Increase chances of being accepted by universities for CS
I want to do computer science related courses in university such as Oxford ( target)
What are some extra activity (or anything) should I do to increase the chances of being accepted?
What are some extra activity (or anything) should I do to increase the chances of being accepted?
get 3(A*s) in maths and further maths and smash the admissions test (top 5%). That’s all you can really do. Start revising for the admissions test soon and you’ll likely get an offer.
Making your PS look super attractive + getting excellent grades and smashing the interview, like the person above said, can tremendously help. Things that express your passion for CS - like leading a club at school, doing online courses, programming projects done in your own time etc. would probably give you an edge.
Original post by Idkfjgfnfn
I want to do computer science related courses in university such as Oxford ( target)
What are some extra activity (or anything) should I do to increase the chances of being accepted?
What are some extra activity (or anything) should I do to increase the chances of being accepted?
Hello!
CS is a great choice (personally I am really enjoying my CS course at Lancaster), but it is quite competitive.
The most important thing for Oxford is meeting (and often, exceeding) their entry requirement grades, as well as performing well in the tests, as mentioned by other responses.
To make your Personal Statement stand out, however, consider the following:
•
attending a relevant club/society at school. If there isn't one, then starting your own would be even more impressive, if that is something you are passionate about.
•
Personal projects, such as building Raspberry Pi/Arduino devices, programming games, animating, making a website, etc. These don't only demonstrate your interest in the subject, but also your values and commitment and are probably the best thing to include into your PS.
•
Any relevant and large enough online courses that you might have completed (do not just mention/list them, however, use them as evidence to describe your independent learning abilities and interest in the subject).
•
Hackathons, datathons, ethical hacking competitions - there are many in-person and online events for all levels of abilities. Not only they are a fun and amazing learning experience, but winning, and even just attending one is a great thing to mention.
•
I believe Oxford's CS course requires a great level of mathematical knowledge, so perhaps mentioning any maths-related achievements is also a good idea.
Bonus tip: study the entry requirements and also look through the course outline (is the course focusing on an area of CS that you are perhaps already interested in and therefore can talk about?).
Best of luck in your application!
Polina,
Lancaster University SCC Student Ambassador.
So I think I've applied to universities on a similar tier to the ones you are looking at. I've applied to:
1) Cambridge (rejection)
2) Imperial (offer)
3) Edinburgh (offer)
4) Manchester (offer)
5) Durham (still waiting)
I'm happy on the whole but given a chance to swap one, I would swap Manchester for Bath.
In my personal statement, I mentioned:
1) Starting a CompSciSoc in school and being an avid member of the Maths society.
2) Industry-standard project I completed for a company's end client (it was a relatively long-term project for around 5 months).
3) AMSP problem-solving course for 10 weeks
4) Completed a few MOOCs and followed it up with some fun programming projects to consolidate my learning (I did game dev courses, data analysis courses, which came in useful for the industry standard project, and the CS50 introduction to Computer Science course, and I really recommend it).
5) I play chess at the national level and have won various county and national tournaments (this is now international - I have a profile for the international governing body but since I already sent my application off, I couldn't mention this).
6) I have two part-time jobs as Maths tutors (privately and for a well known national institution).
7) I participated every year in the UKMT Maths challenges (this was actually mentioned in my reference because I didn't have the space to mention the Kangaroo and Olympiad certificates in my personal statement. I chose not to include it because there would be many people who had done the same, if not more.
8) I've represented my school in several Maths competitions organised by Leeds University and I was invited by the University themselves to attend the Royal Institution Maths Masterclasses.
9) I have got 30 hours of volunteering and attained a certificate for it.
10) I am a school House Captain and I started our school's chess team to play competitively. We ended up as Yorkshire County Champions and runners-up in the North-West region (after narrowly losing to another school on tiebreaks, which meant we didn't qualify for the National Finals. To be honest, we should have won that match but it's water under the bridge now).
11) I've completed two spells of work experience - an in-person software development work experience (and this was the company that linked me to the client for whom I completed the industry standard project) and a virtual work experience on springpod.com.
12) I've entered 3 essay competitions and in one of them, my entry was shortlisted to win and I finished in the top 10 in a competition where there were over 10000 entries (it's an international competition).
Now, I would recommend doing as much as you can but by far, your priorities should be focussing on smashing your admissions test and interviews. Make sure you prepare well (I would go so far as to say to start preparing now so that in June, when your mocks that determine your predicted grades are over, you can start preparing for interviews. Then in maybe late August/early September, I would get back to grinding the admissions test. I didn't do this and if I had the chance, I would 1000000% do this method.).
1) Cambridge (rejection)
2) Imperial (offer)
3) Edinburgh (offer)
4) Manchester (offer)
5) Durham (still waiting)
I'm happy on the whole but given a chance to swap one, I would swap Manchester for Bath.
In my personal statement, I mentioned:
1) Starting a CompSciSoc in school and being an avid member of the Maths society.
2) Industry-standard project I completed for a company's end client (it was a relatively long-term project for around 5 months).
3) AMSP problem-solving course for 10 weeks
4) Completed a few MOOCs and followed it up with some fun programming projects to consolidate my learning (I did game dev courses, data analysis courses, which came in useful for the industry standard project, and the CS50 introduction to Computer Science course, and I really recommend it).
5) I play chess at the national level and have won various county and national tournaments (this is now international - I have a profile for the international governing body but since I already sent my application off, I couldn't mention this).
6) I have two part-time jobs as Maths tutors (privately and for a well known national institution).
7) I participated every year in the UKMT Maths challenges (this was actually mentioned in my reference because I didn't have the space to mention the Kangaroo and Olympiad certificates in my personal statement. I chose not to include it because there would be many people who had done the same, if not more.
8) I've represented my school in several Maths competitions organised by Leeds University and I was invited by the University themselves to attend the Royal Institution Maths Masterclasses.
9) I have got 30 hours of volunteering and attained a certificate for it.
10) I am a school House Captain and I started our school's chess team to play competitively. We ended up as Yorkshire County Champions and runners-up in the North-West region (after narrowly losing to another school on tiebreaks, which meant we didn't qualify for the National Finals. To be honest, we should have won that match but it's water under the bridge now).
11) I've completed two spells of work experience - an in-person software development work experience (and this was the company that linked me to the client for whom I completed the industry standard project) and a virtual work experience on springpod.com.
12) I've entered 3 essay competitions and in one of them, my entry was shortlisted to win and I finished in the top 10 in a competition where there were over 10000 entries (it's an international competition).
Now, I would recommend doing as much as you can but by far, your priorities should be focussing on smashing your admissions test and interviews. Make sure you prepare well (I would go so far as to say to start preparing now so that in June, when your mocks that determine your predicted grades are over, you can start preparing for interviews. Then in maybe late August/early September, I would get back to grinding the admissions test. I didn't do this and if I had the chance, I would 1000000% do this method.).
Original post by vnayak
So I think I've applied to universities on a similar tier to the ones you are looking at. I've applied to:
1) Cambridge (rejection)
2) Imperial (offer)
3) Edinburgh (offer)
4) Manchester (offer)
5) Durham (still waiting)
I'm happy on the whole but given a chance to swap one, I would swap Manchester for Bath.
In my personal statement, I mentioned:
1) Starting a CompSciSoc in school and being an avid member of the Maths society.
2) Industry-standard project I completed for a company's end client (it was a relatively long-term project for around 5 months).
3) AMSP problem-solving course for 10 weeks
4) Completed a few MOOCs and followed it up with some fun programming projects to consolidate my learning (I did game dev courses, data analysis courses, which came in useful for the industry standard project, and the CS50 introduction to Computer Science course, and I really recommend it).
5) I play chess at the national level and have won various county and national tournaments (this is now international - I have a profile for the international governing body but since I already sent my application off, I couldn't mention this).
6) I have two part-time jobs as Maths tutors (privately and for a well known national institution).
7) I participated every year in the UKMT Maths challenges (this was actually mentioned in my reference because I didn't have the space to mention the Kangaroo and Olympiad certificates in my personal statement. I chose not to include it because there would be many people who had done the same, if not more.
8) I've represented my school in several Maths competitions organised by Leeds University and I was invited by the University themselves to attend the Royal Institution Maths Masterclasses.
9) I have got 30 hours of volunteering and attained a certificate for it.
10) I am a school House Captain and I started our school's chess team to play competitively. We ended up as Yorkshire County Champions and runners-up in the North-West region (after narrowly losing to another school on tiebreaks, which meant we didn't qualify for the National Finals. To be honest, we should have won that match but it's water under the bridge now).
11) I've completed two spells of work experience - an in-person software development work experience (and this was the company that linked me to the client for whom I completed the industry standard project) and a virtual work experience on springpod.com.
12) I've entered 3 essay competitions and in one of them, my entry was shortlisted to win and I finished in the top 10 in a competition where there were over 10000 entries (it's an international competition).
Now, I would recommend doing as much as you can but by far, your priorities should be focussing on smashing your admissions test and interviews. Make sure you prepare well (I would go so far as to say to start preparing now so that in June, when your mocks that determine your predicted grades are over, you can start preparing for interviews. Then in maybe late August/early September, I would get back to grinding the admissions test. I didn't do this and if I had the chance, I would 1000000% do this method.).
1) Cambridge (rejection)
2) Imperial (offer)
3) Edinburgh (offer)
4) Manchester (offer)
5) Durham (still waiting)
I'm happy on the whole but given a chance to swap one, I would swap Manchester for Bath.
In my personal statement, I mentioned:
1) Starting a CompSciSoc in school and being an avid member of the Maths society.
2) Industry-standard project I completed for a company's end client (it was a relatively long-term project for around 5 months).
3) AMSP problem-solving course for 10 weeks
4) Completed a few MOOCs and followed it up with some fun programming projects to consolidate my learning (I did game dev courses, data analysis courses, which came in useful for the industry standard project, and the CS50 introduction to Computer Science course, and I really recommend it).
5) I play chess at the national level and have won various county and national tournaments (this is now international - I have a profile for the international governing body but since I already sent my application off, I couldn't mention this).
6) I have two part-time jobs as Maths tutors (privately and for a well known national institution).
7) I participated every year in the UKMT Maths challenges (this was actually mentioned in my reference because I didn't have the space to mention the Kangaroo and Olympiad certificates in my personal statement. I chose not to include it because there would be many people who had done the same, if not more.
8) I've represented my school in several Maths competitions organised by Leeds University and I was invited by the University themselves to attend the Royal Institution Maths Masterclasses.
9) I have got 30 hours of volunteering and attained a certificate for it.
10) I am a school House Captain and I started our school's chess team to play competitively. We ended up as Yorkshire County Champions and runners-up in the North-West region (after narrowly losing to another school on tiebreaks, which meant we didn't qualify for the National Finals. To be honest, we should have won that match but it's water under the bridge now).
11) I've completed two spells of work experience - an in-person software development work experience (and this was the company that linked me to the client for whom I completed the industry standard project) and a virtual work experience on springpod.com.
12) I've entered 3 essay competitions and in one of them, my entry was shortlisted to win and I finished in the top 10 in a competition where there were over 10000 entries (it's an international competition).
Now, I would recommend doing as much as you can but by far, your priorities should be focussing on smashing your admissions test and interviews. Make sure you prepare well (I would go so far as to say to start preparing now so that in June, when your mocks that determine your predicted grades are over, you can start preparing for interviews. Then in maybe late August/early September, I would get back to grinding the admissions test. I didn't do this and if I had the chance, I would 1000000% do this method.).
I hope you don't mind me asking, but why would you switch Manchester with Bath? Surely it doesn’t matter because even if you did get an Offer from Bath you still would firm ICL right?
Original post by lanky_giraffe
I hope you don't mind me asking, but why would you switch Manchester with Bath? Surely it doesn’t matter because even if you did get an Offer from Bath you still would firm ICL right?
Yeah but for insurance choice.
I saw on the Edinburgh website that minimum entry starts at AAB but I didn't see that the offer could go up to 3 A* (which is what I got). Now, I'm not complaining about it because I didn't think that I would get into Imperial or Cambridge and I would have to go elsewhere. Therefore, my logic was to choose some other really good university with a high tariff so I chose Manchester. I saw the AAB requirement from Edinburgh so went with that but was disappointed when I got the tariff that I got (since I didn't know they did that).
Durham never exceeds A*AA so I know that there is a high chance I meet that offer requirement should I get it.
Based on my A levels (plus EPQ), my offer for Bath would be something like A*ABB (which is what my friend got and we do the same A levels, same predicted grades but he has been rejected by Imperial and Cambridge.) and this is way more achievable, not to mention that CS at Bath is flagship so it's really good for it too.
Original post by vnayak
Yeah but for insurance choice.
I saw on the Edinburgh website that minimum entry starts at AAB but I didn't see that the offer could go up to 3 A* (which is what I got). Now, I'm not complaining about it because I didn't think that I would get into Imperial or Cambridge and I would have to go elsewhere. Therefore, my logic was to choose some other really good university with a high tariff so I chose Manchester. I saw the AAB requirement from Edinburgh so went with that but was disappointed when I got the tariff that I got (since I didn't know they did that).
Durham never exceeds A*AA so I know that there is a high chance I meet that offer requirement should I get it.
Based on my A levels (plus EPQ), my offer for Bath would be something like A*ABB (which is what my friend got and we do the same A levels, same predicted grades but he has been rejected by Imperial and Cambridge.) and this is way more achievable, not to mention that CS at Bath is flagship so it's really good for it too.
I saw on the Edinburgh website that minimum entry starts at AAB but I didn't see that the offer could go up to 3 A* (which is what I got). Now, I'm not complaining about it because I didn't think that I would get into Imperial or Cambridge and I would have to go elsewhere. Therefore, my logic was to choose some other really good university with a high tariff so I chose Manchester. I saw the AAB requirement from Edinburgh so went with that but was disappointed when I got the tariff that I got (since I didn't know they did that).
Durham never exceeds A*AA so I know that there is a high chance I meet that offer requirement should I get it.
Based on my A levels (plus EPQ), my offer for Bath would be something like A*ABB (which is what my friend got and we do the same A levels, same predicted grades but he has been rejected by Imperial and Cambridge.) and this is way more achievable, not to mention that CS at Bath is flagship so it's really good for it too.
For the OPs benefit and posterity - the minimum offer on the Edinburgh website is the contextual offer. The standard offer will usually be the upper end of the offer range. For competitive courses at Edinburgh often people will exceed this standard offer (i.e. the top end of the offer range) as well.
(edited 2 months ago)
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