Postgraduate at Cambridge

Hi,

I'm about to start my fourth year of the MMath programme in Manchester, and hoping to do a PhD once I've finished. Over the next couple of months I'll be looking into possible postgraduate opportunities. Originally I had wanted to stay in Manchester, but now I feel I'd like to move somewhere else. The prospect of doing it in Cambridge is exciting for me, but I think it's unlikely I would get in. However, I have no knowledge or experience in this matter either, so I thought it might be helpful to ask in this forum, where people who are applying, or have applied in the past, for postgraduate courses can share with me what they know and what may be useful to me.
Is it worth applying to Cambridge (i.e. is there some chance I'd be considered) if I've completed a four-year course in Manchester? Should I rather be looking into doing the Part III and then considering postgrad? On their website it does say that they accept non-Cambridge graduates, obviously, but I had assumed that meant from the "higher" (not that I want to label anything) universities such as Oxford, Imperial, Warwick etc.

Just looking for some thoughts,

Thanks.

p.s. to mods, the threads on this forum seem to be talking about undergrads degrees, but i dont think i saw anything in the description about it being only undergrad. if there's a postgrad forum, can you move it there please, thanks.

Reply 1

SimonM

I think you'd struggle to get an offer without doing Part III

Reply 2

DFranklin

Original post by hopinmad

p.s. to mods, the threads on this forum seem to be talking about undergrads degrees, but i dont think i saw anything in the description about it being only undergrad. if there's a postgrad forum, can you move it there please, thanks.

There's a postgrad forum (http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=100), but not a postgraduate maths forum. I suspect you'd be better off staying here.

Reply 3

hopinmad

I'll post it in that forum as well, thanks.

Should I be thinking of applying for Part III then? This is not something I've looked into yet, but I did wonder if doing the four-year course in Manchester would be enough.

Reply 4

SimonM

Have a look at the courses in Part III and see whether you're up to that standard.

http://maths.cam.ac.uk/postgrad/mathiii/descriptions.pdf

Reply 5

hopinmad

It's very hard to say whether I'm up to that standard or not (or whether I will be after my fourth year); some of the stuff I've seen, some I've not. I think it's very hard to look at that and judge whether or not I'd be capable of tackling it over a year.

Can you tell me, if you know, if they sometimes get applicants from other colleges, from places such as Manchester? Or, if they do, do they then do the Part III first?

Reply 6

SimonM

Put it this way. I don't know any PhD students who didn't do Part III. I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know anyone

Reply 7

hopinmad

Ok, thanks for your help.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Reply 8

hopinmad

DFranklin, do you have anything to say? Or do you think everything that needs to be said has been said?

Reply 9

DFranklin

I also don't know anyone who got a PhD place without doing Part III. But then I didn't actually know that many people with PhD places. I don't see you've anything to lose by asking the university (or for that matter, asking around at your university).

Ok, thanks.

I know a few guys from Warwick who are doing PhDs at Cam. Without part 3

Reply 12

Totally Tom

Original post by IrrationalNumber

I know a few guys from Warwick who are doing PhDs at Cam. Without part 3

Who, apart from Kevin? (Who is going into the CAA or whatever it's called.)

Reply 13

henryt

I know a couple of Oxford Mathmos who went on to do PhDs at Cam without Part III, so it's possible... It obviously depends more on how the Maths faculty at Cambridge views your MMath compared to Part III...

Reply 14

DFranklin

Original post by henryt

Thus my suggestion to the OP to ask both Cambridge, and his own university. If anyone's going to know how hard it is to do MMath at Manchester and then get a Phd place at Cambridge, you'd think it will be the Manchester faculty.

(Also as a practical point of view, he's going to need to talk to the Manchester staff to get references, recommendations etc.).

Reply 15

Simplicity

Wait isn't everything largely based on what he would study?

As like if he wanted to do Model theory and could get a reference of Alex Wilkie he would be in a better position than just thinking herp derp apply to Cambridge to study x?.

P.S. I largely suspect that the trend towards giving out PhDs in Stats and applied probability is going to happen in unis. Particularly since the change in funding of postdoc are scraping everything non stats.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 16

shamika

Original post by SimonM

Put it this way. I don't know any PhD students who didn't do Part III. I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know anyone

Cambridge frequently gives statisticians PhD offers without doing Part III (and a friend of mine has just completed hers there)

I suspect you're right about Pure and Applied though. (I know however that it is theoretically possible, since Korner was prepared to at least meet me to discuss doing a PhD in Analysis, but I decided not to do a PhD so...)

Original post by DFranklin

This is critical. It also helps if you your supervisor or someone close to you knows the Cambridge system. My supervisor at Imperial used to work at Cambridge and is friends with Korner, hence how the possibility of going to Cambridge arose. (He was also the tutor of my friend who went to Cambridge to do a stats PhD but she's a genius and needs no help!)