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Cambridge Applicants for 2012 entry

Reply 320

Hermione17

2

Original post by cpdavis

Hey, do you have an insurance choice?

erm, are we turning this thread into an offer holders' chat thread? :tongue:

Reply 321

Mc^3

2

Original post by Hermione17

erm, are we turning this thread into an offer holders' chat thread? :tongue:

Why not? It's not like we have our own one, called "Cambridge offer holders 2011"... :colondollar:

Reply 322

jonnyboy1993

9

Original post by Kobie

you wanna test that claim? :perv:

oh wait. we'd have to tempt you out of your dirty, musty, mathematical lair. errrrrr.

Why would I need to? To this day there hasn't been a single person who hasn't thrown themselves at me when I've worn that hat out... In fact if I combined it with one of these it could even lead to potentially lethal levels of attraction...

That's what we want you to think goes on, we actually have huge 24/7 raves, you obviously haven't spent any time in the maths section of libraries... (I joke, I'm just in denial about how I'm gonna be spending the next 3 years of my life :frown:

)

Reply 323

Zoedotdot

18

Original post by Hermione17

erm, are we turning this thread into an offer holders' chat thread? :tongue:

Original post by Mc^3

Why not? It's not like we have our own one, called "Cambridge offer holders 2011"... :colondollar:

I know I'm not a mod or anything, but I really do think it would be nice if all you excitable 2011 people could try to keep the offer holder banter etc to a minimum in here. Purely because I'm reading it from a similar perspective to 2012 applicants (ie, to contribute to the purpose of the thread) and am finding a fair amount that needs to be skimmed because I don't understand the in-jokes or whatever, and I know that as an applicant I may have been put off posting because everyone seemed to know each other... It would be great to at least try to keep this thread more oriented towards the 2012 applicants and getting to know them and helping out with their queries, and not entirely invading! I think it's nice to have lots of people from different years in here and helps with the sense of community and the quality of information posted, but straying too far into stuff that should really be in the 2011 thread could be detrimental. I really don't mean to preach or even complain about the quality of posting as there's been a lot of valuable stuff, just trying to help out with keeping the forum and thread easy for everyone to use :smile:

But let the negs begin I suppose :p:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 324

TimmonaPortella

21

Original post by Zoedotdot

I know I'm not a mod or anything, but I really do think it would be nice if all you excitable 2011 people could try to keep the offer holder banter etc to a minimum in here. Purely because I'm reading it from a similar perspective to 2012 applicants (ie, to contribute to the purpose of the thread) and am finding a fair amount that needs to be skimmed because I don't understand the in-jokes or whatever, and I know that as an applicant I may have been put off posting because everyone seemed to know each other... It would be great to at least try to keep this thread more oriented towards the 2012 applicants and getting to know them and helping out with their queries, and not entirely invading! I think it's nice to have lots of people from different years in here and helps with the sense of community and the quality of information posted, but straying too far into stuff that should really be in the 2011 thread could be detrimental. I really don't mean to preach or even complain about the quality of posting as there's been a lot of valuable stuff, just trying to help out with keeping the forum and thread easy for everyone to use :smile:

But let the negs begin I suppose :p:

The in-jokes aren't difficult to understand. Duck sexuality and... Newnham sexuality.

Reply 325

Zoedotdot

18

Original post by TimmonaPortella

The in-jokes aren't difficult to understand. Duck sexuality and... Newnham sexuality.

Lol, I do get them! I suppose it's more that they are not my banter so I don't really care :p:

That or I'm just getting old and crabby. Sigh.

Reply 326

Doughnuts!!

15

Original post by 05038bj

Ok I'll take your advice :smile:

I'm hoping to apply for law. At the moment I don't know where at, I'll wait untill the sixth form law conference and the open days to decide (although Queens does look very nice in the prospectus).
My AS subjects are: History(Edexcel), English Literature (AQA), Philosophy (AQA) and Chemistry (AQA).
At GCSE level I attained 12 A*s and in the January modules of this year my marks were:
Philosophy (100/100) A
Chemistry (90/100) A

Original post by 05038bj

Well if you've got the best food... :tongue:

I may very well end up applying to Pembroke it was another college that I thought looked nice from the prospectus.

I'm actually staying at Jesus for the Law Conference but my boyfriend is going to study engineering there in September and as much as I love him I think it would be good to apply to a different college (and preferably one slightly closer to the law facutly).

LAW! And you're both going to the Law Conference!

I found the Law Conference very helpful and it made me realise that Law was definitely the right degree for me. I stayed at St Catharine's at the conference and decided to apply to Catz in the end because I fell in love with it.

Shameless college promotion about to happen :colone:

You guys should both choose Catz! It's absolutely beautiful (much nicer than it's comparatively uglier neighbour, Queens), not ridiculously huge and- most importantly- only 5-10 minutes from the Law Faculty. :biggrin:

Reply 327

TimmonaPortella

21

Original post by Zoedotdot

Lol, I do get them! I suppose it's more that they are not my banter so I don't really care :p:

That or I'm just getting old and crabby. Sigh.

But... our banter is so amusing!
Anyway, the 2010 people have involved our skype chat, so :tongue:

edit: invaded*. wtf, involved? Where did I even get that from?

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 328

dnumberwang

12

Original post by soutioirsim

If you do come to Oxford I will have to slap you for what you said about physics :p:

I blame the shocking physics teachers at my school, we have quite a selection of them

Original post by Schnecke

I was liking you until you mentioned that place :tongue:

. Nice UMS and subject choices :biggrin:

Haha, thanks :smile:

Of course I will visit and maybe I will agree with you about it being a crap place (or maybe not :tongue:

)

Reply 329

Bubbles2010

7

Original post by dnumberwang

I blame the shocking physics teachers at my school, we have quite a selection of them

nah... you should see my physics teacher!!! HE LOST OUR ISAs IN YEAR 11!!!!!!!!! (and also steals powerpoints from the internet and pretends that he made them lol)

Reply 330

Hermione17

2

Original post by dnumberwang

I blame the shocking physics teachers at my school, we have quite a selection of them

don't hate Physics just because of your teacher :puppyeyes:

My Physics teacher uses the powerpoints clearly made by somebody else, and let us watch videos and do past papers only in classes :eek:

At least the Physics teacher who helped us with Olympiad was good

btw, you want a central college? have a look at Trinity, it also has a great reputation for Maths :biggrin:

Reply 331

Edwin Okli

3

Original post by dnumberwang

I blame the shocking physics teachers at my school, we have quite a selection of them

For me, it's the science teachers in general. They were probably what put me off studying a science (save Computing) at A level. I practically taught mysef all my GCSE modules from the revision guides. I might as well as not have turned up to any of my science lessons but they really didn't help for the most part.

I dislike Physics... and I want to apply for Computer Science. How screwed am I?

Reply 332

Schnecke

1

Original post by cpdavis

Hey, do you have an insurance choice?

Yeah, I just haven't actually confirmed on UCAS, so I'm still deciding really.. although if it's not Durham then I hate myself (my other offers are bitches to meet).

Reply 333

Kobie

2

Original post by Zoedotdot

I know I'm not a mod or anything, but I really do think it would be nice if all you excitable 2011 people could try to keep the offer holder banter etc to a minimum in here. Purely because I'm reading it from a similar perspective to 2012 applicants (ie, to contribute to the purpose of the thread) and am finding a fair amount that needs to be skimmed because I don't understand the in-jokes or whatever, and I know that as an applicant I may have been put off posting because everyone seemed to know each other... It would be great to at least try to keep this thread more oriented towards the 2012 applicants and getting to know them and helping out with their queries, and not entirely invading! I think it's nice to have lots of people from different years in here and helps with the sense of community and the quality of information posted, but straying too far into stuff that should really be in the 2011 thread could be detrimental. I really don't mean to preach or even complain about the quality of posting as there's been a lot of valuable stuff, just trying to help out with keeping the forum and thread easy for everyone to use :smile:

But let the negs begin I suppose :p:

anyone else realise what we've really been doing? (or are you all mathmos :ahee:

)

for a considerable part, the purpose of the past few pages' banter has served to dispel any unfounded myths about my beautiful beautiful college which might put a prospective applicant off. Bubbles2010 will wholeheartedly agree that we need to make considerably more effort to attract ambitious and talented young ladies to girls' colleges :rolleyes:

we're all quite aware that we COULD keep the blah on facebook etc, but i reckon exposure to moderate amounts of current-offer-holder camaraderie is really quite encouraging- one of the biggest things about the application process for me was the fact i made some fantastic new friends along the way :love:

the offer holders were actually much worse on our applicants' thread last year (THAT MEANS YOU PEEWEEDAN) :yep:

promise we won't be that bad!

totally understand where you're coming from, this is just my two cents from the alternative point of view :holmes:

Reply 334

thegenius31416

12

Original post by Welsh Lady

Hey everybody :smile:

As I haven´t found a thread for those of us who plan to apply for 2012 yet, I just created one. I hope that´s fine!

So, do you already know which subject you are going to choose? What about your college choice? :cute:

Username: joshgoldman
Subject: Economics
College: St Johns
AS Subjects: Maths, Further Maths, Economics, Music
GCSEs 3A* 7A

I guess you can add me in then, depending upon summer module results of course :s-smilie:

Username: thegenius31416
Subject: Economics
College: Most probably King's but not definitely decided yet.
AS Subjects: Maths, Further Maths, Economics, German, Physics
GCSEs: 8A*s, 3As and an A in FSMQ.

Reply 335

Zoedotdot

18

Original post by Kobie

anyone else realise what we've really been doing? (or are you all mathmos :ahee:

)

for a considerable part, the purpose of the past few pages' banter has served to dispel any unfounded myths about my beautiful beautiful college which might put a prospective applicant off. Bubbles2010 will wholeheartedly agree that we need to make considerably more effort to attract ambitious and talented young ladies to girls' colleges :rolleyes:

we're all quite aware that we COULD keep the blah on facebook etc, but i reckon exposure to moderate amounts of current-offer-holder camaraderie is really quite encouraging- one of the biggest things about the application process for me was the fact i made some fantastic new friends along the way :love:

the offer holders were actually much worse on our applicants' thread last year (THAT MEANS YOU PEEWEEDAN) :yep:

promise we won't be that bad!

totally understand where you're coming from, this is just my two cents from the alternative point of view :holmes:

I totally agree that exposure to camaraderie is a really good thing, which is why I've repeatedly said do not stop posting! And I made some great new friends when I was an offer holder as well and was one of the biggest spammers on the planet in my thread (pretty sure we had at least two or three and I was the second highest poster in all of them despite actually being away for a month for one of them...), so I totally understand your point of view. All I was trying to say was that I thought the levels were getting a bit too high, it's a very new thread so it was feeling a little bit swamped by all of you essentially moving your offer holder chat in and it needed to be slightly more on topic than it was so that new users of the site felt able to post in it and also so that people can find the information that they need. It wasn't a major gripe at all so I hope it didn't come across that way, it was just that I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was literally skimming loads of posts that I felt had nothing to do with me or the thread and that I didn't feel like I could particularly include myself in because it felt like a bit of an already-formed group rather than a place for new people to meet and talk about applying in 2012. There is definitely a place for some of that, but not whole reams of posts, otherwise it starts becoming a little exclusive and I'm sure you'll agree that we want lots of applicants to post so that they can have the same kind of community that you're enjoying :smile:

Anyway, it was just a polite request that the chat remained at least vaguely on-topic so that it is intelligible and interesting for those who haven't been following your thread and friendships all year!

But now I am clogging up the thread myself, so I will desist. Spam away if it makes you happy :p:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 336

molthemoo

2

Original post by comrade_jon

I can give you a hundred (or nearabouts) reasons why history at Cambridge is a billion times better than history at Oxford, if you want to discuss any of that PM me.

But yeah you don't need 90% to do incredibly. In my first unit at AS, I got 71%... albeit with the next one being 93%, the fact remains that you don't need to panic too much about having the greatest AS results ever.

Be predicted the A*AA required, have a solid personal statement and reference, be prepared to discuss your ideas, essays and personal statement in your interview and then you've got a great chance :smile:

Thanks

Just realised I meant to ask anyone who's applied to/had an offer from Cambridge, why they choose Cambridge over Oxford (Probably shouldn't have written that half asleep at 1.30 in the morning lol) so it would be great if you can tell me why you prefer Cambridge :smile:

And I feel a bit more relaxed about my ums now. Thanks :smile:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 337

kpatb

2

Original post by molthemoo

Thanks

Just realised I meant to ask anyone who's applied to/had an offer from Cambridge, why they choose Cambridge over Oxford (Probably shouldn't have written that half asleep at 1.30 in the morning lol) so it would be great if you can tell me why you prefer Cambridge :smile:

And I feel a bit more relaxed about my ums now. Thanks :smile:

I received an offer from Cambridge this year for Natural Sciences :smile:

So although you're applying for History, you should be looking at the criteria:
The most important characteristic that Oxbridge are looking for is passion for your course - so really THE key factor about whether you should choose Oxford or Cambridge is which course you like better and which course would personally suit your style of learning.

From first glance, the History course at Oxford seems to be more focused on British history, wheras at Cambridge you have the choice of taking modules in Greek history etc. (but i'm not sure, so don't read too much into what I've said as I've just had a 5 minute glance at both their prospectuses)

On a personal level, I just love the course at CAmbridge - there's no other course like it in the UK, and it allowed me to study many sciences in the first year.Oh and also, I didn't like how no matter how carefully you drive in oxford you always seem to get a ticket for one reason or another -_- There are a lot more cars in Oxford too - it seems a bit more cosmopolitan than Cambridge.

So it's all up to you and what you prefer :smile:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 338

l4ith

10

Original post by Sasha193

omg...amazing grades!! well donee! haha you chose all the unis i wanted to apply to and you got offers from all of them wow! any advice on the bmat and ukcat? and did you have much work experience and volunteering exp? also do you think i wud be at a disadvantage for medicine at cambridge for interview or selection if i have under 90 in any modules? due to competition? thankss...sorry to bombard you with questions! :smile:

Thanks!

For the BMAT, focus your preparation on section 1 (aptitude) and section 2 (science). Section 3 (essay) is less important, so just spend a small amount of time on this.

Section 1 is hard to prepare for; when I started the actual exam I was slightly panicky because the questions were really different to what I had practised! What you can revise is the critical thinking questions (i.e. a paragraph of text with a question asking you to identify the main conclusion or other elements of the argument). Do this by looking at OCR critical thinking AS questions, and going through the multi-choice. The logic questions cannot be as easily prepared for - however to get a good idea of question types, look through the past papers on the BMAT site (www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/bmat) and also Cambridge Assessment Thinking Skills papers, which you can find on the CIE website.

Section 2 is making sure you can apply relatively basic scientific knowledge to different situations. Make sure you KNOW all your GCSE science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) as well as GCSE maths. Perhaps go to older GCSE/iGCSE textbooks (more detail) and look at the content in those. You must spend equal amounts of time looking at each science - they are worth ~ the same number of marks.

Section 3 is about practice. Practise writing concisely and with appropriate punctuation & grammar. Just write a few essays and get a teacher to see what they think. I didn't do as much prep for this section than the other two!

UKCAT is also about practice. Get the 600 Questions book (http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&q=UKCAT+600&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6383836257711872100&sa=X&ei=zct9TdaTEpK5hAfCm4jeBg&ved=0CCoQ8wIwAg#) and go through all the questions in that. DO NOT WORRY if you find one section really hard to start with - most people find Abstract Reasoning very difficult at the beginning. You can definitely practise the techniques needed in this section; just go through all the questions and remember common patterns that the testers use. That book is definitely harder than the real exam in the quantative and abstract sections, but about right in the verbal and decision sections.

I did do quite a bit of volunteering and work experience. I mentioned work experience in my personal statement; the second paragraph I think. Work experience is considered important by every university you apply to, so make sure you get at least 2 weeks of good quality work experience that you are able to talk about. You could take a notepad and write down everything you saw during your placements. This will be invaluable when writing your PS; I thought I'd remember everything, but I certainly didn't! In terms of volunteering, make sure you do it REGULARLY rather than in isolated one week stints. For example, every Saturday I'd volunteer in a Charity Shop, and most Sundays I would go to an elderly persons' home. You don't need to spend ages each week: 1-2 hours will be enough!

Having under 90 in a couple of modules is fine, but make sure you try and maintain >90 in most of your modules (this is particularly important for medicine I feel). This is the best advice I can give you; it's best to work hard and try and get high UMS grades that really stand out. Cambridge really like UMS points from what I've seen, and Trinity seems to love them!

I hope that helped :smile:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 339

05038bj

Original post by Junaid16

and English Literature. I see, i think that's where i slipped up, only managed 76/100 so will be retaking,but don't really know how i could improve drastically, since you're an expert would you mind me PMing some samples of my essays? :colondollar:

I did Unit 2 in January, which is the easier unit, so actually expected to do much better, but i probably should have done some practice papers, which i will do for June and i'll admit that more counter criticisms were lacking.

Well I'm no way near being an expert (especially on the first questions- I looked at my mark breakdown for that and did much better comparitavely on the second) but if you want to send me some you can :smile:

I warn you I'm still getting the hang of TSR so you may have to tell me what to do in order to find the essay etc. So are you doing unit one in June then?
I think it would be best, if you're doing the same modules as me, to send me the essays for those modules. I did Reason and Experience and Why Should I be Governed for unit one and at the moment I'm sudying Tolerance and The value of Art for Unit 2 :smile:

Cambridge Applicants for 2012 entry

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