More or Less "academic" colleges

In terms of getting in or not it does not matter which college you choose.

I don't know why so many people say this, because it is quite simply not true. Perhaps it's born out if a desire not to offend people from other colleges, or an idealistic view of the infallibilty of the pooling system, I don't know, but it does make a difference, if only a small one.

Obviously there's no college in Cambridge that is not academic; there's no back door unfortunately, and no applicant would get in unless they met a certain standard.

But at the same time it's not true that 'if you're good enough, you'll get in'; there are many applicants who would certainly be good enough to thrive on a cambridge course who get rejected because there is not enough space, admissions tutors say this themselves.
While statistically speaking, there is little difference between colleges, there are certain colleges that attract a higher calibre of applicant, typically the larger, older, more central colleges, though the differnce is marginal, and these are that little bit harder to get into for a borderline candidate (not that having an average of 91% makes the OP in any way borderline); they will simply be overshadowed completely by the competition, so much so that they will not even be pooled, whereas they may have been accepted or at least pooled by another college less overwhelmed with outstanding applicants.

This doesn't mean it's impossible to get into the more popular colleges, and strong applicants should not be put off applying to these places. But to say a mathematician would find it no more difficult to get into Trinity than a less popular college and so on is just misleading.

I do appreciate what they are saying. They said to me Churchill isnt a majorly competitive campus and it has a history of taken alot of students from state schools (I go to a grammar). They also suggested History as they thought it was my best intersts as its less competitive than Law AND I got 98%. They werent FORCEFUL just a bit pushy but ill see what happens =]

Apply where you like- but don't discount the less popular colleges. It might be you can find one which both you and your school would be happy about, and whilst I think you should definitely do what you want to do, it is true that your school write your reference and you may need to consider that. It's not fair, but thats the way it is. Good Luck!

Churchill, uncompetitive? What?

http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduates/courses/law/

Churchill has produced outstanding examination results in Law in recent times; we have finished among the top three Cambridge colleges in Law during six of the past seven years, and we have finished #1 in three of those years.

In order to maintain our formidable academic prowess in Law, we have to apply extremely stringent standards for admission. To stand any chance of success, an applicant will have to have achieved exceptionally strong marks at GCSE level and will have to be demonstrably on the way to achieving similarly impressive marks in his or her A-levels. Everyone admitted during the last decade has attained at least 9A*s at GCSE; we are very unlikely to call for interview any applicant who has fewer than 5A*s at GCSE or an average of less than 90% at AS-level across his/her three most relevant subjects. We normally attach a condition of AAAA to our offers in Law, and we never attach a condition more lenient than AAA.

Oh dear. I got 90% at AS average, Im taking 4 A Levels but that includes critical thinking, and I got 3 and a half A*s at GCSE. I take it applying churchill is a waste of time? Didnt realise how tough it was that has kind of killed me a bit lol

Although, to be honest, with 3.5 A*s, you'd have to give one hell of an interview to get accepted to read Law at Cambridge. Unless of course you come from a comprehensive where 3.5 A*s is exceptional... which doesn't appear to be so if your teachers consider themselves to be so clued up on oxbridge admissions.