Posted by Autumn @ Bellerbys Oxford
Hello beloved readers!
Guess what? I'm finally BACK!
It has been so long since I last logged on to this blog, to be honest, and I sincerely apologise for my tardiness.
After posting the last post, I comfortably went back to my country and enjoyed my summer whole-heartedly. It was boiling hot in my tropical home country but the scorching sun was not a strong enough deterrent. I did spend days in the sun hanging out with my old classmates.
However, I also spared some time to read the pile of books that I brought back home, in order to prepare for my most important year of A levels. And I am so glad I did that. Not until I returned to the cool and serene Oxford did I realise that there was such a giant leap from AS to A2.
Yes I said it! A2 is much more difficult than AS and I'm no longer able to procrastinate. The course is more demanding and tough, and I have to put more effort into studying.
However, I do believe that there is a positive correlation between the difficulty of the course and its fascinating nature. My subjects are getting more and more interesting every day, especially Economics and Politics. We are currently studying Socialism and Marxism, which is of particular interest to me, as I was born and raised in a socialist country.
The past month was extremely hectic for me and my fellow aspiring Oxford applicants. We had to cope with the seemingly sudden huge amount of work and prepare our UCAS application simultaneously. All we did after school was researching universities, and all we discussed at lunch was about the application process.Personal statements were drafted and torn into strips and redrafted.
We were always in a hurry, which resulted in anxieties surfacing on an hourly basis. Time seemed to fly at a neck-breaking speed, and before we were even aware of it, the deadline was looming on the horizon. Everyone simply freaked out.
The constant pressure we withstood was intense. We held our breath when pasting our personal statement into UCAS Apply, hoping that we hadn't gone over our word limit. We frantically ran down the corridors, looking for our tutors and teachers and asking them to take a look at our most-recently-updated-drafts-of-personal-statement.
I personally had more than 13 drafts saved on my laptop and kept changing the tiniest details every night (I was so sure that my tutors must have been really tired of reading my personal statements, yet they were still so patient with me!).
When I clicked 'send', I heaved a sigh of relief.
In retrospect, the whole application process was unbelievable. We have pushed (and been pushed) ourselves to the extreme to climb one more step up the ladder of success, to take one more step towards our dream of the dreaming spires of Oxford.
We have learned and mastered the skills necessary to effectively deal with academic pressure and tight schedules. The tremendous support we received from our teachers and tutors is invaluable. Applying to Oxford is truly one of many unforgettable experiences I have had and will have at Bellerbys Oxford (although I doubt that anyone would want to relive it!)
Now it's time to cross our fingers!
Posted by Autumn, studying A Levels at Bellerbys Oxford