Oxbridge offers flood in to top class school

6:10pm Monday 28th January 2008

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A record six Chiswick Community School students have received offers from Oxford and Cambridge Universities this term.

It is the highest Oxbridge tally for the school in years and follows good results at the sixth form, which is in the top 10 per cent in the country according to national value added scores.

Joe Chrisp, 17, wants to become a journalist. He was offered a place to study philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford.

He said: "I was surprised because I was rejected at first but I was then accepted by a second college.

"The school focused a lot on potential Oxbridge students by sending us on a course and preparing us for interviews."

Setting her sights high 18-year-old Heba Khafagy, who is originally from Egypt, said she plans to get a PhD and go into research after her engineering degree.

Not bothered by the statistic that just 15 per cent of engineering students are women, Heba said: "I don't believe gender makes any difference to engineering ability. Being in an all girls college will mean I get the confidence to succeed as a female engineer."

Steven Edgson, 18, who has a place at Cambridge to study economics, said the head of the sixth form pointed students to the Pure Potential website, which supports state school students going to Oxbridge.

He said: "We also had talks, workshops, visits and mock interviews."

Oxbridge offers also went to Ellie Gear, 18, to study history and politics at Oxford; Emma Smith, 17, to study English at St Catharine's, Cambridge and Becky Roberts, 17, to study geography at Fitzwilliam, Cambridge.

Other top university offers went to Lucy Steadman to study politics at London School of Economics, Sarah Skafi to study French and German and Kush Naker to study medicine, both at Imperial College.