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Top ten triumph in Oxbridge interviews

Thursday 21 January 2016

WEB Oxbridge offers

Ten students at The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) have the Oxbridge experience in their sights after success in the universities’ interview process.

The successful candidates are evenly split between the two institutions, with five holding conditional offers from colleges at the University of Cambridge and five aiming to secure their places in college at the University of Oxford subject to their A-level results.

Heading for Oxford subject to this summer’s exam results are head girls Frances Pye and Libby Munro – Frances to read chemistry at Brasenose College and Libby for economics and management at Pembroke College. Head boy Matthew Vautrey has an offer for law at Magdalen College. Also aiming for Oxford are Miheer Sonwalkar, who has an offer to read economics and management at Brasenose College, and Julian Wood, offered a place for history and English at Pembroke College.

The five students holding conditional offers from Cambridge colleges are Shahzaib Ahmed for medicine and John Greathead for general engineering, both at St John’s College, Manjari Dhar for mathematics at Newnham College, Elliot Francas-Mellor for modern and medieval languages at Trinity College and Aditya Munot for economics at King’s College.

Shahzaib said: “It’s been a long process, having to apply early and take the BMAT test in November before the interviews in December. The mock interviews at school were a good confidence booster and helped me prepare to demonstrate how good I would be as a doctor and my scientific knowledge. Overall I was surprised and really happy to get the offer.”

A former student who made the grade in last year’s A-levels will be joining the successful candidates at Cambridge. Tenor James Micklethwaite is currently spending a gap year as a choral scholar at Norwich Cathedral, and at Cambridge will be able to further pursue his passion for singing alongside his studies in philosophy at Churchill College.

Ray Peacock, GSAL’s Oxbridge coordinator, said: “We’re immensely proud of our students who have come through a highly competitive and rigorous selection process to achieve these offers. While we support their ambitions by offering comprehensive guidance to help them with their personal statements and preparation for interviews and admissions tests, ultimately they have secured these offers through their own effort and commitment.”WEB Shahzaib Ahmed

Pictured above: Shahzaib Ahmed

Pictured top: (back L-R) – Elliot Francas-Mellor, John Greathead and Matthew Vautrey; (front L-R) – Aditya Munot, Libby Munro, Manjari Dhar, Frances Pye and Miheer Sonwalkar

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