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Giving feedback to Cambridge

Hello everyone and congratulations to all who have received offers and comiserations to those who have not and best of luck (and apologies) to those who are stil waiting.

Every year we have an internal review of the Admission round at Cambridge and, having interacted with students through this forum for a while, I thought it might be a good idea to try to elicit some feedback on our processes from students who have gone through them.

I am not in a position to provide feedback on your application or say why you didn't get in but rather this is an opportunity for you to say if there are things about the process that might be improved and which I can then feedback. I will also try to explain some things which might seem odd about the process.

The thread will be open for a week and I will then report back to my colleagues with good points. Thank you for your points and also for the applications.

Reply 1

Zero to Hero

Thank you for the opportunity to give you some feedback.

Whilst delighted to have an offer I was upset that the offer was so much higher than had been indicated in the Handbook and what others on the same course, even the same college had received.

First, the Handbook implies that A*A*A is a typical offer for Sciences and A*AA is a typical offer for Arts whereas it has become clear from TSR that these are more honestly described as MINIMUMS not typical. For the sake of transparency this should be made clear.

Second, Cambridge go to great lengths to explain what they look for in assessing applications for an offer but hardly mention the possibility of giving different offers for the same course within the same collage let alone explain the basis of them. Cambridge say that the pooling system is designed to ensure that people of similar ability get offers irrespective of the college they apply to, yet how can that be squared with then introducing a different academic attainment level to achieve that offer both within and between colleges?

I have been left wondering why some are given higher offers than others. Is it because of going to Private school?, is it being an International?, is it because the Interviewer didn’t like the applicant but they looked good on paper? Is it because one interviewer liked them and one didn’t? I wonder if I have been discriminated against because there is nowhere where I can find why this takes place.

Third, I have noticed that many offers specify particular grades in particular subjects while others don’t. This of course makes missing an offer more likely and is therefore a more difficult offer without the headline offer appearing very different. There also seems to be a trend to specify an A* in Further Maths and not for Maths which is a little underhand since to achieve an A* in FM it is almost inconceivable not to get it in core Maths. This seems a way of making a offer contain more A*s than is stated.

I would be very grateful if on one of the Cambridge TSR forums you could explain why some people have to achieve higher academic standards than others to take up their places on the same course and same college as others. I have thought about firing off FOI requests asking for a list of the offers given in particular subjects in particular colleges and encouraging others to do the same and to ask the colleges to identify which offers went to Internationals and Independent schools to see if there is a bias, but it would be far better if you could explain to people why some people are given lower offers than others.

I can’t think of a more important aspect of the entry process to be completely transparent about if you wish to be seen a fair and unbiased than why some people get lower offers than others to do the same course.

(edited 9 years ago)

OP

Original post by Zero to Hero

x

Hello and thanks for your question. Also, many congratulations on your offer.

You raise a number of important points and I'll do my best to explain why some offers are different from others in general. I cannot, of course, go into the specifics of your case because I do not know them and, ultimately, it is a matter for your college.

First, we have long discussed internally the wording that should be used when decsricibing our offers: should we use 'typical', 'standard', minimum', 'usual', 'normal'. We decided on 'typical' because it best describes the situation: A*AA and A*A*A for the Sciences is the 'typical' offer that most people receive. Nowhere, however, does it say that it is the only offer that we give out to A Level students. We reserve the right to raise the offer in individual circumstances if we see fit. It is worth re-emphasising here that the majority of Cambridge entrants achieve significantly above the typical offer level. At Christ's in the last five years, well over 80% of our successful applicants have achieved 3, 4 or more A*s, while in the Humanities c.80% have got 2 or more A*s, with usually around half having 3 A*s or more.

There are a number of reasons why a student might receive a higher offer than the tpyical offer: these include if a student had done well in the interviews but looks weaker on paper; if a student has struggled a bit in the interviews but looks strong on paper; if there is something in the reference, paperwork or interviews that makes us think that a student needs to be incentivised to achieve the usual standard that most Cambridge entrants reach. Each offer is thought about carefully and indvidually after a long period of assessment of each candidate and no one is given an A Level offer that is beyond what the majority of successful Cambridge applicants achieve. It is also worth pointing out that it is for colleges to decide whether to relax the conditions in August if you narrowly miss the offer. If you achieve A*AA in any combination (excepting General Studies) then your file will be placed automatically in the Summer Pool for other colleges to assess to fill places in subjects where they find themselves short.

Regarding the A* in Further Maths, this is a tricky issue because of the way in which different schools combine Maths and Further Maths modules during years 12 and 13 (and sometimes year 11). Many schools do AS Maths and FM in Year 12 and then AS Maths and FM in year 13. Others do all of Maths in Year 12 and all of FM in Year 13. Others still do all but C4 in year 12 and then C4 and all of FM in Year 13.

Most colleges expect the typical offer to be meet in a single sitting in Year 13. What I have done at Christ's with subjects where FM is important (Maths, Physical Nat Scis and Engineers mainly), therefore, is to specify the A* in Further Maths and Physics where students are taking FM (which the vast majority are). This makes it a tougher offer than the 'typical' offer but it means that everyone is getting the same regardless of how they have taken Maths and Further Maths. Otherwise, I would be expecting some applicants to get one A* in Year 13 and others to get two simply on the basis of how their school tries to play the system.

I hope this helps explain the general situation a little better and thank you again for your question. Am happy to clarify things further if I can.

Reply 3

Zero to Hero

Original post by Christ's Admissions

Hello and thanks for your question. Also, many congratulations on your offer.

You raise a number of important points and I'll do my best to explain why some offers are different from others in general. I cannot, of course, go into the specifics of your case because I do not know them and, ultimately, it is a matter for your college.

First, we have long discussed internally the wording that should be used when decsricibing our offers: should we use 'typical', 'standard', minimum', 'usual', 'normal'. We decided on 'typical' because it best describes the situation: A*AA and A*A*A for the Sciences is the 'typical' offer that most people receive. Nowhere, however, does it say that it is the only offer that we give out to A Level students. We reserve the right to raise the offer in individual circumstances if we see fit. It is worth re-emphasising here that the majority of Cambridge entrants achieve significantly above the typical offer level. At Christ's in the last five years, well over 80% of our successful applicants have achieved 3, 4 or more A*s, while in the Humanities c.80% have got 2 or more A*s, with usually around half having 3 A*s or more.

There are a number of reasons why a student might receive a higher offer than the tpyical offer: these include if a student had done well in the interviews but looks weaker on paper; if a student has struggled a bit in the interviews but looks strong on paper; if there is something in the reference, paperwork or interviews that makes us think that a student needs to be incentivised to achieve the usual standard that most Cambridge entrants reach. Each offer is thought about carefully and indvidually after a long period of assessment of each candidate and no one is given an A Level offer that is beyond what the majority of successful Cambridge applicants achieve. It is also worth pointing out that it is for colleges to decide whether to relax the conditions in August if you narrowly miss the offer. If you achieve A*AA in any combination (excepting General Studies) then your file will be placed automatically in the Summer Pool for other colleges to assess to fill places in subjects where they find themselves short.

Regarding the A* in Further Maths, this is a tricky issue because of the way in which different schools combine Maths and Further Maths modules during years 12 and 13 (and sometimes year 11). Many schools do AS Maths and FM in Year 12 and then AS Maths and FM in year 13. Others do all of Maths in Year 12 and all of FM in Year 13. Others still do all but C4 in year 12 and then C4 and all of FM in Year 13.

Most colleges expect the typical offer to be meet in a single sitting in Year 13. What I have done at Christ's with subjects where FM is important (Maths, Physical Nat Scis and Engineers mainly), therefore, is to specify the A* in Further Maths and Physics where students are taking FM (which the vast majority are). This makes it a tougher offer than the 'typical' offer but it means that everyone is getting the same regardless of how they have taken Maths and Further Maths. Otherwise, I would be expecting some applicants to get one A* in Year 13 and others to get two simply on the basis of how their school tries to play the system.

I hope this helps explain the general situation a little better and thank you again for your question. Am happy to clarify things further if I can.

Thank you for spending the time to answer, it is appreciated.

All I can say with regard to the Handbook is that to describe it as the Minimum would be more accurate, and transparent, because that is what it clearly is.

It seems odd to give someone who has performed well in Interview but is less strong on paper a higher offer, since they either can cross the same exam threshold as others or they can't. If their weakness is exams I don't see the logic of making the exam hurdle more difficult.

Similarly, if someone is strong on paper (i.e Exams) but performed poorly in interview, why raise the hurdle in the area you are not concerned with?

I can see the point with FM but where an offer specifies A* in FM but not in core Maths then it actually encourages more gaming of the system as weak modules taken are allocated to core maths where possible. The suspicion with making FM an A* but not core is that the college doesn't want to be seen making three plus A* offers when in reality they have.

But I still cannot see the academic logic of making different offers for the same course. Either they can satisfy the deemed hurdle or they can't.

Do colleges really turn away applicants with say A*A*A A while taking on someone with A*AA (Arts) because the first applicant didn't get the A*s in the specified subjects?
My understanding is that outside Maths very few are successfully summer pooled.

Thank you again and I hope you don't think me too impertinent.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

aersh8

14

I'd like to make a suggestion regarding a small annoyance this process caused (otherwise I think it was all very well done):

It is obvious that the university tries to have everyone receive their decisions on the same day (by posting first class etc). However, non-UK applicants for most colleges had to wait considerably longer and seeing other people already receive decisions was frankly nerve-wracking. So I'd like to recommend to email all non-UK applicants regardless of college on the day UK applicants are expected to receive the letter.

Thank you very much for taking this into consideration and for giving me an offer :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 5

Goods

16

Original post by Christ's Admissions

Hello everyone and congratulations to all who have received offers and comiserations to those who have not and best of luck (and apologies) to those who are stil waiting.

Every year we have an internal review of the Admission round at Cambridge and, having interacted with students through this forum for a while, I thought it might be a good idea to try to elicit some feedback on our processes from students who have gone through them.

I am not in a position to provide feedback on your application or say why you didn't get in but rather this is an opportunity for you to say if there are things about the process that might be improved and which I can then feedback. I will also try to explain some things which might seem odd about the process.

The thread will be open for a week and I will then report back to my colleagues with good points. Thank you for your points and also for the applications.

I know its probably out of question because of the logistics of it but has there been any move towards a scenario (dare I say more like oxford) where all applicants have multiple interviews at various colleges? as opposed to the pool. Although the system appears to have improved this year pooling and pool interviews are still unnecessarily stressful when an alternate system could serve its purpose and provide colleges with a better view of a candidates ability from more interviews.

Reply 6

Onlydabest

1

Hi there, I am an international student from sunny Singapore and would like to provide some feedback with regards to the decision posting process in particular to international students like myself.

Due to obvious geographical reasons, international students like myself receive our decision letters days or even weeks later than UK students. This, on top of the fact that some colleges do not send decisions via email have left many like myself in suspenseful wait whilst others have already found out days ago. Many of us have in fact emailed our colleges to request for a decision via email but have been faced with radio silence. For myself, I did even ring up my college but they have responded that emailing decisions are not their practice and that they would only entertain our requests when they find time to. I do fully understand that this can be a very busy period of time for them and also respect the fact that different colleges work on separate timelines and have their own individual policies when it comes to sending decisions. In my opinion, it would be perhaps be good that colleges try and standardize by sending decisions to all international applicants via email as well. I feel that this can not only spare international applicants from a painful wait, but also benefit colleges by sparing them the trouble of having to entertain unnecessary calls from international applicants and having to dig out a decision letter to be scanned from a whole pile when faced with an email request.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope that this would serve as constructive feedback to future application cycles. I also hope that I do not sound too pushy or aggressive in this post as it certainly isn't my intention.

On a side note, if possible could you perhaps be kind enough shed some light on my situation? My college (Magdalene) has updated the UCAS track statuses of offer holders as well as people who have been rejected yet the UCAS statuses of a few including myself remain unchanged. Could this mean that we have been pooled?

Cheers! :smile:

Reply 7

username1107011

1

Similarly to non-UK applicants having to wait for a decision, any prospective medics who were pooled, and then not fished, are currently having to wait until at least the 22nd of January for a final decision. Maybe it would make sense to complete both the winter pool and the open offer pool before the letters are sent out.

OP

Original post by Zero to Hero

Thank you for spending the time to answer, it is appreciated.

All can say with regard to the Handbook is that to describe it as the Minimum would be more accurate, and transparent, because that is what it clearly is.

It seems odd to give someone who has performed well in Interview but is less strong on paper a higher offer, since they either can cross the same exam threshold as others or they can't. If their weakness is exams I don't see the logic of making the exam hurdle more difficult.

Similarly, if someone is strong on paper (i.e Exams) but performed poorly in interview, why raise the hurdle in the area you are not concerned with?

I can see the point with FM but where an offer specifies A* in FM but not in core Maths then it actually encourages more gaming of the system as weak modules taken are allocated to core maths where possible. The suspicion with making FM an A* but not core is that the college doesn't want to be seen making three plus A* offers when in reality they have.

But I still cannot see the academic logic of making different offers for the same course. Either they can satisfy the deemed hurdle or they can't.

Do colleges really turn away applicants with say A*A*A A while taking on someone with A*AA (Arts) because the first applicant didn't get the A*s in the specified subjects?
My understanding is that outside Maths very few are successfully summer pooled.

Thank you again and I hope you don't think me too impertinent.

You are welcome, I am happy to try to explain things. The logic for raising the offer in both the scenarios you mention is quite simple: it is the last measure that we have of ensuring that a student is capable of studying at Cambridge and raising the offer gives us that added insurance in cases where we want that. There is a strong correlation between performance in A Levels and performance at Cambridge. Science students are Christ's are over five times more likely to get a First in their first-year exams if they have 4 or more A*s compared to those who get 2 A*s or fewer, while someone with 3 A*s is nearly three times as likely to get a first as someone with 2 or fewer A*s. In the Arts & Humanities, those with 3 A*s or more are nearly three times as likely to get a first in their first-year exams as those with 2 or fewer.

Why, you might ask, do we not simply raise the offer or use 'minimum' as you suggest? The answer is mainly presentational. People arrive at Cambridge on different trajectories: some have come from excellent scores where it is the norm for virtually everyone to get As and A*s in every exam and they have consistently met that level themselves; other comes from school where this is much rarer but have still performed outstanding well; while others stil may be on a strong upward trajectory where A*AA or A*A*A is within their reach in year 13 but a stiffer offer might well be beyond them at this stage. Once they get to Cambridge, however, they may well flourish. People such as these, whom I think everyone agrees Cambridge should be seeking to encourage to apply may well be put off applying if we raised the offer to the level that most entrants achieve (3A*s in Sciences and 2 in the Arts) or if we suggested that A*AA was a minimum that they might expect when it is the typical offer.

The Maths situation is not perfect and unfortunately there is no perfect solution to this while schools do different things. What I have done at Christ's is to try to be conistent to everyone and while that means making everyone a harder offer in the subjects which I have mentioned, it does at least mean everyone has it.

There is a broader point, however, which is that the Cambridge admissions system is not simply a 'one size fits all' process: each college sees hundreds of individual applications every year from lots of different contexts and the result of that very long and individual process is that some people will sometimes get different offers for the same course within the same college or across colleges. Students who get higher offers may not like it but there will be good academic reasons in each case. You can always ask your college for those reasons and I have had to explain some of the tougher offers I have made to a couple of schools already but in the end colleges have the right to set whatever offers they wish and it is up to you whether to accept it or not.

OP

Original post by aersh8

I'd like to make a suggestion regarding a small annoyance this process caused (otherwise I think it was all very well done):

It is obvious that the university tries to have everyone receive their decisions on the same day (by posting first class etc). However, non-UK applicants for most colleges had to wait considerably longer and seeing other people already receive decisions was frankly nerve-wracking. So I'd like to recommend to email all non-UK applicants regardless of college on the day UK applicants are expected to receive the letter.

Thank you very much for taking this into consideration and for giving me an offer :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

Thanks for this. yes, I think this is clearly a flaw that hopefully we can resolve. This is the first time the coleges have done the pool in this way and getting 29 colleges to anything the same is always a challenge. it was exacerbated this year by the posting day being on Friday (it couldn;t have been any earlier) and a lot of colleges decided not to ask their already hard-pressed admissions staff not to come in on Saturday to contact everyone. I felt a bit guilty about asking our admissions co-ordinator to do it at Christ's but she was very noble and gave up her Saturday afternoon to email everyone.

I will raise this and try to ensure that we have better co-ordination in the future, especially regarding non-UK applicants.

Reply 10

cam 2015

Original post by Christ's Admissions

Hello and thanks for your question. Also, many congratulations on your offer.

You raise a number of important points and I'll do my best to explain why some offers are different from others in general. I cannot, of course, go into the specifics of your case because I do not know them and, ultimately, it is a matter for your college.

First, we have long discussed internally the wording that should be used when decsricibing our offers: should we use 'typical', 'standard', minimum', 'usual', 'normal'. We decided on 'typical' because it best describes the situation: A*AA and A*A*A for the Sciences is the 'typical' offer that most people receive. Nowhere, however, does it say that it is the only offer that we give out to A Level students. We reserve the right to raise the offer in individual circumstances if we see fit. It is worth re-emphasising here that the majority of Cambridge entrants achieve significantly above the typical offer level. At Christ's in the last five years, well over 80% of our successful applicants have achieved 3, 4 or more A*s, while in the Humanities c.80% have got 2 or more A*s, with usually around half having 3 A*s or more.

There are a number of reasons why a student might receive a higher offer than the tpyical offer: these include if a student had done well in the interviews but looks weaker on paper; if a student has struggled a bit in the interviews but looks strong on paper; if there is something in the reference, paperwork or interviews that makes us think that a student needs to be incentivised to achieve the usual standard that most Cambridge entrants reach. Each offer is thought about carefully and indvidually after a long period of assessment of each candidate and no one is given an A Level offer that is beyond what the majority of successful Cambridge applicants achieve. It is also worth pointing out that it is for colleges to decide whether to relax the conditions in August if you narrowly miss the offer. If you achieve A*AA in any combination (excepting General Studies) then your file will be placed automatically in the Summer Pool for other colleges to assess to fill places in subjects where they find themselves short.

Regarding the A* in Further Maths, this is a tricky issue because of the way in which different schools combine Maths and Further Maths modules during years 12 and 13 (and sometimes year 11). Many schools do AS Maths and FM in Year 12 and then AS Maths and FM in year 13. Others do all of Maths in Year 12 and all of FM in Year 13. Others still do all but C4 in year 12 and then C4 and all of FM in Year 13.

Most colleges expect the typical offer to be meet in a single sitting in Year 13. What I have done at Christ's with subjects where FM is important (Maths, Physical Nat Scis and Engineers mainly), therefore, is to specify the A* in Further Maths and Physics where students are taking FM (which the vast majority are). This makes it a tougher offer than the 'typical' offer but it means that everyone is getting the same regardless of how they have taken Maths and Further Maths. Otherwise, I would be expecting some applicants to get one A* in Year 13 and others to get two simply on the basis of how their school tries to play the system.

I hope this helps explain the general situation a little better and thank you again for your question. Am happy to clarify things further if I can.

I have a similar question about offer conditions. I applied for Enginneering and my offer condition is A*A*A* in Physics, FM and Chemistry. I wonder why A* in Chemistry was specified.

OP

Original post by Goods

I know its probably out of question because of the logistics of it but has there been any move towards a scenario (dare I say more like oxford) where all applicants have multiple interviews at various colleges? as opposed to the pool. Although the system appears to have improved this year pooling and pool interviews are still unnecessarily stressful when an alternate system could serve its purpose and provide colleges with a better view of a candidates ability from more interviews.

I don't think this is going to happen. it is arguable which system of moderation of pooling is more stressful - a few hundred people being called back for interviews in January at Cambridge or many thousands hanging around Oxford for two, three or four days waiting to see whether they are going to be asked for multiple interviewsand then stressing about what it means if they are or are not called for more interviews. If we can iron out some of the kinks in the new system I think it will cause less stress to fewer people than either the old system or the Oxford system. Neither moderation system is perfect but both are necessary to mitigate the vagaries of college choice.

OP

Original post by Onlydabest

Hi there, I am an international student from sunny Singapore and would like to provide some feedback with regards to the decision posting process in particular to international students like myself.

Due to obvious geographical reasons, international students like myself receive our decision letters days or even weeks later than UK students. This, on top of the fact that some colleges do not send decisions via email have left many like myself in suspenseful wait whilst others have already found out days ago. Many of us have in fact emailed our colleges to request for a decision via email but have been faced with radio silence. For myself, I did even ring up my college but they have responded that emailing decisions are not their practice and that they would only entertain our requests when they find time to. I do fully understand that this can be a very busy period of time for them and also respect the fact that different colleges work on separate timelines and have their own individual policies when it comes to sending decisions. In my opinion, it would be perhaps be good that colleges try and standardize by sending decisions to all international applicants via email as well. I feel that this can not only spare international applicants from a painful wait, but also benefit colleges by sparing them the trouble of having to entertain unnecessary calls from international applicants and having to dig out a decision letter to be scanned from a whole pile when faced with an email request.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope that this would serve as constructive feedback to future application cycles. I also hope that I do not sound too pushy or aggressive in this post as it certainly isn't my intention.

On a side note, if possible could you perhaps be kind enough shed some light on my situation? My college (Magdalene) has updated the UCAS track statuses of offer holders as well as people who have been rejected yet the UCAS statuses of a few including myself remain unchanged. Could this mean that we have been pooled?

Cheers! :smile:

I agree that we need to communicate more effectively with international students, not least, as you say, to save our admissions co-ordinators from dealing with numerous email and telephone requests.

Regarding the updating of track, you would have to ask magdalene to confirm this, I don't know. My suspicion, however, is that it is simply a matter of administration - there are a lot of decisions to send to UCAS and it is not always possible to do them all in one go.

OP

Original post by TotalerReinfall

Similarly to non-UK applicants having to wait for a decision, any prospective medics who were pooled, and then not fished, are currently having to wait until at least the 22nd of January for a final decision. Maybe it would make sense to complete both the winter pool and the open offer pool before the letters are sent out.

I very much agree on this. It clearly needs to be co-ordinated and advertised better. The problem is that some of those who are unsuccessful after re-interview are also considered for Open offers which may mean that it is impossible for us to have the meeting before the official posting date.

OP

Original post by cam 2015

I have a similar question about offer conditions. I applied for Enginneering and my offer condition is A*A*A* in Physics, FM and Chemistry. I wonder why A* in Chemistry was specified.

I am afraid that you will have to ask your college that - I can't provide feedback on applications I haven't seen.

Reply 15

SaltedPeanuts

3

Original post by Christ's Admissions

Hello everyone and congratulations to all who have received offers and comiserations to those who have not and best of luck (and apologies) to those who are stil waiting.

Every year we have an internal review of the Admission round at Cambridge and, having interacted with students through this forum for a while, I thought it might be a good idea to try to elicit some feedback on our processes from students who have gone through them.

I am not in a position to provide feedback on your application or say why you didn't get in but rather this is an opportunity for you to say if there are things about the process that might be improved and which I can then feedback. I will also try to explain some things which might seem odd about the process.

The thread will be open for a week and I will then report back to my colleagues with good points. Thank you for your points and also for the applications.

Thank you for seeking feedback on the process - an excellent addition, just like your posts on tsr. I am the parent of a current third year Christ's student and a successful applicant this time round. There are a few observations I would like to make::

1. This year's process is a huge improvement with regards to the management of the pool. In previous years this appeared to drag on into weeks of uncertainty for the pooled candidates, often coinciding with mock exams.
2. The wording of the communications to pooled and fished candidates in the new system should be more explicit. It should be possible to say that another college WILL be making an offer. Some of the terminology used by some colleges was ambiguous. This should be standardised to avoid unnecessary confusion. Ideally the original college should also say in the first communication which other college will be making the offer or the 'fished' college should Email on the same day. If this delays the process for everyone by a day, then so be it.
3. All colleges should Email all candidates, whatever their country of origin, as a matter of course on the same day. This would remove the vagaries of the postal system and the discrepancy between colleges which use first and second class mail! For no candidate should UCAS be the first confirmation of an offer or a rejection, given the amount of additional emotional investment in the Cambridge process. If letters are retained as the means of communication then do not post them out on a Friday, as the extra day at the weekend with no postal deliveries causes unnecessary angst. A scan of the Cambridge Decision thread shows the scale of these issues.

This is my last experience of the Cambridge application process as a parent but hopefully my comments will benefit future candidates (and parents!).

Reply 16

Deadpan

1

Taking up a previous post, is it true that a college will reject an Arts applicant with A* A*A A while accepting someone on the same course with A*AA because specific subject requirements have not been met ?

Or is it more an incentive thing where the college will ultimately flex when it realises that person has exceeded more than many of the other successful applicants even if some of the A*s are in different subjects?

Can you also confirm that higher offers are not given because the candidate comes from a private school.

Reply 17

miraj3

3

Thank you for the opportunity to give you some feedback.

Although I did not apply to Christ's College, I believe this issue may be an issue with many colleges.

While disappointed that my application to read Economics at Downing College was unsuccessful, I wondered why my application was not entered into the Winter Pool - the University of Cambridge state that any applicant who is not offered a place by their original preferred college but have attained 93% or over in their best three AS Level subjects (for UK applicants) must be put into the Winter Pool.

My three best AS Levels averaged 95.4% which is why I was surprised to see no mention of the Winter Pool on my decision letter.

Could you please explain why Downing College (and maybe others) fail to automatically enter applicants into the Pool even though there is an agreed notion of auto-pooling?

Many thanks!

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 18

TVIO

12

I appreciate if you can't answer this, but worth asking I guess. I'm an offer holder for Computer Science with Maths. This needs 2 STEP grades. How likely realistically is it I'd be accepted for CompSci with NatSci or something similar if I were to miss my STEP grades. Is it common or is it basically 1% chance? Churchill said on their website they would consider students but I didn't see any summer pool acceptances on their admissions stats.