Ian

A nice and supportive family with ambitions to send their daughter to Cambridge to study chemical engineering/ A good strategy for this might be

(a) Do 4 A levels
(b) Do further Maths
(c) Have top 1 % mental arithmetic
(d) Have perfect grasp of physics formulae at and beyond GCSE
(e) Have familiarity with periodic table.
(f) Talk to others who have done this.
(g) Have the flexibility of mind to realise that a far more academic approach is required than that offered by school teachers and mediocre tutors

Unfortunately this student had trouble factorising 2 digit numbers, poor grasp of basic physics formulae and the early periodic table. She had not taken further maths and was only doing 3 A levels. This lowers her probability of achieving the grades and would make the Cambridge experience excruciatingly painful even if she got in. She has almost certainly been over tutored for 5 or 6 years as poor basics and good rehearsed answer material are a give away here and will be picked up in the first 90 seconds of a Cambridge interview.

I tried to address the underlying problem here and my frankness was not welcome. I offered to introduce students of mine who had recently graduated from top universities, but the student was not interested. (I teach a lot of university students as well as A levels). Had I behaved as a bad tutor and just turned up for the money each week, I would have got a better review, but I have long since realised you can not win them all.