Economics Applicant Thread UCAS 2012

Not necessarily at all. A pooled candidate from one college is not always as good as a pooled candidate from another. In addition to this for example say the 10th best candidate at one college who gets rejected may be better than the 7th best candidate at another who gets pooled.

Its very hard to differentiate between candidates between different colleges despite the guidelines for tutors on whom they should pool.

Your best bet of getting into Cambridge is to get into your original college, obviously, but to assume the pool will extract the best candidates is very far from the mark. But it does do a good job nonetheless.

Of course, the pooling system cannot be assumed perfect. But, pooling isn't done on where you rank in your college, surely? If it were, the pooling system would be redundant as more competitive colleges weren't pooling enough quality candidates whereas poor colleges were pooling too many poor candidates.

Gonville and Caius had a crazy amount of pooled candidates who received offers elsewhere one year.

Ah, well. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed my Cambridge application is as smooth as possible.

Its very hard to say, which is why clearly the best 180 or so candidates don't always get offers.
One admissions officer said they may only pool an applicant if they feel they will realistically get an offer from another college...but that's not very fair is it? That candidate may have got into another college if they applied directly there.

It can be done on rank, but the rank may be made up of all sorts of things including your interview performance. Actually if I remember it is a rank....I'll get confirmation on this.

I think I know what you mean - if you are given an offer, then the college look at the pool and finds a better person, they cannot then retract that offer. But I'd hope the admission tutors were good enough forsee things like there and make offers accordingly.

Yeah, prefer staying in London if possible. What are the grade requirements for Southampton? Do you think if I get AAB, will SOAS let me off?

And I forgot to mention another thing, would it affect my application much if its my third year of Alevels?? I used to do Chem and Bio but dropped them after the first year, and took Business and continued with Maths again.

They're fine, the two key ones over 90%, if you don't apply you will never know

Go for it Jamie! As Tateco said, you'll never know if you don't apply.

I got results quite similar to you and i'm thinking of applying...

I'll think about it It's just that I don't want applying to Cambridge to have an effect on my other choices, although some say that other universities don't discriminate against early applications; I'm not so sure.

I might explore the possibility of adding choices after Oct 15th although I'm not entirely sure how it works.

Any additional information about the Cambridge admissions process would be much appreciated. (Not just pooling)

What do you want to know

They don't discriminate. How can they when 1200 very capable candidates apply to Cambridge for Economics?

You just . . . add choices.

Hey guys, got AAB at A2 (As in Maths, Biology and B in Chemistry) and an A in economics AS that I dropped.

Was very close to an A* in Maths and A in Chemistry, so I'll be resitting one paper in Maths and Chemistry each in my gap year to bump them up. Then I'm planning on finishing off my economics A2 during my gap year

Since I got over 90% in Economics, I'll be predicted an A* in it, so I'll end up with a prediction of A*A*AA...

What do you think my chances are of Warwick and Nottingham for economics??

Are you going to add your other choices after Oct 15th...

Good

Hi guys
Seriously considering economics as a possible degree choice. I just wanted to ask people to explain why they personally want to study economics.
Cheers

Haha, something about your short and simple response made a huge impact on me..made me smile (hint for those writing personal statements btw!)
So thanks, every little helps


Getting to the point though, will it matter if I don't have further maths? Do you reccomend I take up further maths AS during my gap year too? I phoned Warwick and Nottingham up and they said they have no preference (in fact I think Warwick don't like it, since they pump up their offer to A*AAA for those that do offer FM), although admission tutors have known to lie/say contradictory things over the phone and email....


I really need to be sure about having a great shot at these two unis, as they're the best I can apply for with my current grades and situation imo, and anything lower and I just won't be happy...so if I don't have a significant chance I'd rather apply for A&F at LSE/Warwick instead....

Thanks =)

Hi guys
Seriously considering economics as a possible degree choice. I just wanted to ask people to explain why they personally want to study economics.
Cheers

Hi guys
Seriously considering economics as a possible degree choice. I just wanted to ask people to explain why they personally want to study economics.
Cheers

Half the people will say: I want to become an investment banker