Visit to Oxford and Cambridge

July 11th, 2006

A visit to colleges in Cambridge and Oxford meant an early start for six Tollbar students.

Setting out at 6.30am on June 28, the Sixth Formers faced a 420 mile round journey which would include meals at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and at Oriel College, Oxford with an overnight stay in accommodation in the student halls at Oriel.

Mrs Shelton and Mr Christmas organised a minibus to take the students on the fact finding visit and accompanied the six seekers of information throughout.

        

The cost of these visits is kept to a minimum with meals and accommodation provided free of charge. For those looking to find out the facts behind the mythology of these two world class universities this trip would prove to be invaluable.

Arriving first at St Catharine’s the students hurried into a general talk with all subject groups and then had the chance to see a mock interview and talk to tutors.

Some students then visited other Cambridge Colleges and tried to balance what they had seen against their possible inclusion of Oxbridge in their UCAS applications. Were the courses right? Would the city surroundings and facilities meet expectations? Would it be the right place to stay?

Only research and reflection would provide students with answers to these and other questions.

At 1615 the group left Cambridge behind to travel across and down country to Oxford. The maze of streets and gated roads in Oxford led to the minibus driving around for a lot longer than expected and we finally arrived at Oxford at 1915 on the Wednesday evening.

Food was ready for the students and staff took a well needed rest before a get together that had been organised to help our students settle in at Oriel, with current students acting as hosts.

Thursday was another busy day, starting with breakfast in the student dining hall followed by talks and visits, subject tutor sessions and seminars.

For the second year running one of our old Tollbar students had stayed behind to meet us and act as our personal guide. Manuel Mattiat (pictured) arrived to study with us in Tollbar Sixth Form from Germany and stayed on in England to take up a place at Oriel.

The group were grateful for this special contact and we were really fortunate that Manuel had taken the time and trouble to be there for us. All being well we shall see him again next year.

After a hectic day of far reaching visits, mock interviews with tutors, which also included some other Oxford Colleges, we departed and made our way back to Tollbar. We arrived home at about 1930 on Thursday 29^th June to end two days of high mileage and high academic environments. It remains to be seen if any of the students will go ahead and put an application in for any of the Oxbridge colleges.

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