WINTER POOL – OPERATION STAGE
• The Pool is open to College Senior Tutors, Subject Convenors, Admissions Tutors, Admissions Secretaries/Officers, Directors of Studies and other authorised persons. Everyone entering The Upper Hall will be required to sign in. Reading day is Tuesday 2 January 12.30pm to 5.45pm (for reading files only, no marking of files).
• Files must not be removed from the Pool.
• Photocopying facilities will be provided and the cost of photocopying will be charged to the individual Colleges requiring copies. Photocopying will be for pool lists, one off sheets etc. not for copies of applicants files/papers, these can be reviewed at the Pool or in CAO from 3.00pm Friday 5 January.
• Access to the web from the Pool. Emmanuel have kindly agreed to give us access to a PC in their Admissions and Tutorial Office. There will also be a wireless internet connection available in the Upper Hall.
A) Fishing Stage: Wednesday 3 January 2007 (9.00am until 8.00pm) and Thursday 4 January 2007 (9.00am until 5.00pm)
The notes below outline an agreed procedure to ensure order and fairness in the Pool. These procedures apply to all subjects, except Engineering, Natural Sciences and History, where it has been agreed that no files will be marked before the meetings of Directors of Studies in those subjects. (These meetings will take place on Thursday 4 January. Subject Convenors are asked to inform Helen Reed in CAO by no later than 18 December 2006 when they wish to hold their meetings.)
1 All Colleges are free to inspect the file of any applicant and to mark the file to indicate their interest. Colleges may indicate:
O Willingness to make an offer
O2 Willingness to make an offer, having second-interviewed an applicant before Christmas (see note 6)
I Active interest and desire to interview
A Active interest but no desire to interview
X No further interest (preference College only)
Unless it marks the pool cover sheet with an ‘A’, the preference College loses all precedence from the time when the Pool opens. A mark of ‘O’ will take precedence over a mark of ‘I’, unless the College marking ‘I’ is the preference College but has not yet interviewed the applicant.
2 Any person marking more than three files in a single Tripos subject with ‘O’ must do so by 1.00pm on Thursday 4 January 2007 in order to give other Colleges an opportunity to respond.
3 Preference Colleges lose all claim on a file marked ‘A’ unless they change the mark to either ‘O’ or ‘I’ by 5.00pm on Wednesday 3 January 2007. It is hoped that preference Colleges will keep a claim on a file only in exceptional circumstances – for example, when they have not yet been able to interview an applicant. Note that for Engineering it has been agreed that expressions of active interest from the preference College (a.k.a. “tags” or “strings”) should lapse after the pre-Christmas moderation meeting.
4 A preference College is free to make an offer until 5.00pm on Wednesday 3 January 2007 provided that the file has been marked ‘A’ or ‘I’.
If a preference College wishes to remove a file in order to make an offer, the CAO Pool staff must be informed so that the pool list can be amended for the subject/College. The applicant will be marked as ‘taken back’, and the member of staff from the College will sign that they have removed the file from the Pool in order to make an offer.
5 Colleges may establish a claim to an applicant by marking the file appropriately. They may not, however, communicate an offer to an applicant until after the files have been checked on 5 January 2007.
6 A College which has “second-interviewed” an applicant before Christmas in the authorised scheme for second or joint interviews in certain subjects has precedence over other Colleges (other than the preference College) at the pool stage, provided that, in indicating that it wishes to make an offer, it marks the file concerned O2 to indicate that it has “second-interviewed”. It would be very helpful if this could be done as early in the Pool as possible.
7 Colleges should bear in mind the number of available places that they have in a subject when deciding how many applicants to interview from the Pool.
8 In the case of Choral Award applicants the following precedence rules have been agreed:
i) If more than one College wishes to make an offer to a pooled choral applicant then Colleges who are prepared to offer both an academic place and a Choral Award should have priority over a College wishing to make only an academic offer.
ii) If more than one College wishes to offer both an academic place and a Choral Award then the applicant’s choral preference list should determine which College makes the offer.
iii) An applicant’s original first choice College would have priority where only an academic place without a Choral Award was on offer.
B) Negotiation Stage: Thursday 4 January 2007 starting at 5.00pm
With the increased use of Directors of Studies meetings to help with the fair allocation of pooled applicants, there should be less need this year for inter-College negotiations at the end of the Pool. There may, however, be some outstanding disputes to resolve to ensure that no applicant is called for interview by more than two Colleges. One representative from each fishing College involved in any outstanding disputes should attend the meeting starting at 5.00pm on 4 January. It will be assumed that unrepresented Colleges are prepared to waive their right to proceed to interviews/offers in cases of dispute.
• If a file is marked ‘O’ by one College, and unmarked by other Colleges, the marking College must proceed directly to make an offer, without interview.
• If a file carries several marks of ‘O’ by Colleges (but no marks of ‘I’), the Colleges have the option of agreeing to settle which of them makes an offer there and then, but this can be done only if all Colleges agree. If one or more Colleges do not agree, CAO is asked to arbitrate, probably by the toss of a coin or the drawing of lots. Colleges that have second-interviewed before Christmas (see 6 above) have priority at the negotiation stage provided they have followed the instructions given at 6 above.
• If a file carries one or more marks of ‘O’, plus one or more marks of ‘I’, it is first determined whether the Colleges marking ‘I’ wish to change their marks to an ‘O’. All the Colleges finally marking ‘O’ proceed as above.
• If a file carries no marks of ‘O’ but more than one mark of ‘I’, it is first determined whether Colleges wish to change their marks to an ‘O’. All the Colleges marking ‘O’ proceed as above. If no College changes its mark to an ‘O’ and there are more than two marks of ‘I’, the Colleges have the option of agreeing to settle which two of them interview the applicant. If one or more Colleges do not agree, CAO is asked to arbitrate, probably by the toss of a coin or the drawing of lots.
Please remember that it is in the best interests of the applicant for agreement to be reached, so that applicants from long distances are not called back unnecessarily for second interviews. Provided agreement can be reached, therefore, Colleges are encouraged to make offers to such applicants without requiring a further interview.
• A College which marks a file ‘O’ must offer to the applicant once its right to do so has been established. Colleges cannot change their minds and decide not to offer to the applicant, as they may have been the means of preventing another College from making an offer.
Post Negotiation Meeting
The Pool will be open for about an hour at the conclusion of negotiation meeting. Colleges may use this period to decide on further applicants that they wish to call for interview or to whom they wish to make an offer. At this stage, only files that are not marked by any other College can be considered.
Checking Stage
During Friday morning on 5 January 2007, all files in the Pool will be checked by CAO, in the light of the negotiation stage. An interview list will be prepared for each subject, giving the names of applicants and the Colleges that wish to interview them. An interview list will be circulated by e-mail to Colleges at about 3.00pm on Friday 5 January 2007. It will not be possible to inspect any file during the checking stage.