Does college choice affect your overall chance of getting a maths offer at Cambridge?
Is it true that you have the same overall chance of getting into Cambridge for maths regardless of the college you apply to initially? Is the selection/pooling system as watertight as people say? I've been worried that applying to a more popular college might increase the chance of getting outright rejected.
Please feel free to give your opinion on/experience with this!
Please feel free to give your opinion on/experience with this!
In theory and in general, no.
In one specific case though yes. Which is Trinity College for maths, which receives an incredibly high number of applicants for that specific course. As a result it's generally advised not to apply to Trinity if you're applying to maths - you can look through the past threads on TSR, every year there are a few threads from applicants with perfect grades and a great paper application (all A*s at GCSE and A-level, SMC/BMO participation etc, or equivalent for international students) who don't even get interviewed as a result.
The reason why it can affect things is because the pooling process only comes into play if you get interviewed. If you are rejected pre-interview, you can't be pooled. And Trinity has so many applicants they can't interview them all, and many of those are applicants who would have absolutely been interviewed at basically any other college but as a result don't even make it out of the door to start the race!
Otherwise the pooling system is quite well established, and maths also often features significantly in the summer pool due to near misses on STEP conditions being passed back into the summer pool as well (although that still doesn't change the fact that normally about half of those with offers for Cambridge maths will miss them, normally due to the STEP requirement)
In one specific case though yes. Which is Trinity College for maths, which receives an incredibly high number of applicants for that specific course. As a result it's generally advised not to apply to Trinity if you're applying to maths - you can look through the past threads on TSR, every year there are a few threads from applicants with perfect grades and a great paper application (all A*s at GCSE and A-level, SMC/BMO participation etc, or equivalent for international students) who don't even get interviewed as a result.
The reason why it can affect things is because the pooling process only comes into play if you get interviewed. If you are rejected pre-interview, you can't be pooled. And Trinity has so many applicants they can't interview them all, and many of those are applicants who would have absolutely been interviewed at basically any other college but as a result don't even make it out of the door to start the race!
Otherwise the pooling system is quite well established, and maths also often features significantly in the summer pool due to near misses on STEP conditions being passed back into the summer pool as well (although that still doesn't change the fact that normally about half of those with offers for Cambridge maths will miss them, normally due to the STEP requirement)
Original post by Anonymous
Is it true that you have the same overall chance of getting into Cambridge for maths regardless of the college you apply to initially? Is the selection/pooling system as watertight as people say? I've been worried that applying to a more popular college might increase the chance of getting outright rejected.
Please feel free to give your opinion on/experience with this!
Please feel free to give your opinion on/experience with this!
With Trinity College there's basically like 6 places "reserved" for the international maths olympiad (IMO) participants. (Not literally reserved but like if you read the anual IMO reports they all basically end up at Trinity, Cambridge). The rest of the people at Trinity for maths are also exceptional.
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