[Colmans]

(Original post by The Mr Z)
Yes, that is the question, and giving averages doesn't answer it.

You say "only" 115/1137, that's 10% of people - and you're advising that he should be aiming for A*A*A* to have a realistic chance?

Yes, UMS correlated with Tripos (Poorly, just better than any other exam indicator) but that's completely different from saying this average value is what you need to be aiming for.

You want a realistic chance, you just need to be above the lower tail. A*AA gives you a realistic chance. You just told someone they needed A*A*A* because that's the average. You might as well tell 30% of students currently studying at Cambridge that they shouldn't have applied because their chances of success were unrealistic! (back of envelope figure from that means table in the research analysis)

Again, you're looking at a 1-tailed distribution and ignoring a HUGE wealth of other factors.

People want advice on whether they have a realistic chance and you are giving bad advice.

The point is not that 10% of applicants who go on to get A*AA get a place but 10% of those given offers get A*AA. We know that 4,000 candidates who didn't get an offer go on to get A*AA. So less than 1 in 20 applicants who end up with A*AA achieves get in. Not impossible but not likely. And the research was not available before so its influence on offers may grow.
UMS may not be a perfect predictor, nothing could be, but it beats any of the alternatives.

I didn't say somebody with an A*AA prediction shouldn't apply, I said that somebody who had already got their grades would need to have done better to have a realistic chance. Economics applicants already have only a 13% chance, I took that chance and got in. But knowing it was tough was an advantage.

The intelligent applicant will take a range of opinions and make their mind up. Some will aim high even if the chances of success are low. In the sort of school I came from your advice would mean almost everybody could apply but academic record was the best predictor of who got in. Everybody I knew who got in did considerably better than one A*. Some of those who didn't get offers were people who just hadn't appreciated how tough it was and a bit of realism might have meant they worked harder.

[Llewellyn]

(Original post by Colmans)
The point is not that 10% of applicants who go on to get A*AA get a place but 10% of those given offers get A*AA. We know that 4,000 candidates who didn't get an offer go on to get A*AA. So less than 1 in 20 applicants who end up with A*AA achieves get in. Not impossible but not likely. And the research was not available before so its influence on offers may grow.
UMS may not be a perfect predictor, nothing could be, but it beats any of the alternatives.

I didn't say somebody with an A*AA prediction shouldn't apply, I said that somebody who had already got their grades would need to have done better to have a realistic chance. Economics applicants already have only a 13% chance, I took that chance and got in. But knowing it was tough was an advantage.

The intelligent applicant will take a range of opinions and make their mind up. Some will aim high even if the chances of success are low. In the sort of school I came from your advice would mean almost everybody could apply but academic record was the best predictor of who got in. Everybody I knew who got in did considerably better than one A*. Some of those who didn't get offers were people who just hadn't appreciated how tough it was and a bit of realism might have meant they worked harder.

You are mixing cause and effect with the A*AA against offers. That argument would only work if Cambridge gave out offers purely based on what they expected people's results to be. However, Cambridge have said that is not the case. You also ignore the fact that A*AA may not be that impressive at a private or grammar school, but at a "less academic" college A*AA is a noteworthy achievement.

Besides, that is irrelevant anyway. Even using your statistics, I would say 1 in 20 or 5% is still a realistic chance. I would define a realistic chance as anything above 1% or alternatively as grades good enough to get an interview (i.e. a chance)

I don't like the A level argument for most cases, A level grades are what you get due to a combination of teaching, ability, understanding and hard work. It is by no means directly related to likelihood of getting an offer. Getting an offer, at least how Cambridge describe it, is all about showing ability and more importantly potential. The A level grade offers are just a function of the UCAS system's ultimatum. So whilst I agree that getting A*AA doesn't mean you have a great chance (which some people assume because that is their standard offer) - I disagree that anyone should be discouraged from applying, or that anyone should be told that 1 in 20 is unrealistic.

Perhaps you may have a point in individual cases, but I don't agree with such a broad statement.

[Extricated]

(Original post by Llewellyn)
You are mixing cause and effect with the A*AA against offers. That argument would only work if Cambridge gave out offers purely based on what they expected people's results to be. However, Cambridge have said that is not the case. You also ignore the fact that A*AA may not be that impressive at a private or grammar school, but at a "less academic" college A*AA is a noteworthy achievement.

Besides, that is irrelevant anyway. Even using your statistics, I would say 1 in 20 or 5% is still a realistic chance. I would define a realistic chance as anything above 1% or alternatively as grades good enough to get an interview (i.e. a chance)

I don't like the A level argument for most cases, A level grades are what you get due to a combination of teaching, ability, understanding and hard work. It is by no means directly related to likelihood of getting an offer. Getting an offer, at least how Cambridge describe it, is all about showing ability and more importantly potential. The A level grade offers are just a function of the UCAS system's ultimatum. So whilst I agree that getting A*AA doesn't mean you have a great chance (which some people assume because that is their standard offer) - I disagree that anyone should be discouraged from applying, or that anyone should be told that 1 in 20 is unrealistic.

Perhaps you may have a point in individual cases, but I don't agree with such a broad statement.

I think you've misconstrued his point. Colmans isn't discouraging anyone from applying with A*AA but is simply stating that obtaining A*AA will put you at a disadvantage for most courses. I know for certain that the vast majority of extremely competitive courses (medicine, economics etc) have most of their students obtain A*A*AA+. The point Colmans is making is akin to the one that "getting 88% across your top three should not discourage you from applying, but it certainly puts you at a disadvantage."

[Llewellyn]

(Original post by Extricated)
I think you've misconstrued his point. Colmans isn't discouraging anyone from applying with A*AA but is simply stating that obtaining A*AA will put you at a disadvantage for most courses. I know for certain that the vast majority of extremely competitive courses (medicine, economics etc) have most of their students obtain A*A*AA+. The point Colmans is making is akin to the one that "getting 88% across your top three should not discourage you from applying, but it certainly gives you a disadvantage."

My point is that the blanket statement "A*AA isnt good enough" is too much of a generalisation. You can put that in context with medicine, but that is specific. Is applying with A*AA unrealistic generally? No. Will others have done better? Yes.

To give an example: under that general advice, a MML applicant with an A* in french and 2As isnt in a good position.

[The Mr Z]

(Original post by Colmans)
The point is not that 10% of applicants who go on to get A*AA get a place but 10% of those given offers get A*AA. We know that 4,000 candidates who didn't get an offer go on to get A*AA. So less than 1 in 20 applicants who end up with A*AA achieves get in. Not impossible but not likely. And the research was not available before so its influence on offers may grow.
UMS may not be a perfect predictor, nothing could be, but it beats any of the alternatives.

I didn't say somebody with an A*AA prediction shouldn't apply, I said that somebody who had already got their grades would need to have done better to have a realistic chance. Economics applicants already have only a 13% chance, I took that chance and got in. But knowing it was tough was an advantage.

The intelligent applicant will take a range of opinions and make their mind up. Some will aim high even if the chances of success are low. In the sort of school I came from your advice would mean almost everybody could apply but academic record was the best predictor of who got in. Everybody I knew who got in did considerably better than one A*. Some of those who didn't get offers were people who just hadn't appreciated how tough it was and a bit of realism might have meant they worked harder.

Completely missing cause and effect, also no Bayesian considerations. Also, we've had this research for a while, it's just a new year's data added in.

Admissions tutors only look at info they have about a candidate, which means this can't actually play any part in the majority of decisions, because the vast vast majority of applicants don't have A2s, and grades can change substantially between AS and A2.

If you have data on the ratios of people who applied having already achieved A*AA and offers, then that may have some use, but this is data for people who mostly applied before A2s and so it is logical fallacy to draw conclusions from it.

You haven't accounted for the effect having an A*AA offer firmed has on people's exam performance.

Even so, a 1/20 chance is still significant enough to make an application, especially when the applicant will have 5 choices the lower two of which will be towards the 1/1 end of the spectrum (with A*AA a lot of good universities will snap you up)

Which school? Given what you imply it's probably one of a certain select few, and if it's one of the ones I'm thinking of, then the staff there have a much better judgement than academic grades for working out who will get into Oxbridge.
But as you said, you yourself could tell the difference between those who got offers and those who didn't on non-academic grounds.

Your still advising someone with the entry requirements that he should only be applying if he's in the middle of a one-tailed, inapplicable distribution. The number of mistakes in the reasoning is bad enough, but given we know just how poor an indicator UMS is, and actually how much better an indication knowledge of the candidate is, we really shouldn't be calling this with the information we have.

We should be telling people if their grades are inhibiting, neutral or enabling, and for the latter two telling them to advise and giving advice on making as successful application as possible, and how to choose a good set of 5 universities to offset the uncertainty inherent in any Oxbridge application.

What you're advising is on the same level as trying to play a numbers game with which college to apply to.




Your biggest mistake is trying to quantify a chance of acceptance to such a degree of accuracy based on such lacking information.

[bb193]

The issue is that the A2 grades are not the barrier. The main barrier is getting the offer.

My eldest daughter applied for History. She got A*A*A at A2. But she didn't get an offer in the previous January, so didn't get in.

The average applicant has a median of 90 UMS in the best 3 subjects at AS. The average applicant with an offer has a median 95 UMS at AS. That is the obstacle to beat.

It is not unknown for someone to get an offer and not get in. But it is quite rare.

Don't think about the A*AA. It is is pretty irrelevant. Think median 95 UMS for A2. Hit that and you can start to feel pretty confident.

[The Mr Z]

(Original post by bb193)
The issue is that the A2 grades are not the barrier. The main barrier is getting the offer.

My eldest daughter applied for History. She got A*A*A at A2. But she didn't get an offer in the previous January, so didn't get in.

The average applicant has a median of 90 UMS in the best 3 subjects at AS. The average applicant with an offer has a median 95 UMS at AS. That is the obstacle to beat.

It is not unknown for someone to get an offer and not get in. But it is quite rare.

Don't think about the A*AA. It is is pretty irrelevant. Think median 95 UMS for A2. Hit that and you can start to feel pretty confident.

So, that 90% figure? That's fiction. 95? Even more so. Sorry to break it to you.

A*AA is very relevant - it's the standard offer. There's only one exam-related "requirement" and that's A*AA at A2.

Also, advising people need to reach the median? Just think about that.



At the end of the day, Cambridge don't really care about what your exam marks are. They care if you're bright enough, think in the right sort of way and will be good to teach. Exams are a barometer of the first of those, and a pretty poor barometer at that. Admissions decisions are not made on the basis of exam results, they don't do some numerical ranking. They sit down in a room and discuss EVERY applicant and EVERY PART of EVERY application.

[LeSacMagique]

(Original post by The Mr Z)
So, that 90% figure? That's fiction. 95? Even more so. Sorry to break it to you.

A*AA is very relevant - it's the standard offer. There's only one exam-related "requirement" and that's A*AA at A2.

Also, advising people need to reach the median? Just think about that.



At the end of the day, Cambridge don't really care about what your exam marks are. They care if you're bright enough, think in the right sort of way and will be good to teach. Exams are a barometer of the first of those, and a pretty poor barometer at that. Admissions decisions are not made on the basis of exam results, they don't do some numerical ranking. They sit down in a room and discuss EVERY applicant and EVERY PART of EVERY application.

The statistics are what Cambridge themselves say: http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergrad...quirements.pdf

But at the same time I agree. The interview can more than compensate for ostensibly poor (for Cambridge) UMS or GCSEs.

[The Mr Z]

(Original post by LeSacMagique)
The statistics are what Cambridge themselves say: http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergrad...quirements.pdf

But at the same time I agree. The interview can more than compensate for ostensibly poor (for Cambridge) UMS or GCSEs.

Those are mean, not median values. The distribution is going to be non-Gaussian, so the two are not equal.

I think the link spells it out very clearly though - these 90% and 95% figures are really meaningless for any individual applicant considering their own application.

If someone wants to compare themselves to the mean they're useful, but how you compare to the mean doesn't actually tell you anything about your chances of getting in.

All these figures do is put good applicants off applying to Cambridge. You want to know what message Cambridge want to get out about their admissions process - it's in the bullet points section.

[LeSacMagique]

(Original post by The Mr Z)
Those are mean, not median values. The distribution is going to be non-Gaussian, so the two are not equal.

I think the link spells it out very clearly though - these 90% and 95% figures are really meaningless for any individual applicant considering their own application.

If someone wants to compare themselves to the mean they're useful, but how you compare to the mean doesn't actually tell you anything about your chances of getting in.

All these figures do is put good applicants off applying to Cambridge. You want to know what message Cambridge want to get out about their admissions process - it's in the bullet points section.

You're preaching to the choir!

[LineOfView]

Hello people,

First of all, this is my very first post on TSR, so if I do something wrong, bear with me and notify me!

I am a Dutch student who aspires to study at Cambridge University (Natural Sciences). I looked up what Cambridge expects from Dutch applicants, and I found this: 'Applicants from the Netherlands would be expected to achieve an overall score of 8,0 to 8,5 with scores up to 9 in up to three specified subjects.' Currently, I have a 9 in seven subjects, and the rest are all 8. In my eyes, that is a WHOLE lot better than they ask for. I also have an FCE diploma (A) and next year I'll do my CPE (I'm expected to ace that one too). My high school is in the top 5 in the Netherlands, but I don't know if they have ever sent any students to an Ivy League or to Oxbridge, we have a lot of incredibly gifted students, however, most of them go to Dutch universities, as they aren't bad at all (TU Delft is endorsed by our school, most of you probably haven't heard of it).

My question is, what does Cambridge look at? My grades are good enough, but that can't be the only thing. I heard that Cambridge doesn't look at extracurriculars. Is that true? What DO they look at?

[freedomyak]

(Original post by LineOfView)
Hello people,

First of all, this is my very first post on TSR, so if I do something wrong, bear with me and notify me!

I am a Dutch student who aspires to study at Cambridge University (Natural Sciences). I looked up what Cambridge expects from Dutch applicants, and I found this: 'Applicants from the Netherlands would be expected to achieve an overall score of 8,0 to 8,5 with scores up to 9 in up to three specified subjects.' Currently, I have a 9 in seven subjects, and the rest are all 8. In my eyes, that is a WHOLE lot better than they ask for. I also have an FCE diploma (A) and next year I'll do my CPE (I'm expected to ace that one too). My high school is in the top 5 in the Netherlands, but I don't know if they have ever sent any students to an Ivy League or to Oxbridge, we have a lot of incredibly gifted students, however, most of them go to Dutch universities, as they aren't bad at all (TU Delft is endorsed by our school, most of you probably haven't heard of it).

My question is, what does Cambridge look at? My grades are good enough, but that can't be the only thing. I heard that Cambridge doesn't look at extracurriculars. Is that true? What DO they look at?

Officially Cambridge admit based on Academic ability but as there is so much competition unless you are miles ahead of the competition academically then having straights is unlikely to be of any advantages as that is the norm, which is why in most situations they consider your application holistically - What you heard about them not liking extra curricular activities is wrong... although you need to understand that just because you can play the guitar quite well or have done charity work or played tennis regionally does not really make or break your application - Think of extra curriculars as icing on the cake, they won't do you any harm but they are not of primary or even secondary concern.

Thats all I have to say really...good luck, its not easy getting in regardless if your a home or international student. BUT YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DONT TRY.

E: Someone please explain why the neg rep? You're not being constructive by clicking reps...

[Oli-Ol]

Just grades, really. Grades, ability and passion for your subject.

[LineOfView]

(Original post by freedomyak)

Thats all I have to say really...good luck, its not easy getting in regardless if your a home or international student. BUT YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DONT TRY.

Are Dutch students actually seen as international students? I thought they weren't, as Holland is in the EU.

[bb193]

I stand by my point 'The issue is that the A2 grades are not the barrier. The main barrier is getting the offer. '

Thinking hitting the standard offer grade at A2 is the target will just result in disappointment. The key is getting the offer.

[limid19]

My GSCE grades as a whole don't look that amazing as a whole [4A*,3A,4B] but the ones I got my A*s and As in are the subjects that I wish to continue for A Levels, (A* in maths, A* in chemistry, A* in music and As in Biology and Physics). I am going to do maths, chemistry, music and either biology or physics at A Level. Do you think my overall GCSE range will lower my chances of an interview or because I did well in what I wish to continue, will my likelihood of an interview be the same?? :?

[Colmans]

(Original post by limid19)
My GSCE grades as a whole don't look that amazing as a whole [4A*,3A,4B] but the ones I got my A*s and As in are the subjects that I wish to continue for A Levels, (A* in maths, A* in chemistry, A* in music and As in Biology and Physics). I am going to do maths, chemistry, music and either biology or physics at A Level. Do you think my overall GCSE range will lower my chances of an interview or because I did well in what I wish to continue, will my likelihood of an interview be the same?? :?

Provided you get good UMS at AS they should have very little influence and would not be a reason by themselves for you to not get an interview.

What subject might you do at University? Subject choice can be very important-for example NatSci needs another science ideally, Maths is helped by Physics.

[The Mr Z]

(Original post by limid19)
My GSCE grades as a whole don't look that amazing as a whole [4A*,3A,4B] but the ones I got my A*s and As in are the subjects that I wish to continue for A Levels, (A* in maths, A* in chemistry, A* in music and As in Biology and Physics). I am going to do maths, chemistry, music and either biology or physics at A Level. Do you think my overall GCSE range will lower my chances of an interview or because I did well in what I wish to continue, will my likelihood of an interview be the same?? :?

At Cambridge GCSEs have very limited impact on your application (I'm not going to say none to err on the side of caution, but it's really minor)

Also almost all applicants get an interview, so they wont affect that at all.

Oxford places much more importance on GCSEs than Cambridge, and interview far fewer people, but even then good performance on the Oxford aptitude tests can still secure an interview in spite of poor GCSEs.


Regarding your AS choices though, what do you want to apply for? For Physical Sciences courses (Physics, Chemistry and Engineering) it's highly advisable that you do Further Maths if at all possible. It's less important for Biological Sciences, and absolutely essential for Mathematics.

[Alex Bampton]

Thank you for the reply on my last question.

This one is for my friend who also plans on applying but for the Physics Nat sci.

During A-level choices he was fairly set on studying Chemistry and chose AS Chem, Physics, Maths, Geography (and like me, Critical thinking).

However he has now pretty set on a physical pathway in Nat Sci but we (To be honest mostly me lol) are worried that he did not take AS Further Maths and was wondering to the extent of how much it will affect his application. However on the plus side:

He is very intelligent, on track for 95% UMS including a 97% Maths UMS in his subjects. He is also taking AS further maths next year.

Is this enough to dismiss any worries about not taking AS FM in the first place?

[The Mr Z]

(Original post by Alex Bampton)
Thank you for the reply on my last question.

This one is for my friend who also plans on applying but for the Physics Nat sci.

During A-level choices he was fairly set on studying Chemistry and chose AS Chem, Physics, Maths, Geography (and like me, Critical thinking).

However he has now pretty set on a physical pathway in Nat Sci but we (To be honest mostly me lol) are worried that he did not take AS Further Maths and was wondering to the extent of how much it will affect his application. However on the plus side:

He is very intelligent, on track for 95% UMS including a 97% Maths UMS in his subjects. He is also taking AS further maths next year.

Is this enough to dismiss any worries about not taking AS FM in the first place?

On the SAQ he will have to tell them what modules he is taking next year anyway, so they will know he is doing AS FM. If he has strong UMS in maths then this wont be a substantial hindrance.

Cambridge do not require further maths because some schools do not offer it, either at all or not as a full A2. At schools where it is offered to not take it at all would be viewed with some concern, but if he is taking AS then it will be acceptable, especially if his AS maths can indicate clear mathematical ability.