[The Mr Z]

(Original post by Colmans)
I think you are confusing formal Ranking with how offers are made. For maths, UMS average ranking over 3 or 4 subjects is not so important.
You need to distinguish your opinion from fact as well. In the same way that your opinion was that they never rank on four subjects (but is shown to be wrong by the admissions handbook,) I don't think you can find a quote to prove maths ranking is done differently.
We both agree that maths UMS, interview ability and STEP are what achieves a place. I quite agree that an average brought down by FM is going to matter hugely more than one brought down by Chemistry.

No you misunderstand me - what I'm saying is that as far as any of us know, the "considering maths as one subject" thing (which isn't really the case, it's a considering both maths and two sciences deal anyway) has only ever been confirmed for Natural Sciences

the average of the best three subjects; the average of the best four subjects; for applicants for science courses, the average across any science subjects taken (where for this purpose the science subjects are Biology, Chemistry, Maths [including Further Maths] and Physics).

We really need to get this straight - you can either have "they consider both maths scores together" or "they consider 4 subjects", the two are mutually exclusive. The latter is more accurate, and is supported by the handbook, although you continuously use the former.

Also, it has only been confirmed that these rankings are drawn up, not which ones are used in decision making for each subject, beyond that the last is used for Natural Sciences - it is not stated whether maths is considered a "science subject" for this purpose. It should be noted that the maths department application guide makes no references to any use of fourth subjects.


In the complete absence of evidence as to what is used by admissions tutors, it is absolutely essential both that we do not claim facts about what measures are used (used, not generated) and that we tailor our advice for applicants to the situation of their own application with regards to which of the measures are more likely to be important to the decision making process.

We cannot know for certain, but that is not our role here - it is to give honest appraisal and advice. Cut and paste false claims are not suitable for applicants whose entrance routes vary wildly and whose circumstances differ. And for whom Cambridge may and does use different AS UMS measures even within the same subject.

That's not opinion, that's procedure.

[alli11]

hey which is the best college out of the following to do modern and medieval laguages? clare college, fitzwilliam college, kings college, st catherine's college, selwyn college, or trinity college?

[alli11]

hey which is the best college out of the following to do modern and medieval laguages? clare college, fitzwilliam college, kings college, st catherine's college, selwyn college, or trinity college?

[anna-chipie 95]

(Original post by alli11)
hey which is the best college out of the following to do modern and medieval laguages? clare college, fitzwilliam college, kings college, st catherine's college, selwyn college, or trinity college?

ah hello, you again
just looked up fitzwilliam website, they are pretty strong, quite a few get first class degrees, but that doesnt mean the others are rubbish. St Catharines has a good MML library and is close to the languages site, as is Selwyn.

[alli11]

hey which is the best college out of the following to do modern and medieval laguages? clare college, fitzwilliam college, kings college, st catherine's college, selwyn college, or trinity college?

...

[alli11]

ohh hey thank you so much u r soo kind

[alli11]

btw what is the languages site?

[anna-chipie 95]

(Original post by alli11)
btw what is the languages site?

Each subject is part of a Faculty. Each faculty is based at a site around Cambridge. The site where the MML faculty is, is called the Sidgwick Site. Not sure where it is though.

[willt]

....

[member591354]

I only achieved 10 A*s at GCSE and 2 A*s and an A at A Level...

[suicidaloverbusiness]

(Original post by anna-chipie 95)
Each subject is part of a Faculty. Each faculty is based at a site around Cambridge. The site where the MML faculty is, is called the Sidgwick Site. Not sure where it is though.

I was at the Sidgwick site for my Economics lectures! It's where most of the Arts subject lectures reside.

[Melz0r]

(Original post by alli11)

hey which is the best college out of the following to do modern and medieval laguages? clare college, fitzwilliam college, kings college, st catherine's college, selwyn college, or trinity college?

Can I recommend Emmanuel on the basis that it gives very good grants for foreign travel in the holidays?

[PorQpine]

Hi,

I'm a prospective student from Germany.
Last year before finishing my Abitur and in the middle of the school term I had applied to Oxford to read Engineering with a predicted overall grade of 1,4. I underperformed in the PAT and more or less humiliated myself in the interviews.
This was partially down to the fact that for us all the work in the two years leading up to our final exams counts towards the overall grade and in the time leading up to the interview I was focused on learning for tests in Linear Algebra in Maths and Introduction to Quantum Physics in Physics, as well as for any other test in the 10 different subjects we have to keep until we leave school.
So my skills (if you can say so) in the relevant areas were quite rusty to say the least. This was however a wake-up call for me to actually start working since the final exams do actually require everything we learnt over the past years. So after getting down and sitting on my bum I ended up with an overall grade of 1,3 in the Abitur with 14 points in the final Maths exam (due to a really stupid error confusing deg and rad on my calculator) and 15 points overall for both Maths and Physics in the last semester, which both was better than what I had achieved in the years before.

Looking back at the PAT I can relatively confidently say that I would expect myself to score at least 60 points (but not that much more) compared to about 48 in the actual test last year with the amount of work I've put into learning in the past months.

After my expected rejection from Oxford and an unexpected but not too devastating rejection from Edinburgh with the same predicted grades I concentrated on finding a university in the German speaking area.
I have so far received an offer from RWTH Aachen but found out too late that they require 6 weeks of work in the industry to matriculate, so I have now turned down their offer.
In two weeks I will sit the entrance exam to ETH Zurich, but the pass rate of ~30% and the living costs of Switzerland make me feel quite uneasy about the entire story.
Furthermore I am holding offer from TU Munich for "Technology and Management-oriented Business Studies" (or something along those lines) but am unsure about the quality and qualification the course provides. In addition I am still waiting for replies from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and TU darmstadt (where I live and want to move away from) for Engineering Management and from LMU Munich and Uni Mannheim for Economics & Management as a course I also find interesting and could imagine studying but have so far only considered as second choice.

Actual Problem (sorry for so much text)
After an initially unnoticed insect bite doctor told me this week that he suspects I might have contracted borreliosis.
Ideally this is something that I would not want to take into my first weeks of studying and since I am growing more and more insecure about what I might end up doing, where I might end up doing it and above all where and what I actually want to end up doing, I am currently considering taking a "gap year".
In this I would firstly like to gain some work experience in Engineering, as well as in E&M in order to come to a career decision, but also if possible reapply to Oxbridge, primarily so that I can say to myself that I gave it my best shot rather than what I did last time, but also because.. well.. it's Oxbridge... you know what I mean. Who wouldn't want to study there?

Final question:
"Are my grades good enough?"

[Nathanielle]

(Original post by PorQpine)
Hi,

I'm a prospective student from Germany.
Last year before finishing my Abitur and in the middle of the school term I had applied to Oxford to read Engineering with a predicted overall grade of 1,4. I underperformed in the PAT and more or less humiliated myself in the interviews.
This was partially down to the fact that for us all the work in the two years leading up to our final exams counts towards the overall grade and in the time leading up to the interview I was focused on learning for tests in Linear Algebra in Maths and Introduction to Quantum Physics in Physics, as well as for any other test in the 10 different subjects we have to keep until we leave school.
So my skills (if you can say so) in the relevant areas were quite rusty to say the least. This was however a wake-up call for me to actually start working since the final exams do actually require everything we learnt over the past years. So after getting down and sitting on my bum I ended up with an overall grade of 1,3 in the Abitur with 14 points in the final Maths exam (due to a really stupid error confusing deg and rad on my calculator) and 15 points overall for both Maths and Physics in the last semester, which both was better than what I had achieved in the years before.

Looking back at the PAT I can relatively confidently say that I would expect myself to score at least 60 points (but not that much more) compared to about 48 in the actual test last year with the amount of work I've put into learning in the past months.

After my expected rejection from Oxford and an unexpected but not too devastating rejection from Edinburgh with the same predicted grades I concentrated on finding a university in the German speaking area.
I have so far received an offer from RWTH Aachen but found out too late that they require 6 weeks of work in the industry to matriculate, so I have now turned down their offer.
In two weeks I will sit the entrance exam to ETH Zurich, but the pass rate of ~30% and the living costs of Switzerland make me feel quite uneasy about the entire story.
Furthermore I am holding offer from TU Munich for "Technology and Management-oriented Business Studies" (or something along those lines) but am unsure about the quality and qualification the course provides. In addition I am still waiting for replies from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and TU darmstadt (where I live and want to move away from) for Engineering Management and from LMU Munich and Uni Mannheim for Economics & Management as a course I also find interesting and could imagine studying but have so far only considered as second choice.

Actual Problem (sorry for so much text)
After an initially unnoticed insect bite doctor told me this week that he suspects I might have contracted borreliosis.
Ideally this is something that I would not want to take into my first weeks of studying and since I am growing more and more insecure about what I might end up doing, where I might end up doing it and above all where and what I actually want to end up doing, I am currently considering taking a "gap year".
In this I would firstly like to gain some work experience in Engineering, as well as in E&M in order to come to a career decision, but also if possible reapply to Oxbridge, primarily so that I can say to myself that I gave it my best shot rather than what I did last time, but also because.. well.. it's Oxbridge... you know what I mean. Who wouldn't want to study there?

Final question:
"Are my grades good enough?"

I am wondering a little that you neither searched a "Vorpraktikum" nor that you know much about the German Universities. (You can ask me, when you need further information by PN, I could help you perhaps.)

Concerning the Borrelosis: When you catched it, but it was early enough, chances are very high, that when university in Germany wold start, it wouldn't hinder you at all. (BTW you wouldn't have been the first person without Vorpraktikum and you would have had time to search.)

[Pandin]

(Original post by PorQpine)
Hi,

I'm a prospective student from Germany.
Last year before finishing my Abitur and in the middle of the school term I had applied to Oxford to read Engineering with a predicted overall grade of 1,4. I underperformed in the PAT and more or less humiliated myself in the interviews.
This was partially down to the fact that for us all the work in the two years leading up to our final exams counts towards the overall grade and in the time leading up to the interview I was focused on learning for tests in Linear Algebra in Maths and Introduction to Quantum Physics in Physics, as well as for any other test in the 10 different subjects we have to keep until we leave school.
So my skills (if you can say so) in the relevant areas were quite rusty to say the least. This was however a wake-up call for me to actually start working since the final exams do actually require everything we learnt over the past years. So after getting down and sitting on my bum I ended up with an overall grade of 1,3 in the Abitur with 14 points in the final Maths exam (due to a really stupid error confusing deg and rad on my calculator) and 15 points overall for both Maths and Physics in the last semester, which both was better than what I had achieved in the years before.

Looking back at the PAT I can relatively confidently say that I would expect myself to score at least 60 points (but not that much more) compared to about 48 in the actual test last year with the amount of work I've put into learning in the past months.

After my expected rejection from Oxford and an unexpected but not too devastating rejection from Edinburgh with the same predicted grades I concentrated on finding a university in the German speaking area.
I have so far received an offer from RWTH Aachen but found out too late that they require 6 weeks of work in the industry to matriculate, so I have now turned down their offer.
In two weeks I will sit the entrance exam to ETH Zurich, but the pass rate of ~30% and the living costs of Switzerland make me feel quite uneasy about the entire story.
Furthermore I am holding offer from TU Munich for "Technology and Management-oriented Business Studies" (or something along those lines) but am unsure about the quality and qualification the course provides. In addition I am still waiting for replies from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and TU darmstadt (where I live and want to move away from) for Engineering Management and from LMU Munich and Uni Mannheim for Economics & Management as a course I also find interesting and could imagine studying but have so far only considered as second choice.

Actual Problem (sorry for so much text)
After an initially unnoticed insect bite doctor told me this week that he suspects I might have contracted borreliosis.
Ideally this is something that I would not want to take into my first weeks of studying and since I am growing more and more insecure about what I might end up doing, where I might end up doing it and above all where and what I actually want to end up doing, I am currently considering taking a "gap year".
In this I would firstly like to gain some work experience in Engineering, as well as in E&M in order to come to a career decision, but also if possible reapply to Oxbridge, primarily so that I can say to myself that I gave it my best shot rather than what I did last time, but also because.. well.. it's Oxbridge... you know what I mean. Who wouldn't want to study there?

Final question:
"Are my grades good enough?"

Hi there, I'm applying with my year 12 Abitur results plus still unknown predicted grades from Germany as well, albeit for Economics, and I think you should give it a shot!

[panh7098]

Hey, I'm a year 12 student going into year 13. I want to study geography at Cambridge but haven't got my AS results yet.

But just regarding my subject choices...
I've got 11 A*s for GCSE, and I chose history, geography, maths and economics for AS. I think history will be on the boundary of A/B but others will be a comfortable A.

I'm dropping history next year, doing just geography, maths and economics for A2. I do have a hope of getting A* in all of them.

I consider extra reading to be my strength, as well as work experience because I have done one in China and another at Transport for London.

Do I sound like a prospective Cambridge candidate? Or shall I persuade the school to pick up history again?

[Melz0r]

(Original post by panh7098)
Hey, I'm a year 12 student going into year 13. I want to study geography at Cambridge but haven't got my AS results yet.

But just regarding my subject choices...
I've got 11 A*s for GCSE, and I chose history, geography, maths and economics for AS. I think history will be on the boundary of A/B but others will be a comfortable A.

I'm dropping history next year, doing just geography, maths and economics for A2. I do have a hope of getting A* in all of them.

I consider extra reading to be my strength, as well as work experience because I have done one in China and another at Transport for London.

Do I sound like a prospective Cambridge candidate? Or shall I persuade the school to pick up history again?

Your GCSEs and A-level predictions sound fine (indeed, very good) - all you can do is apply!

[Andrew217]

I've heard tell of people whose grades are good enough that the interview doesn't actually matter for them - unless they totally flunk it they'll get an offer. Does anybody know anything about this? Or is it the case that the interview is always crucial, no matter how well you've done before?

[Melz0r]

(Original post by Andrew217)
I've heard tell of people whose grades are good enough that the interview doesn't actually matter for them - unless they totally flunk it they'll get an offer. Does anybody know anything about this? Or is it the case that the interview is always crucial, no matter how well you've done before?

Grades, personal statement, SAQ (questionnaire you submit to Cambridge), reference and interview all count together to contribute to an application and an admissions decision. Naturally enough, a candidate with standout grades will be well-positioned for getting an offer, but there's no such thing as a 'free pass' -they reject candidates who don't live up to what their grades promise at interview, and equally admit candidates with below-average grades who give excellent interviews. The application is considered as a whole and it's probably best to consider all aspects of it as crucial

[Chief Wiggum]

(Original post by Andrew217)
I've heard tell of people whose grades are good enough that the interview doesn't actually matter for them - unless they totally flunk it they'll get an offer. Does anybody know anything about this? Or is it the case that the interview is always crucial, no matter how well you've done before?

They'll consider everything, so I'd imagine good UMS/admissions test scores can compensate for a poorer interview, and vice versa.