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The Big 'Which Cambridge College?' Thread

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There isn't a college that most language students usually apply to. Sure, you might find the most popular and well known colleges with more language applicants, along with the college(s) closest to the language departments maybe, but there will be language students at every college. If you're interested to see the specific numbers, you can check out the statistics at the Cambridge website.
Deannanana
We had an Oxbridge talker come into our sixth form today who told us that sometimes colleges are quite selective with who they take depending on course? He was studying engineering at Oxford and referred to his college as quite 'science-y'?

Is it different for Cambridge? It seemed like all he spoke about was Oxford tbh! x


Some colleges have a more of a reputation in some subjects or a higher proportion of sciences or arts, but this isn't a very strong bias. Even the 'science-y' colleges take a roughly similar proportion of language students.
Rob16
Allready talked to them about that. They say its fine because i will have completed 4 a levels over the regular 2 year period which would be more than enough to meet the offer, id only be staying the extra year to meet he requirements if you get where im going with this :yep:


yes i do, appllying to Downing doesnt mean im a downy. haha joke.:biggrin:
Deannanana
We had an Oxbridge talker come into our sixth form today who told us that sometimes colleges are quite selective with who they take depending on course? He was studying engineering at Oxford and referred to his college as quite 'science-y'?

Is it different for Cambridge? It seemed like all he spoke about was Oxford tbh! x

:facepalm: He was talking rubbish I'm afraid. Of Oxford as well as Cambridge.
I'm applying to Clare College for French and Latin. I know that's not exactly modern languages but it's still MML. Pretty much all the colleges do the basic modern languages, I've noticed... you just have to check they do arabic. I think it's different at Oxford because I went to a college on the open day that didn't do modern languages at all; God, I felt like an idiot when I asked a question!
I'm applying to Jesus and it seems to offer way more languages together than most, I'm applying for German and ab.ini. Russian and it's got 2 tutors for german (and two for French plus a french assistant every year) and one for russian. Didn't notice any arabic, but then again I wasn't really looking for that. Still, worth checking out ...http://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/subjects/mml.html
Tempeststurm
Some colleges have a more of a reputation in some subjects or a higher proportion of sciences or arts, but this isn't a very strong bias. Even the 'science-y' colleges take a roughly similar proportion of language students.


And some for music, i.e. Selwyn.

On a side note, nobody apply to Downing. It's where I'm applying and I'd like a greater chance thank you :woo:
Reply 1087
Well I applied thus for law and took the LNAT, I am from Belgium so French speaking.
And it has now been 8 years I want to study international law at cambridge so I was quite prepared but well.
So when I passed the LNAT I thought I completely messed up... then I received the invitation for interviews, but they don't look at your lnat before interviews so I don't know.
But as I didn't know how it was going to be and all I found looots of tips on forums about cambridge interviews, (and also a cd given by law school by pr Virgo) one of them said that you can feel free to ask for any explications if you needed...
So I went to the interviews, it was great, people, city, college,professors!
I was interviewed twice by two professors each time and one of them was speaking really fast and with a weird accent (I understood the others quite easily so it was'nt me I guess the problem) so I asked her two or three times for a little explication ...
Then I received my declined offer few weeks later...
When I asked for feed back they said everything was actually great my personnal statement, my lnat, and they really "liked me" but they
felt I needed a little help in detailed comprehension and there was really too much competition (800 applicants for 128 places)...I mean there is certainely french speaking student so in less than one month my english would have been perfect but whatever I got into Warwick and I feel It's gonna be much better in both social and studies! :smile:
Hope you will get into it however :wink:
Sorry I detailed a lot so you would understand my point of vue :tongue:
Reply 1088
jammy21
I'm considering applying to Downing for law right now. What was the reason they rejected you, if you don't mind me asking? Please PM me if you don't want to post in the thread.


Sorry forgot to quote :smile:
Reply 1089
HI! i'm reapplying this UCAS cycle, made an open application last year, then got rejected by the trinity hall :frown:
I really didn't care much about which college to get into so i didn't bother to choose one, I don't know if I should reapply to trinity hall again, is there any college that would be more inclined to take re-applicants? or would it look 'loyal' if i were to apply to t.hall again :s-smilie: ?? Below is the feedback letter, also I didn't do soooo well in my Alevels:
84% in physics (got a D in one module O.O)
~90% in both maths and arts (got a B in one maths module)
but Im hoping some colleges would be more.. considerate because i did all those modules last year.
also, do you think they would stress less on my gcse? i mean i've done the alevels already, and my gcses were NOT OK.
btw, i'm a foreign student(8.5 in ielts, if that matters), did my alevels in the UK, but have left now :frown:


Steve has requested feedback on his recent application to Trinity Hall to read Architecture. We usually prefer to write to the UCAS referee, who is well placed to judge the best way to convey the feedback to the individual concerned. Steve has given us his permission to write to you.

Architecture is the most competitive undergraduate course at Cambridge, in terms of the number of applicants to places. This year Trinity Hall received 18 applications and we were able to make 2 offers (the number of available places is determined by the Faculty and there is little flexibility).

A number of factors are taken into consideration when assessing an application. We look at previous exam results, exam predictions, personal statement, school reference, the portfolio and performance at interview.

At interview, after a slightly nervous start, Steve emerged as an interesting and imaginative student. He was able to justify how the works of I M Pei and the Bird’s Nest represented their society and was prepared to express and defend some controversial notions, for example that public buildings should reveal none of the architect’s personal expression. His approaches to some hypothetical commissions were far less sure. His portfolio was also thought to be somewhat underdeveloped.

I hope this feedback is of some help, and I wish Steve well in his applications to other universities.
Reply 1090
I am applying for Christ's! I considered Corpus Christi, Emmanuel, Trinity and King's (the first two more seriously) and Christ's. After attending the open days this summer I was captivated by the atmosphere at Christ's.
It's such a beautiful college, and the accomodation seems really good (esp. if you don't mind small, functional typewriter rooms).

I had a tour around Emmanuel College too, and the accomodation there genuinely frightened me. The rest seemed quite alright, though. Corpus Christi's library looked very good. :P /randomstuff
I was wondering if you could recommend a college for me...

I'm applying for NatSci (main interest is Chemistry so if any are particularly good for that it would be a plus)
I'd like a college that is old, has a cool old dining hall (even if it's only used for formal hall), has pretty good food, has a library with decent opening hours, isn't really far out, is mixed, and has a pretty good bar & ents etc.
And not St. Johns, Trinity or Kings please.

I was thinking of Downing or Emma but I've got the impression that Downing is overrun by lawyers and not the best socially and the accomodation at Emma didn't look particularly nice but I might have just seen a bad room.

Any help would be much appreciate!:smile:
Thanks
*appreciated
Reply 1093
milly_spam
I was wondering if you could recommend a college for me...

I'm applying for NatSci (main interest is Chemistry so if any are particularly good for that it would be a plus)
I'd like a college that is old, has a cool old dining hall (even if it's only used for formal hall), has pretty good food, has a library with decent opening hours, isn't really far out, is mixed, and has a pretty good bar & ents etc.
And not St. Johns, Trinity or Kings please.

I was thinking of Downing or Emma but I've got the impression that Downing is overrun by lawyers and not the best socially and the accomodation at Emma didn't look particularly nice but I might have just seen a bad room.

Any help would be much appreciate!:smile:
Thanks


Well your situation seems pretty similar to mine! I also like Chemistry the most. Since Christ's is pretty near Downing Site (where most lectures for natural sciences I believe are held, although I'm not sure), the location is pretty good. It really does seem to be off the tourist tracks. At least, that was the impression I got during the open days.
I might be biased, but I recommend Christ's to you anyway.

What might put you off, though, is the modern building which I briefly described in my previous post in this thread. However, that's mainly for first years, so you'd only be 'stuck' with that for one year (if at all). I've seen 'old-ish' rooms too, and they looked really really pretty. But I also like the modern accomodation, so I like to think I can't really go wrong when it comes to accomodation.

edit:
Did you also visit Emmanual this summer's open days and took a tour? We might be thinking of the same room. Either way, the one I saw was absolutely horrible. Concrete with slime on the walls (honestly, slime (you know that stuff you spray out of a can?)). Gah. I asked the (rather nice) young man who gave the tour to see another room to get a better impression of what rooms might look like. The room that looked horrible was ballot rank 4 or something, and his was rank 4 too (which I visited too).
His, strangely enough, looked rather 'ok'. I wouldn't rate it much higher than that, though.
Reply 1094
phen
@milly


When you want to reply to someone.. click the quote button at the bottom of their post, then write a reply underneath - that way they'll know you've replied to them as it appears on their home page, and they'll be more likely to notice :smile:
Reply 1095
becbec :)
When you want to reply to someone.. click the quote button at the bottom of their post, then write a reply underneath - that way they'll know you've replied to them as it appears on their home page, and they'll be more likely to notice :smile:

Thank you for the tip. How is this? :P
Reply 1096
phen
Thank you for the tip. How is this? :P


ta da.. perfect! :smile:
edit:
Did you also visit Emmanual this summer's open days and took a tour? We might be thinking of the same room. Either way, the one I saw was absolutely horrible. Concrete with slime on the walls (honestly, slime (you know that stuff you spray out of a can?)). Gah. I asked the (rather nice) young man who gave the tour to see another room to get a better impression of what rooms might look like. The room that looked horrible was ballot rank 4 or something, and his was rank 4 too (which I visited too).
His, strangely enough, looked rather 'ok'. I wouldn't rate it much higher than that, though.

Yes! That's what put me off plus all the chairs and stuff were kind of falling apart too and even on the website they don't look that nice but other than that it seemed really nice :s-smilie:
ahhhhhh decisions decisions :confused:
^^ I obviously haven't quite mastered the whole quoting thing yet..
milly_spam
I was wondering if you could recommend a college for me...

I'm applying for NatSci (main interest is Chemistry so if any are particularly good for that it would be a plus)
I'd like a college that is old, has a cool old dining hall (even if it's only used for formal hall), has pretty good food, has a library with decent opening hours, isn't really far out, is mixed, and has a pretty good bar & ents etc.
And not St. Johns, Trinity or Kings please.

I was thinking of Downing or Emma but I've got the impression that Downing is overrun by lawyers and not the best socially and the accomodation at Emma didn't look particularly nice but I might have just seen a bad room.

Any help would be much appreciate!:smile:
Thanks


Few thoughts on Downing:

* It is the law college, and there are an awful lot of lawyers around - but it doesn't mean that it's overrun by them; there are more natscis then lawyers for a start. (We have about ~25 natscis per year)
* Accommodation is very good. First year rooms are mostly en-suite with some hotel-standard rooms. Second year more variable. Third year very good. I'll have en-suite all three years, for example. Also you can live on-site for all three years.
* It's not particularly old - f.1800 while Emma is somewhere in the 1500s.
* Our hall was recently renovated so that it's in Victorian style (or something. I'm not too good with architectural styles :p: ). It's pretty, but it's probably not the typical 'old' hall that you find in places like Pembroke or Peterhouse.
* Library open 8:30am-2am with university card access from 8pm onwards.
* Bar is OK, nothing special. Ents aren't great. It's fine socially (not really sure what you mean!), although it doesn't have any kind of special reputation like Clare Cellars, Queens' ents etc.
* It's quite sporty, although I don't do any sport at all so can't really comment.
* Its proximity to the science sites can never be overvalued. Especially to the Chemistry department!
* Food is variable but on average better than a lot of other colleges.

Have you thought about Pembroke? It's old (1300 something), old hall, close, nice food... though accommodation didn't seem to be great.

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