Prospective maths students: Don't go to Warwick Unis "Problem solving conference"

Although my bias against Warwick is well known, these type of conferences from most universities are a total waste.



These things happen ... It does not matter how high you perch you can still make silly mistakes or even blunder. I have no problem with that.

you hate warwick just for maths or overall, why?

you hate warwick just for maths or overall, why?

I agree with the second half of what you say (that you should apply to the college that you love) but I don't agree with the fact that you'll always get a place at Cambridge if you deserve it - even more so with mathematics.
For example, Gonville & Caius say (in the admissions booklet) that they take on 90% of those they give offers to. On the other hand, the university wide average is around 50%. I find it hard to believe, therefore, that all of the best candidates (or most 'deserving' candidates) are taken.
Moreover, some candidates (mainly internationals) are given SS or S1 offers (e.g from Trinity, and this year I know Downing have too, and presumably other colleges). Some of these who miss the offer, and say get S1 with an SS offer, don't get accepted, and frankly I think I'd deem it unfair if someone with say 3,2 (I know someone who got accepted to Kings with this) was accepted.
In general I think everyone just overthinks admission. Just apply, see what happens, hope for the best, and expect the worst.

it is just really damn overrated

You can't say that when you have very little understanding of the course or how it is taught. Attending one conference does not make you an expert on the university course. From my research, next to Oxbridge, the Warwick course is taught considerably better than most others (including Imperial)

How could you know that unless you've been to both unis?

Oh I agree I can't know for certain as there's no benchmark for comparison, but I was basing this on statistics and student responses when I asked them.
Those who I've spoken to at imperial very much felt like they were burdened with the majority of learning (they're both first year though so maybe this changes thereafter). Obviously you'd be a good judge of this as you've been there!
Of course I have no idea about the quality of lectures etc though


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I do not hate ... I dislike/disfavour
I prefer not to discuss it today, yet again, as I am very busy working at present.
Take it as
the place does not appeal to me personally.

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What's your view on its physics department?

no opinion ...
I know no one which went to Warwick to do Physics
(I know a lot of people which went to Warwick for maths and/or economics)

here are a few more problems from my collection of problems that you might be interested in
(didn't write these, these are basically quick and easy problems that still require a bit of thinking though)
1. Find positive integers a, b, c such that $a^3 + b^4 = c^5$
2. For what kind of a and b is $\displaystyle\int_{0}^1 (1-x^a)^\frac{1}{b} dx > \int_{0}^1 (1-x^b)^\frac{1}{a} dx$?

Thoughts:

Thanks.
I will try to look at them early next week

Are you not thinking of a 'second hand'?

I had a feeling I was being very unintelligent. Thanks!

4. A stick is broken into three pieces. Find the probability that these pieces can form a triangle.

Just went to Warwick Uni's "Student maths problem solving conference" and it was a complete waste of time.

All the questions were dumbed down beyond belief (we got questions like sketching x^2 + 1, finding how many times 100! divides 10 and so on), the event was overall very boring, I learned nothing at all the whole day and my maths skills did not improve at all. Almost everything that was taught was covered in year 9

It was a complete waste of time and I am extremely disappointed in Warwick Uni for making such a pathetic programme.

(Also lmao the maths admissions tutor evaluated $L^2 - L - 1 = 0$ incorrectly and stated that $\displaystyle\frac{-1+\sqrt5}{2}$ is the golden ratio )

FFS warwick, get your act together! This is an event for 6th form, not lower fifth!