Cambridge English Students and Applicants

Mavoury gets points for enthusiasm.

There's loads of Milton-based stuff going on at the moment, actually, 'cause it's his 400th Birthday. He's dead old. And dead.
Really funky lectures and displays and stuff.

Read at least some of the Divine Comedy -- it's well worth it, as is as important as Homer & Virgil to English lit. More so, sometimes.

Maartje recommends the one in Christ's library, too -- I've not seen it yet.

And Dante is more important than the Latin/Greek texts, sometimes. So quit crossing things out, biatch!

And Dante I think, but I'm not exactly well placed to comment because I got a bit bored halfway through Paradise Lost and gave up but the Divine Comedy has a good plot. I think I've just committed academic suicide with that comment

Ha, good luck with that, Simian!
Fowler's big edition is well worth the cost -- fantastic footnotes, significantly aiding understanding (and slowing reading...)

Lidka, who was it at Emma?! You're much smaller than me, and your hair is 'curly' rather than 'messy'! How funny. I'm not even an access officer...

You do have a knack for accurate and pinpoint description, Lidia...

im definitely sure i'll apply to university to read English, and (since you only really get to try the whole university game once) i really ought to give somewhere like Cambridge a go. having for a few different reasons decided on Cambridge and not Oxford, i now leave it to your collective opinions...

which colleges are good to read english at? are some substantially worse than others?

ideally i'd like to apply to one that is good for english and (since im going to try for a choral scholarship - i do like setting tough challenges for myself, it seems) with a good choir but not TOO good...

any ideas?

No.

The only reason I responded to NJHL is because the choir question does sometimes matter.

English is offered in every college; "competitive" is what you make of it, the drama scene is more lively on a university-scale (though every college has a drama society of sorts, and if it's not vibrant enough for you, take it over and make it awesome -- that's how things tend to work here); and "liberal" is a shifty term.

Hmmm, I see, though, that your location is listed as Kenya...this is probably going to make visiting difficult! If you do have a chance to visit, though, that's the best way to choose a college. Essentially, however, the college choice is unimportant -- they all have massive positives and some negatives, but pretty much everyone ends up loving their college. Similarly, it is possible to get the highest and lowest marks at every college.
All I can suggest is that you browse through some of the websites, and see what you think. A course like English, you're going to get pretty good provision wherever you go! Of course, I'd recommends Newnham...we're very easy-going, have a funky experimental drama scene, and English rocks (it's not one of the uber-competitive colleges, but emphasis is on enjoying what we do). But...I'm biased.

Er, term ends for vacation on Wednesday (12th March), and then we start again on the 22nd (or 21st?) of April.