Six Oldham Sixth Form College students offered places at Oxford and Cambridge

Queens College, Oxford

Six hard-working students from Oldham Sixth Form College have been offered places at Oxford and Cambridge Universities for 2021.

Ayeza Akhtar (Medicine), Molly Aspinall (Archaeology & Ancient History), Owen Cross (History) and Cian Lomax (Chemistry) have received offers from Oxford; while Oliver Cooney (Linguistics) and Tooba Zahid (Mathematics) are set to go to Cambridge.

Gaining their places was the culmination of more than a year of extra work by the Year 13 students, who were all part of OSFC’s Oxbridge Group. During that year, they conducted intensive research into courses and colleges, attended weekly preparatory sessions, sat mock and real Entrance Exams, and have been through practice and real interviews.

Due to lockdown, much of the preparation, and their actual interviews, has all been undertaken remotely online.

Richard Lee, Assistant Principal and coordinator of OSFC’s work with High Achievers, was full of praise for the six: "We were thrilled with the students’ offers. They have all shown incredible dedication and fully deserve these amazing outcomes.

"We were really pleased that students have places in such a wide range of subjects, highlighting the strength of the college across all curriculum areas. The maturity with which they have dealt with all the complications caused by the pandemic and retained their single-minded focus on their studies and preparations, is entirely to their credit and makes their achievements all the more impressive."

The students themselves say they are looking forward to their university studies. Molly Aspinall is excited at the chance ‘to study at an amazing university’, while Ayeza Akhtar cannot wait to meet ‘like-minded people who are as passionate about medicine as I am!’.

For Oliver Cooney, it is the famous style of study at Cambridge that appeals, as he will be ‘given an exhilarating opportunity to work with the world’s leading academics, as if you’re one of them.’

They all praised the college’s Oxbridge Group for how it ‘helped with every step of the application process’, while showing the students that ‘people like me can get there, and it isn’t impossible.’

Oxford and Cambridge have been repeatedly ranked 1st and 2nd in the UK, while Oxford was placed as No. 1 in the ‘World University Rankings 2021’ by The Times newspaper.

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