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What does Cambridge want to give someone an offer?

With A-levels becoming linear, what is Cambridge deciding on for their conditional offers? What does Cambridge look most at in order of importance (i.e BMAT, UCAS...). This is for applying for A100 Medicine course.
(edited 7 years ago)
If you do entry tests before hand, they would hold a heavy weight on their decision to give you an interview. But if you have good UCAS points and good predicted grades, you are very unlikely to get rejected before interview. It is a whole different board game then, you just need to impress at the interview stage (or just not look too too thick-which they will make you feel, without doubt).

In order of importance, I would say Entry tests-UCAS points-Predicted grades... then the deciding factor is the interview. But note that that predicted grades are mainly a consequence of the UCAS points, and you have to take them with a pinch of salt, whereas UCAS points actually show what you have achieved
Original post by SJ4444
With A-levels becoming linear, what is Cambridge deciding on for their conditional offers? What does Cambridge look most at in order of importance (i.e BMAT, UCAS...).


Original post by Diraclohr
If you do entry tests before hand, they would hold a heavy weight on their decision to give you an interview. But if you have good UCAS points and good predicted grades, you are very unlikely to get rejected before interview. It is a whole different board game then, you just need to impress at the interview stage (or just not look too too thick-which they will make you feel, without doubt).

In order of importance, I would say Entry tests-UCAS points-Predicted grades... then the deciding factor is the interview. But note that that predicted grades are mainly a consequence of the UCAS points, and you have to take them with a pinch of salt, whereas UCAS points actually show what you have achieved


Cambridge doesn't care about UCAS point AT ALL.
The only thing they're interested is your academic ability and potential. Nothing else.

And. Pre-interview assessment is used as only one aspect application along with all other aspects of application, firstly to choose which applicants to invite for interview and subsequently to give an offer.
No part of application has any fixed weighting or any order of importance. Each applicant is looked at and assessed individually and holistically.
(edited 7 years ago)
If you're at a comprehensive school you should ideally also be a head boy or head girl and have really good grades, and very good predicted grades.
Cambridge doesn't care as much as Oxford does about GCSEs, they'll still look at them but they're more interested in what you got for your A levels.

Cambridge say they only look at how you did academically (and this is mostly true unless it's something extra-curricular that is related to what you're applying for), but if you look at who they actually take from these schools it's typically people who are head boy or head girl and have really good grades.

They only want people who are what they consider to be the best, people who have been able to show they're at the top of the pile.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by catinsomehat
If you're at a comprehensive school you should ideally also be a head boy or head girl and have really good grades, and very good predicted grades.
Cambridge doesn't care as much as Oxford does about GCSEs, they'll still look at them but they're more interested in what you got for your A levels.

Cambridge say they only look at how you did academically (and this is mostly true unless it's something extra-curricular that is related to what you're applying for), but if you look at who they actually take from these schools it's typically people who are head boy or head girl and have really good grades.

They only want people who are what they consider to be the best, people who have been able to show they're at the top of the pile.


Correlation-cause fallacy right here. They don't care if you're head boy or girl, and it won't affect your application in any way.

However head boy/girl is more likely to be academically focused (good grades), confident (performs well at interview) and is good at speaking and liasing with people. This is what makes them a good applicant, not the title to their name.
Original post by richpanda
Correlation-cause fallacy right here. They don't care if you're head boy or girl, and it won't affect your application in any way.

However head boy/girl is more likely to be academically focused (good grades), confident (performs well at interview) and is good at speaking and liasing with people. This is what makes them a good applicant, not the title to their name.


:biggrin:
Reply 6
Original post by catinsomehat
If you're at a comprehensive school you should ideally also be a head boy or head girl and have really good grades, and very good predicted grades.
Cambridge doesn't care as much as Oxford does about GCSEs, they'll still look at them but they're more interested in what you got for your A levels.

Cambridge say they only look at how you did academically (and this is mostly true unless it's something extra-curricular that is related to what you're applying for), but if you look at who they actually take from these schools it's typically people who are head boy or head girl and have really good grades.

They only want people who are what they consider to be the best, people who have been able to show they're at the top of the pile.


As the other poster said, correlation does not imply causation. Also, there are tonnes of people at Cambridge who have never done anything like that, so whatever you've heard is ********.

Academic potential is all that matters.
Original post by richpanda
Correlation-cause fallacy right here. They don't care if you're head boy or girl, and it won't affect your application in any way.

However head boy/girl is more likely to be academically focused (good grades), confident (performs well at interview) and is good at speaking and liasing with people. This is what makes them a good applicant, not the title to their name.


I agree with most of what you said, except for the bolded part.
There're many successful applicant who didn't perform too well at interview and also there are so many 'socially-awkward' kind at Cambridge who are not good at communication with other people at all.
But interviewers at Cambridge are very good at and are experienced in spotting the applicant's academic ability/potential even he/she is not a good performer at interview.
It's very different from job interviews. :wink:
(edited 7 years ago)

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