Low A in D1 - Am I Overeacting?

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jcb914

If you certificate then they will know, yes. However, most schools don't certificate, especially if the applicant messed up a paper or two.

This is seriously misinformed. Cambridge applicants are required to disclose all grades (on the CAF up until now, on the SAQ next year), whether certificated or not, even if they were failures or re-sits. They want the full history and there is no hiding place. We have heard on TSR a little while ago that Oxford is going down the same route. And most schools do certificate at AS.

Reply 41

FadedJade

You are correct about the SAQ, but it certainly used to be the case that schools didnt standardly certificate straight after AS because of the flexibility with dropping subjects last minute/deciding to continue or whatever. I didn't think that this had particularly changed.

Reply 42

jcb914

Good bloke

Read what I was quoting. :rolleyes:

I was refering to Oxford, not Cambridge.

EDIT: Okay, the person deleted their post. The point still stands, for applications to Oxford you are not obliged to share your AS grades unless certificated. You say most schools do certificate at AS, but from my experience most schools do not. My best friend got into to Oxford last year, for Medicine, despite getting a very low B at AS-level Chemistry. Oxford never knew.

Reply 43

Good bloke

jcb914

Read what I was quoting. :rolleyes:

I was refering to Oxford, not Cambridge.

Read the final sentence of my post. :rolleyes:

Reply 44

jcb914

Good bloke

Read the final sentence of my post. :rolleyes:

What the speculation about Oxford changing their admissions policy? Nothing has been confirmed yet.

Reply 45

Good bloke

No it hasn't, though the Oxford website says that the OAF is under review. I mention it purely for the information of those that assume that next years's system will be the same as this year's.

Reply 46

t.w.

Speedbird2008

If you can't interview well, for example, then you won't get in, even if you have 100% in all modules.

That's not true at all. There are brilliant people at Oxbridge who are awful in interviews. Oxford rang my school once to ask why a candidate had said practically nothing in interview - the school replied 'we don't know but he's one of the best students we've ever had'. His grades and written work etc. backed this up, so they gave him an offer.

Reply 47

steve2006

Dadeyemi

please inform about wanting to set and achieve high targets for yourself is arrogant? it's not like i'm going WTF how did I get that score i'm just inquisitive as to whether or not my chances of getting into Cambridge for maths are severely lowered or not.

You got an A for christ sake so your chances for cambridge are still as strong as ever. I have never done or seen D1 so im not sure how easy it is. If you find it easy and know personally you can do alot better to gain those extra 17 marks then by all means go for it.

Reply 48

thelostchild

jcb914

Not necessarily. Yes, the interview is important, but it is only one part of the application process. Lots of people who feel like their interview went badly still get offers.

that could quite easily be because that the interviewers realised they had potential and were trying to stretch them though?

Reply 49

Icy_Mikki

When I was applying to Oxford last year, I found the fact that they don't request module marks very helpful because it allowed me to hide my S1 mark (83%), but I could still show them my marks in the core modules (in my personal statement). It'll probably be a similar situation for you next year, what with Cambridge not wanting module marks any more.

Can I ask why you're worried about Cambridge so early in year 12? Getting attached to Oxbridge so early on really isn't a good thing... trust me, I've witnessed it.

Reply 50

Good bloke

Icy_Mikki

It'll probably be a similar situation for you next year, what with Cambridge not wanting module marks any more.

Cambridge do still want module marks for next year.

Reply 51

DFranklin

Nina

Yes but the applicants don't necessarily know what interviewing well actually is. They are right in saying that you must interview well, the fact that people feel they did badly is irrelevant.

I think an interview in maths is quite a different experience from an interview in a naturally "talky" subject, however. For example, I suspect very few maths interviewers would worry much if someone didn't come across as particularly enthusiastic in their subject.

(One mathmo at my College came across as having absolutely no personality or enthusiasm whatsoever. He basically never left his room during the whole 3 years, and was very "blank slate" in supervisions. He got an easy 1st though).

And and to the OP, yes you are overreacting. Stop it.

Again, it is a bit different for maths: I would expect a successful applicant to have very high UMS scores, and 83% in one of the core modules would raise question marks. That doesn't mean it would stop you getting in, but as an interviewer it would make you wonder. You'd need to distinguish between "83% because he makes occasional stupid mistakes / bad at writing answers down properly etc" (which isn't a problem) and "83% because he finds this quite difficult" (which is).

But an important point here is that it's D1 Dadeyemi did badly on, which is scarcely "mathematics" at all by Cambridge standards (though amusingly there used to be a part IB course that wasn't that different). As long as your grades for the pure courses stay high, I wouldn't worry much.

Reply 52

Icy_Mikki

Good bloke

Cambridge do still want module marks for next year.

Yeah, I read that in another thread just after I posted that. It's fairly typical of the British media that they said you wouldn't have to do it on an application form, but failed to mention you'll just have to do it on another one.

Reply 53

FadedJade

Good point DF, although I believe I posted those before he actually said he wanted to study maths - I figured he was just another paranoid applicant.

Reply 54

Nadeshka

Applying for Maths my module scores were quite varied I got a borderline As in FP1 (80 exactly) & S2 and a B in D2, none of which was mentioned in my interview at all. I retook FP1 because I knew I could do much better (and did) but the rest I didn't bother with because it wasn't worth the effort compared to just focusing on the pure modules. If the rest of your modules (especially pure) are 90s and higher I doubt they'd focus on it.

Reply 55

coldfish

Meh, if you want to resit and your school is happy to let you resit then do it. I resat one of my Summer AS papers (I never sat any January papers, bar this resit) because I got a B in it overrall and it irritated me because it was in a paper I should have done really well in. Turns out that if I hadn't gained the 12 extra UMS points from resitting the paper, I would have got a B overall for that subject. *shrug*

Reply 56

Dadeyemi

Thank you all for the (mostly) very useful posts; I believe my maths department are asking for the paper (I didn't request this my FM teacher did) which will be useful to know where I went wrong if an interviewer asks but I guess, from what is being said, that I probably should not resit and should just focus on the core modules.

Thanks Again,
Dadeyemi

P.S. for those who say I'm obsessing
It's not that I'm obsessing over Cambridge it's just that that's my preferred choice and my brother goes there, so I've been several times and its a really nice place and the course is so varied and interesting. I would be very happy with Warwick I went there for a NAGTY summer school and it is also a very nice place with a very good math dept and my sis goes there. Basically I just want to have both options.

It's D1.

What about my situation? I got 87/100 in D1, 88/100 in C1, and 90/100 in C2. However, I'm not applying for Maths, I'll be applying for Natural Sciences. So you think I'll be ok with these sorta scores in Maths ?

Reply 59

Nichrome

Dadeyemi

sorry did I not say i was applying for maths or else I really wouldn't care.

To be honest I don't really think that the admissions tutors would care that much about D1 (It's kind of a bull**** module as I'm sure you found out), that said though it should be an easy 95+% if you concentrate fully, so resit if you fancy a few easy extra marks.