Az_016 (Offline)

WOW! great news! You must be chuffed. How's your gap year been?

Congratulations, I might see you next year, although college rivalries being what they are I might just take you out in a snowball fight.

Doesn't matter which department, Imperial loves graphs.
Some of my EEE friends were asked to describe some simple electrical components (e.g. capacitor)
(don't worry about materials)

Example questions:
(1) y = f(x) where f(x) is some kind of function , plot it
(2) you are given a graph with some function on it, describe it ( could be a vibration curve, light damping)
(3) you are given 4 bars of different materials, identify the materials and explain their use in industry

(4) you are given a weird mechanical part, explain what it is ( guess?)

(5) generic application question ( why mech eng, why our uni, bla bla bla)

They love graphs, materials and weird parts

Personally I had to describe a piece of the aeroplane's tail and distinguish between graphite, iron, aluminum and polyethylene.

Hi there,

Sorry for the late response, as I'm assuming you will have made your decision already and either be unpacking your bags at nottingham currently or rewriting your personal statement!

I was always going to take a gap year as, believe it or not, studying for another 4 years without a break after college didn't appeal to me. I also thought that I genuinely wasn't ready for oxbridge - as you may have felt after not getting into Cambridge.

I was also in a similar dilemma in the fact that I wasn't sure whether to go for engineering or economics (I took Maths, Physics and Eco for A level). I decided to go with engineering as I believe it opens up more possibilities once you've finished you degree.

I think with regards to what requirements you need, your A levels sound pretty damn good so I wouldn't worry about that, however if you are thinking of taking a gap year I would advise trying to get on one of the internship schemes or if not, at least do some relatively challenging work for at least 9 months - the tutors wouldn't want to hear in the interview that you've just been bumming around for a year (I speak from experience, as I had a friend with 3A* who went for a ski season and got rejected at interview).

In terms of what I did in my gap year, I worked for IBM for nine months, it wasn't very challenging to be honest but I was able to pass it off as a usual learning experience, and I definitely felt more mature after this.

I hope this helps and don't hesitate to contact me again, I'll check more regularly now

An A is perfectly good enough in physics especially with the two A*s, if anything the maths is more useful, not sure I have used any physics knowledge this year.

So 2A*s 3As is what I got, I had my A*s in Maths and further maths, but there are people at my college who didn't take further maths, and equally others who haven't any A*s, so if you feel engineering is for you I would thing you have a good chance of getting in. I guess if you want to do engineering you will have to reapply and take a gap year so just have a thought about what you intend to use it for. (It doesn't necessarily have to be useful, I went kayaking and sailing during mine - but then again nobody asked what I was going to do at interview so having something engineering related planned might help)

Beauty of engineering is that you can always get a job in finance if you so desire. Mechanical engineering is one of the most established departments at Imperial. Our mech. eng course is very diverse compared to other universities. This year the minimum entry requirements were A*A*A for both chem. and mech. eng. Either Mech. or Chem. engineering will set you for a lucrative career path. My friend, who graduated a couple of years ago from mech. department, ended up working for a Russian oil company with a starting salary of £43k.

DT is definitely not required by Oxford or Cambridge - though I can't say they are necessarily against it I did it for GCSE and my brother who is at Cambridge did it for A-level. I have found that it has made practicals a lot easier. I would say maths, further maths and physics are more useful for engineering science which is technically what I do but for a more practical course having DT might be of a more equal use.

hey, target 2.0 and RES should be more than enough for the personal statement.

Although I think there's like a business scheme where you set up your own business and stuff which you can also participate in if you're applying for econ + management.