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Are you good enough for Cambridge? - Why Cambridge selection process is fairer than (most) others
“So Who is Good Enough to Get into Cambridge?”
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Subject Matters - Choosing Right Subjects to Apply for Your Course
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If those are still not enough to convince you - template for asking questions about grades:
[noparse]
Question:
Course applying for:
UMS Average (Most relevant 3/Best 3):
AS Results:
Subject A X-
Subject B X-
Subject C X-
Subject D X -
GCSE:
Extenuating Circumstances/Context:
Others:
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Do you have a question about UMS averages?@Colmans has made a guide to understanding UMS averages. Read thoroughly.
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Supporting Applicants presentation - graphs showing number of offers for number of A* at GCSE and UMS average
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Course specific quintile* boundaries 2015 entry for the whole university
Medicine (SUMS -752 candidates out of 1288 total): A/B boundary: 96.7%. B/C boundary: 94.7%, C/D boundary:92.3% D/E boundary: 88.2%.
Natural Sciences both Phys and Bio and Chem Eng via Nat Sci (SUMS - 1876 out of 3018 total): A/B boundary: 95.5%. B/C boundary: 92.8%. C/D boundary: 89.9%. D/E boundary: 86.1%.
Engineering including Chem Eng via Engineering (SUMS - 1168 out of 2063 total): A/B boundary: 94.7%. B/C boundary: 91.9%. C/D boundary: 89.2%. D/E boundary: 85.7%.
Comp Sci, all routes (SUMS - 301 out of 625 total): A/B boundary: 93.0%. B/C boundary: 90.1%. C/D boundary: 86.7%. D/E boundary: 83.2%.
Economics (Best 3. 592 candidates out of 1192 total): A/B boundary: 95.0%. B/C boundary: 92.8%. C/D boundary: 90.3%. D/E boundary: 86.9%.
Law: (Best 3. 440 out of 994 total): A/B boundary: 93.3%. B/C boundary: 90.3%, C/D boundary: 87.3%. D/E boundary:83.3%.
HSPS: (Best 3. 457 out of 969 total): A/B boundary: 93.4%. B/C boundary: 90.6%. C/D boundary: 88.0%. D/E boundary: 85%.
History: (Best 3. 458 of 616 total): A/B boundary: 94.8%. B/C boundary: 92.2%. C/D boundary: 89.5%. D/E boundary: 86.5%.
English (Best 3. 553 out of 703 total): A/B boundary: 93.9%. B/C boundary: 91.0%. C/D boundary: 88.3%. D/E boundary:85.2% .
MML (best 3. 309 out of 387 total) : A/B boundary:95.1% . B/C boundary: 92.2%. C/D boundary: 89.6%. D/E boundary: 86.6%.And for stats obsessed, sad Physical NatSci applicants... [quote Admissions;59653659="Admissions;59653659" Christ's="Christ's"]Last year there were 1639 Physical Nat Scis (including those applying for Chem Eng via Nat Sci). Of those 1053 had a SUMS average.
At or above 95.0% SUMS there were: 291 candidates.
96.0%+ SUMS: 199 candidates
97.0%+ SUMS: 128 candidates
98.0%+ SUMS: 52 candidates
99.0%+ SUMS: 12 candidates
Put another way: 95-96%: 92 candidates.96-97%: 71 candidates. 97-98%: 76 candidates. 98-99%: 40 candidates. 99%+: 12 candidates. *What are quintiles?
Quintile: this divides UMS averages into five equally sized groups, with A designating the top 20% of ranked applicants and E the bottom 20%. Unranked applicants will be placed in a Z group. Please note that applicants at the bottom of one quintile will have very similar scores to those at the top of the next quintile down.
Z quintile also includes those doing non A level qualification (IB, Highers etc) as well as candidates who do not offer SUMS (science average requiring 3 sciences) for science subject. Z quintile is therefore the largest and many offers come from here. You do not have to be in a specific quintile to obtain an offer, or being in a certain quintile does not guarantee an offer. This is just used as a way to measure the strength of applicants field at each college, and is used to ensure a fair admission. (See below about the Pool for how this is done.)
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Is UMS average everything? NO. Check out the links @Colmans has posted in the above thread as well as this and
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Application Statistics - just to give you some general pictures, if you really want to know….
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An excerpt from Queens’ Colleges’ Alumni Magazine “The Bridge” (Spring 2015)
(by Dr. A. Thompson, Admissions Tutor, Queens College)
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Dr. A. Spencer, Admission Tutor at Christ's College
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Are you still not convinced? - Excellent insight by the Christ's AT into how the pool really works, and why stats game will not work.
So, the Pool is all about moderation and trying to ensure that college choice plays as small a part as possible in deciding who gets offers. To that end moderation starts well before the Pool stage with the subject moderation spreadsheets that are sent out in early November.
Every subject has one and it includes all sorts of data on it on every candidate to every college. This includes data such as contextual flags (for low performing school, Low participation neighborhood, poor socio-economic areas, poor performing GCSE school, and whether the student has been in care. It produces data on GCSes and the performance of the candidate's school, their predictions and, of course, their AS scores in each subject and the dreaded averages.
The averages are used to place students into one of six quintile, A-E and Z. A has the top 20%, B the next 20% and so on. The Z quintile is for those who do not have a best three or, in the case of sciences, a SUMS average.
Therefore, before we have interviewed anybody, I know exactly how strong my applicant field is in every subject compared to every other college. I also have a spreadsheet with all my applicants in, so I can compare between subjects across Christ's and see if, say, my Physical Nat Scis are much stronger than my Engineers.
Once the interviews are over, subjects all have moderation meetings, these are sometimes done in person and sometimes online where colleges can provide information on candidates being placed in the Pool.
Before Christmas, colleges prepare the files of candidates who are going to be pooled, ensuring that all the interview reports are in there and also that the coversheet, filled in by the Admissions Tutor, is on it. These files are delivered to Newnham College (actually this year they will be in Homerton which will be strange for everyone involved) and prepared by CAO staff members. They are placed in subject boxes and organised alphabetically.
Before the Pool opens I will know roughly how many candidates I am looking for in the subjects where I need to look and may have an idea about people whose files I want to see when I get there.
The Pool is open for three days in early January, the last of which is when the Poolside meetings happen and offers are decided. Scores of people are there looking at files. You are not allowed to take individual files out of the box but rather have to take a whole letter at a time (i.e., all the Ws or all the Ls).
As I say, some people will know who they want to look for, others will simply read all the files and see what happens, it depends on time and strategy. Admissions Tutors, Senior Tutors and Directors of Studies will discuss candidates and draw up lists of those whom they would be happy to make offers to and those whom they would be happy to interview before giving an offer to.
On the third day the Poolside meeting happen for each subject. In all the larger subjects picking order is determined on the basis of need (i.e. a college with 4 out of 8 places still to fill picks ahead of a college with 3 out of 7 places to fill). The colleges are all given an order for the first round of picking and so each has one pick one after another until we reach the bottom and then one starts again at the top and colleges drop out until all colleges are finished. We then move on to interviews and the order for this is usually picked randomly.
Colleges will often pool their own candidates only to take them back before the end of the second day. This is done for moderation purposes, to see what else is out there before making a final decision. It used to be that candidates often knew when this happened but not now the posting day has been pushed back.
Candidates who are going to be called for interview get contacted a day or two after the pool has closed, while everyone else will be contacted at the same time as the straight offers/rejects.
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