The subjective interview is academic, not a tally of your social contacts and social class. Then the "offer" is conditional on your performance on comprehensive objective subject examinations. It would be vanishingly rare not to get an offer for A * A * A * A if one were capable of scoring that well and few offers that I've heard of are for less than AAA.

The US elite university admission system is mostly based on sports performance, personal relationships ('recommendations'), racial balance, obsequious classroom obedience ('grades'), pedigree (more of your school district than of your family, but both count), popularity in desirable cliques ('leadership'), and avoiding working class activities (farming and trade oriented clubs are very bad for your chances). Uniform national tests barely count at all at any stage.

> The subjective interview is academic, not a tally of your social contacts and social class.

Maybe, but I'm not sure how you can be so sure. It's an in-person conversation; class is very much apparent.

> It would be vanishingly rare not to get an offer for A * A * A * A if one were capable of scoring that well and few offers that I've heard of are for less than AAA.

When I went it was before A* was introduced, and the standard offer was AAB. But only about half of applicants got the offer; it was not "vanishingly rare" but quite common for someone to be rejected by Cambridge but go on to achieve AAA in the exams.

And there is a cottage industry in helping students perform well in those interviews its why public schools who know how the game is played do so well in getting their students into Oxbridge.

I know that even back in the 70's our head of 6th form at a comprehensive helped the brighter students cram for Oxbridge - that was when you had to have a Latin O level to get in.

That's cool. I wish I had a headmaster who can prepare me for an interview in which I ended up discussing project euler questions, prolog, how jpeg works and how the way humans sort relate to how computers sort.

In maths interview, they give you an open question of some sort and want you to have a go at it. It's generally trivial and obscure so you cannot know the answer. How do you prepare for that?

It might work in history but simply not in STEM subjects.

Err its more the soft aspects and confidence and knowing the unwritten rules they are coaching - you no longer need basic Latin to go to Oxford or Cambridge.