With high levels of demand for this trip, we were very lucky to secure both Brasenose College and Worcester College as venues for this trip, and we are very grateful to Joe and Claire, the outreach officers at the two colleges.

Leaving school at 7.30am was clearly a shock for some of the 60 students we took, but once arrived in Oxford and split between the two Colleges, they engaged fully with a packed programme of talks and tours. They grappled with interview-style questions and from this learned that it’s not the answer you give but the way you give it which really matters. They had bespoke tours from current undergraduates (including two Handsworth alumnae) to really get to know what a College is and what student life is like. The input on admissions covered the technicalities and also the best practice for applying and, after lunch in the impressive dining halls of the colleges, they traveled to the other College to compare and contrast

As always, a trip such as this has confirmed some students in their feelings about applying to Oxford or Cambridge, and it has made some more confused (“I thought this wasn’t for me, but maybe I need to think again”), but either way it has provided much food for thought.