2013-05-21T03:36:05-04:00 Madeleine Dodd http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=madeleine-dodd Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Madeleine Dodd Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1972025 2012-10-16T18:56:41-04:00 2012-12-16T05:12:02-05:00

Madeleine Dodd http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-dodd/
Pets are there so that we can speak about ourselves without acknowledging we're speaking about ourselves. Which is what Walking with Dogs captured so beautifully. Who'd have thought that by patrolling Hampstead Heath and talking to people about their dogs Engle's team would unearth stories with such startling human interest.

Quarter of an hour in and Gilly, a blonde woman with collagened lips and large black shades, walks a majestic grey dog. We all know the type. She's beautifully framed against the heath, her pedigree Weimaraner Bluebell at her side. Gilly's talking about the "big, big garden" she used to have and it suddenly becomes clear that she's talking about once having lots because these days she has nothing. Nothing at all, she lives in a homeless shelter. She describes Bluebell as all she's got. Which helps her more Engle wonders the antidepressants or the dog? The answer hardly needs to be given, Gilly spends two or three hours on the heath each day walking Bluebell.

The evidence that dogs are something to turn to in a time of need marks the progress of the programme. A dog called Zen helps a recovering alcoholic stay sober and a fluffy black and white dog distracts Tony and Vicky from their loss of family member. This couple's participation struck me as generous, risking tears in front of a camera to advocate getting a dog to help you deal with a death.

What about the light stories? Well they're in there certainly, take the millionaire with his five white dogettes skipping about his heels. But even the funny stories are always just a little bit dark, a few paces behind the little white pooch parade is the man paid to follow them, picking up their shit. Then there's the wide eyed Marianne with her range of princess costumes for dogs, designed to make your pet look like a teddy from Clinton cards. When you stop laughing at the dog drag you'll be hit by Marianne's explanation of how different it is to live with a dog than a person, with the dog "you might exchange a few words, at most". As if conscious of being set up as the eccentric she flashes with rare assertiveness "obviously there is a difference [between a dog and a person], I see that".

This is something lots of the participants want us to know. Recently bereaved Vicky says that she talks to the dog knowing it won't talk back "like a one would talk to a baby". Others seem less bothered about distinguishing between a characterful dog and human companion. Take Shelia, an older woman in a fleecy coat and beige cap. When Engle asks her what her dog Millie had for breakfast Shelia tells us that she and her chubby mutt enjoy the same Benecol yogurt of a morning. Shelia also carries a photo album full of snaps of one subject, her dog. Why does she need the album when she's out with the dog? Because "things in my place get lost, badly" she reflects.

Try walking through a park after you've watched Walking with Dogs. You feel as if real insights, or humour, or secrets might tumble on to the grass any second and that all you need to do to get at them is ask someone what breed their dog is. It's a testament to Engle's skill as an interviewer that she creates this illusion, we never feel her pushing too hard for the bombshell, we half believe she is actually asking about the dog's breakfast even as this programme highlights that most of the time when you ask about the dog you get told about the owner.

Clever, spacious, compassionate and sad, it's everything you want from a drama and there wasn't a screenplay in sight. iPlayer it this minute, unless the dog's pining for a walk.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1927382 2012-10-02T19:00:00-04:00 2012-12-02T05:12:01-05:00

Madeleine Dodd http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-dodd/ No. No it's not. Not statistically, not psychologically, not even anecdotally. But what seems obvious to people who went to a school where the closest thing to a tuck shop was the Chicken Spot over the road, is not what they believe over at Britain's top schools. Ask most Wickamists, Etonians or Salopians* and they'll tell you that getting into Oxbridge from a state school is easier than looting trainers in a riot.

This is the final part of my guide to getting into Oxbridge and it's not just for state school kids. If you're clever and passionate you deserve to get in whether you're from Cheltenham Ladies College or a comprehensive. But I do set the record straight about Oxbridge's supposed bias for state school kids and give a bit of advice about weathering the aggression of the social scene at interviews. So bear with me if you've spent every Sunday afternoon since prep school combating on the rugby pitch and know how to handle a pumped up posh lad.

*Yeah me neither, Wiki informs me that's what you call someone from Shrewsbury School.

Forget Your Roots

Interviews at Oxbridge are strange. You'll only be around for a day or so at Cambridge and about three days at Oxford, but an unhealthy amount of time is likely to be spent in the common room. These are usually full of undergraduates bribed to stay around after term and 'look after applicants' aka lounge about in front of Keeping up with the Kardashians and occasionally rouse themselves to take someone to an interview or buy hummus on expenses. On the other hand the applicants sit jittering and nibbling biscuits distractedly. The atmosphere is enough to make anyone edgy.

But don't, whatever you do, set out on a campaign to sabotage your fellow applicants. I worked at interviews and observed that there was generally an applicant practicing complex psychological warfare in the common room, nine times out of ten this psycher was focusing on where the psychees had been to school.

A typical scene was a posh boy, high on testosterone, lecturing a state school student on how the whole system is prejudiced in the favour of the state educated applicants so if they do well it's not on their own merit. This is bollocks. But it seems to have taken root in a few of the coiffed heads of the privileged to the extent that they really believe it (although obviously not enough to actually state educate their children).

Unfortunately the opposite is true, if you encounter someone spouting this rubbish tell them that the privately educated make up 7% of the country and yet last year took a whopping 42.3% and 40.7% of places at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. And then take comfort that the little psycher shot themself in the foot, as I can assure you that they never turned up in the next year's intake.

If you're a state school student filled with indignation at the unattractive statistics, then please turn your anger into a bloody brilliant application and help redress the problem. The best I can offer you for comfort is that for arts subjects you probably don't need quite as squeaky clean an academic record to get an interview as someone from a 'famous' school.

Ultimately though, as much as positive discrimination could do good things for the universities, Oxbridge will only ever take someone on merit. Not pure subject knowledge. Not polish. Not a firm handshake. But merit. Ignore anyone who says otherwise.

Don't Get Sucked Into 'Keeping Up With The Applicants'

Tutors are curating their next year; they don't want seven people who think in the same way. So if you meet someone who's read Clarissa (FYI it's really effing long) or done work experience at Cern, then take a deep breath and remember that their accomplishments are totally irrelevant to how well you'll do. Tutors aren't looking for the same knowledge, skills or even the same interpretations of what a subject is.

Roll cliché: There's no such thing as an Oxbridge brain.

Don't Dwell

Hard interview? Yeah, of course it was, on to the next. Sometimes hard interviews mean you've got in, sometimes they don't. You just can't know. And if you battled with the first interviewer chances are you'll get on better with their colleague. Like any successful group act, college departments thrive on differences, so if you clashed with Baby Spice then look forward to your 20 minutes with Ginger.

Remember Your Life Will Not End If You Don't Get in.

It honestly won't, and you'll probably have loads more sex at your second choice Uni. So don't waste your time at interview hyperventilating with nerves, enjoy the free custard creams, explore the city and breathe deeply.

Good Luck, yes even you Hugo.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1853886 2012-09-04T09:07:06-04:00 2012-11-04T05:12:01-05:00

Madeleine Dodd http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-dodd/
This blog is about the kind of preparation you should be doing before you arrive for interview. Both Oxford and Cambridge interview a generous number of applicants, so assume their largess extends to you and get cracking on the preparation as soon as you've sent your application. Here are three practical ways to prepare; they're also helpful diversions from shaking your own left hand for practice.

Distrust Your Opinions

I'm sure you've heard that Oxbridge are looking for 'how you think' not 'what you know', it's true, but I remember not really knowing how to act on this advice. A practical way to prepare for a 'how you think' interview is to try disagreeing with yourself.

It's not as one-woman-Fringe-play as it sounds. I'm sure you have strong feelings about your subject and a tutor will probably disagree with something you say at interview to test how deeply your thinking on it goes. If you make yourself take the other side of the argument while preparing for your interview you'll discover its weak spots.

So ask yourself, what if you had to argue for the Marquis De Sade as a feminist or Scientology as a valid religion or Gordon Brown as the greatest PM we've ever had? You never know, you might change your own mind. Probably not about Gordon though.

Make Links

A-Levels are strangely link-less. You learn about a chunk of history without knowing what the world was like a few years out of your time period, or what was happening in scientific or domestic worlds during that time. Or you study a poet without reading the writers they were in bed with, often literally.
You'll do loads of linking things up at university. But it's worth having a stab at connecting ideas and thinking in a wider more contextual way in the run up to your interview. To do well at interview you need to forget A-Level's and to try to pull your thinking up to the level of a first year undergrad. Begin to ask yourself how your areas of interest connect, or why they don't.


Become An Expert

Pick a few areas and make sure you know your shit. There's a common misconception that if you're 'right' for Oxbridge the tutors will be able to tell just from chatting with you. This is, of course, rubbish.

You need to prepare, and you need to prepare strategically. Interviews aren't particularly long, they're between 20 and 45 minutes and you'll have no more than two or three of (them unless you're pooled). So you don't need wide encyclopaedic knowledge of your subject, you need a few areas of expertise. These should be topics which you love and which you've thought about deeply.

Teachers often get obsessed with preparing you to answer the 'why Oxford?' or 'why this particular college?' type questions because they're the only questions they feel they can reliably predict. In reality you might well not be asked them, and if you are its best to give a brief answer. You've only got about the length of time it takes to get to the bar on a Friday to impress them in, so don't bother mentioning how attractive their ratio of toilets to students is.

My next post will be about how to behave at interviews to make sure you come away feeling like you gave your best. It will feature both biscuits and the Kardashians. Stay tuned. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1843548 2012-08-30T12:57:26-04:00 2012-10-30T05:12:01-04:00

Madeleine Dodd http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-dodd/
So here's the first step: how write a really good application.

Embrace Your 'Middle Material'

I'm sure you know that your personal statement needs to be meatier than a premium sausage. And you're more than capable of delivering this once you've wrestled the beast of a first sentence into submission. Schools can let you down here, they tell you that the vogue for quotes has passed and that the simply saying you're passionate about your subject 'isn't Oxbridge'. But it's hard to know what fills the gap left when enthusiasm has packed up its gushy wares.

The answer is not to write a first paragraph. Plunge straight into writing with intellectual energy about a few interesting elements of your chosen subject. For medicine that might be a paragraph on muscular dystrophy, for English one that draws out a curious moment in Zadie Smith's writing and provides some analysis of it. By doing this you're effectively writing from the middle of your personal statement outwards. But often by writing from this point you'll discover there wasn't actually any need for a conventional 'introduction'. When the word count is so miserly I don't see anything wrong with beginning abruptly with your 'middle material'.

If you do want to stick a small-talk sentence on to the beginning, then keep it short, and don't worry about cracking the perfect one liner. It genuinely can't be worse than: 'I cannot conceive of a greater way to acquire an understanding of life than by studying the literature it inspires.' And they still interviewed me.

Channel British Reserve

I'm sure you've heard that Oxbridge look for rounded individuals. They don't. Founded back when people still put 'e' on the end of most words, these universities have had many centuries to learn from the doggedly reserved British who created them. Tutors look for students who are brilliant at their subject and it's a happy and irrelevant coincidence if you can play 'Fields of Gold' on the piano and do a downward dog in yoga.

Everything you mention on your personal statement that isn't specifically connected to your degree needs to have enriched the way you approach your subject. So if you can't work out a subject-relevant way to include that anecdote about your bravery in the face of The Duke of Edinburgh (both the challenge and the man), then don't.

Find a match online

Playing the numbers game and applying to a college you predict will be unpopular this year is spectacularly pointless. If you're good and your college is full they'll send you off somewhere else to meet tutors who might be interested in you (at Oxford this happens then and there, at Cambridge you'll go home and then get a letter saying you've been pooled). But you can save yourself the hassle of a hopeful pilgrimage to another college by trying to decide for yourself which tutors you might hit it off with.

Check out your tutors online, look at what they write about, and how they write. Ask yourself if their passions overlap with yours. I'm not saying that this strategy will work every time, but it would be daft not to have a digital perve on the academics you'll spend the next three years with. It's like match.com says: 1 in 5 relationships start online.

Apply To Other Universities

Please remember to select four other options; it really will take the pressure off a tad.

My next post will be about preparing to make the most of your 20 minute interviews. And it will only take three minutes to read- bargain.
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