Applying for Cambridge's Trinity College (Mathematics) without out an Olympiad

Which journal? If it was a predatory publisher or a vanity press that may count for a lot less than you think.

Ultimately the issue is that Trinity gets an absurd number if applicants for maths specifically from people who think that somehow doing maths at trinity is academically different from doing maths at queens or at Girton for that matter. It's not.

You run the very real risk of being rejected without an interview by applying to trinity, when you may well have been interviewed at any other college. If you get rejected with out interview then there's no pooling, not STEP condition to achieve , nothing - that's the end. Its all risk for no reward because Ultimately A) you can be pooled even if you do well in interview at trinity and B) you can have supervisions at trinity while at any other college (and vice versa - you'll have supervisions at other colleges while at trinity). All other teaching is centrally arranged by the department.

If you just want to live in a historic central college there are about a dozen other options to choose from where you run the risk of an otherwise cambridge material application getting rejected out of the gate.

If you like to gamble to that level you may be better off STILL applying to another college and taking a trip to Vegas. Unless you have good reason to believe Trinity wants you more than you want it (which an absence of any SMC/BMO etc performance seems unlikely).

Every year we have threads from students (mostly international but some home students too) who post "I had A*s in everything at both A-level and GCSE but didn't even get an interview for trinity maths". Don't be one of those.

I want to study maths in university, especially in Cambridge's Trinity College.

I do not have any Olympiad awards, mainly because I do not like the combination of mathematics and Olympiads. (I can do most of the Olympiad problems quickly and accurately, but I just do not accept treating mathematics as an Olympics sport, or something alike, in my values.)

I published on AIMS Mathematics.
Actually it is not predatory (it took me about 6 months to go through the editing process and the journal and its published is not indexed in any of the predatory or vanity lists...) Even some Fields Medalists publish articles on it...

If you do not approve of the combination of mathematics and Olympiads, but you clearly think that Trinity Colleges does, because they favour applicants with that experience, why do you want to go there? Surely this is evidence that your values do not align? Or are you prepared to relax your values to attend for the reputational benefits, even if you don't want bend them for the application process? That seems a bit perverse.