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on colleges and sps (in massive need of help)

i am an international student from the philippines who plans to apply to cambridge for admission in 2006.

i have a couple of questions that i couldn't get answers for from any other site.

from what i've seen online, i'm leaning towards one of the following colleges - corpus christi, gonville and caius, kings, peterhouse, queens, st. catherine's, st. john's, sidney sussex, downing, jesus, clare, emma, pembroke, girton and trinity. still quite a long list and i need some help trimming it down. visiting is an unlikely option, as i live thousands of miles away.

1) do these colleges have a good reputation for sps? if not, what colleges are reputed well for sps?

2) in general, what are these(those above) colleges like? i wanna know more things apart from what i've read in the different prospectuses (the real ones and alternative ones) that tend to be sugar coated. i wanna know details about these colleges. like what are the people really like, how greatis studying there, how great the ents are, just really everything there is to know.

thank you very much in advance. :smile:

Reply 1

Ticki

8

The alternative prospectus really is your best bet - they're not meant to be sugar coated and from what I've read it seems accurate to me. Plus it was updated only last year.

I think we'll all say that you should pick the college you like best because teaching is organised by the university. It's often difficult to tell which colleges have a particular reputation in given subjects and they can sometimes be undeserved. The 3 main things which differentiate between colleges are size, age and location.

Sidney Sussex was founded in 1596 (the last of the 'old' colleges), accepts about 100-110 undergraduates each year (making it 3rd smallest) and is in the centre of town (opposite Sainsbury's). Our ents are ok, we have a very good May Ball every other year, and it's nice to be in such a friendly atmosphere. It's not a very ambitious college - we're more about participation than winning, and not many people get involved in University-level things. The downside is that it can get very claustrophobic and the gossip can get a bit much at times.

Reply 2

Alewhey

Ticki

The alternative prospectus really is your best bet - they're not meant to be sugar coated and from what I've read it seems accurate to me. Plus it was updated only last year.

Sorry to digress but is that available online? I can only seem to find the 2001-2003 one.

Reply 3

Ticki

8

The 2004-2006 version is on http://cususite.headporter.com/cmsv1/index.php?section=cms&module=index&uni=1&page=29 (the front page) - just scroll down to "new CUSU publications" and you'll find the links. If you want a paper version, email the Access Officer, Nav, on [email protected] and I think he'll be able to send you one.

For comparison, the old one (2001-2003) is on http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/publications/altpro/ .

Another idea is to look at the JCR websites for each college. Links are on the CUSU site (www.cusu.cam.ac.uk). Some of them have forums so you could ask questions of current students there.

Reply 4

Alewhey

Brilliant, thanks a lot.
>_> Right, err, on with the thread?

Reply 5

Bradford_Jordan

Alewhey

Brilliant, thanks a lot.
>_> Right, err, on with the thread?

I will say that for the 2004/2005 academic year, I did SPS at Clare. Me and the other bloke doing 2nd year SPS both shared the award for highest marks in the SPS faculty, and I was awarded the Schmidt prize (100 quid) for best dissertation of the year. I attribute a lot of this to Helen Thompson, who is a fellow at Clare and will be your director of studies if you go to Clare. She is really fantastic, loves the subject and will give you just the right balance between independence and guidance.

Go Clare.

- Brad

Reply 6

annalific

OP

thanks for the url of the new alternative prospectus. i've only checked out the old one. should be an interesting read. :smile:

Reply 7

French Pikachu

Hey there, I think most students will tell u that they love their college and that it's the best... So the best would be for u to come and visit it... but if ur like me (a foreigner, with no time to come visit) then chose from the prospectus and then there is a good chance u'll love the college where u applied anyway, coz they seem to be all amazing :biggrin:

... When i went for my interview I had an amazing time, met loads of people and was surprised by how beautiful the place was despite the rain (it has huge grounds and the buildings are white) :smile:

Since January i know that i got an offer to study at Downing in October 2005 so I started looking for more info about it and love this college! They have a great JCR website with a great forum where Downing students can answer all ur questions... http://www.downingjcr.co.uk/applying/

The following is an extract from the website. I thought that could help u and show u the kinda of intereaction going on there... :rolleyes:

=> Hellooo!!
I am considering applying for Downing in the coming year for Law. I've heard that it is a medium sized college, which I think would be quite nice in preference to the larger sized colleges, but someone had told me that gossip tends to get around a lot more quickly and that it can get claustrophobic, and I was wondering to what extent you all thought that this was true? Do people tend to form friendships well, or do you end up hanging around with the people you met on the first day of freshers?! And also, do people generally tend to mix more with people from their college or people from their subject?

=> Downing is sorta medium sized but it punches well above it weight in law in fact it is known as a law college and plays as I understand it a prominent role in the Cambridge University Law Society.
Regarding friends, your mileage varies considerably depending on the sort of person you are. I made some of my best friends during freshers week but I know some people who made their best friends towards the end of the second/third term.
Gossip, sure it goes around a lot as I can attest to that having been both on the receiving end and the creation end of some but hey that just keeps things entertaining and their are plenty of people who don't want to be gossiped about who aren't.
Regarding the mixing, it is a personal thing the thing about a medium sized college is that it is easy to get over involved in your college and not talk with people outside of it.
The great thing about a medium sized college is that you can interact on so many levels. At the big ones, you are largely anonymous, the smallest ones everyone knows your name, but at a medium sized college u have the choice.

About SPS at Downing, tbh i dont know much :rolleyes:

coz I'll only be there as of October... but it was written on the forum that:

I don't know how many applicants or places there are for next academic year, but in my year, for SPS at Downing it was 27 applicants for 4 places. I think last year there were 42 applicants for 6 places. Jude Browne told me that Downing and Emma are the two colleges that get the highest number of applications for SPS, but I guess that means we probably pool more people to other colleges than most.

and a few days later Katie, the Access Officer, officialy answered that there were this year:

35 applicants and 6 offers for SPS.

Hope this helps but I think the best for u would be to have a look at the JCr website which has a few convos about SPS and where u could also ask all ur questions... Ciao and might see you in October 2006

PS: Sorry for such a long post... :p:

Reply 8

Wasp39

Bradford_Jordan

I will say that for the 2004/2005 academic year, I did SPS at Clare. Me and the other bloke doing 2nd year SPS both shared the award for highest marks in the SPS faculty, and I was awarded the Schmidt prize (100 quid) for best dissertation of the year. I attribute a lot of this to Helen Thompson, who is a fellow at Clare and will be your director of studies if you go to Clare. She is really fantastic, loves the subject and will give you just the right balance between independence and guidance.

Go Clare.

- Brad

Plus Clare is, of course the nicest College :biggrin:

(no bias)

Reply 9

emily87

9

I'd say Downing too, but I'm not there yet either....Pikachu is right, the forum on their JCR site is great - ask there and you are bound to get replies.
Emilyx

Reply 10

JHutcher

11

Lozza

jesus - i have a few friends there, it's big but a little further away

By further away they mean you have to walk an extra 100 yards to the shops... its off the tourist track and a beautiful college with open courts. Its close enough to walk to everything easily and has a hisotry and reputation.

A wonderful chapel decorated by the pre-raphealites (SP?). And it offers the chance to live in communual flats in your second year.

On the whole the distance can hardly be called a distance and really should not be a deciding factor with Jesus.

Reply 11

annalific

OP

after going through the new alternative prospectus, i've limited my choices to the following colleges:

clare
corpus christi
downing
emmanuel
gonville and caius
kings
pembroke
st. john's
trinity

i'm quite looking forward to being able to narrow down further once i hear from the admissions offices that i emailed regarding special consideration because of a different educational system here.

meanwhile, can anyone tell me more (perhaps compare and contrast) the colleges above?

i just saw the sunday times ranking of the colleges (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8405-1246317,00.html) and saw that most colleges that i like rated really high. this scares me. does this mean that they have stricter admission standards? will my chances increase if i apply to a colleges that is not doing so well in the rankings?
also, will it be possible for me to study in the unversity even during term breaks (assuming that i do get in)?

replies would be greatly appreaciated. :smile:

on colleges and sps (in massive need of help)

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