favours to. it's AWFUL.

some private schools are so fancy they loop back around and are known as "public schools". they're schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Marlborough, etc. really old institutions that basically guarantee you a place at oxbridge because of family legacy (though this has got a lot better over the last decade or so)(but they still have an unfair advantage).

a lot of compulsory education schools are really religious because education in the uk used to be run basically by the church, and the church still own a lot of schools. universities though, even the ones with roots in the church, are atheistic, their religious links symbolic or supplementary to their main purpose.

okay that ended up being way longer than i thought, but i hope someone finds this useful when writing, or at least interesting.