The Official Cambridge Winter Pool 2013 Thread (includes FAQ and Status Reports)

Anyway, screw this. We will still have a wonderful life!!

Minerva - do you know if any rejections have been made by Sidney Sussex thus far?

Mum just rang me at college with my rejection letter for Law (originally applied to Christ's).

I'm crushed. I know it's just a university and there are many other fantastic ones out there... But y'know, it's Cambridge. Guess I didn't realise how badly I actually wanted to go.

I haven't read through this thread so I don't know if anyone's been given an offer yet, but if so, my warmest congratulations to you

There hasn't been an offer around here for a few days now

Drowned by Downing for MML, am at school and my Dad called to tell me the letter had arrived. Oh well, I knew it was a long shot. Thank god for this thread, it's the only thing that's kept me going this past week! Good luck to everyone else, just hang in there You'll do fantastic wherever you end up!

What do they write in rejection letter? Any specific reason?

oh thats cool.. youre the first person ive seen whos definately reapplying. dyu thing your chances will be much better next year?

Glad it's helped. I just keep hoping that the people who run Cambridge admissions might read it and get some idea of what people are being put through - but maybe that's because I am an incurable optimist!

yep, that is correct.

I feel applying to Cambridge has been a waste of time now because I didn't really care about it before I applied but now I've had a taste of it, I want more and I'm tempted to apply again next year.

yeah, i'm pretty confident i'll have a better chance with my actual grades, i'm just going to work hard in making them above my current predicted. If i've got this far i refuse to fall at the first hurdle- i see uni as a starting block of a carrier, not just 3 years. So, at the age of 40, i'd rather look back and see i took a year out to go to one of the best universities i could possibly get in to, than went to a ''good' one, just to fit with the batch production process of school straight to uni, regardless of the uni on-wards and upwards!

Rejected by downing for mathematics. 98ums....

Genuinely wanted some advice, i have received offers from Warwick, Imperial, UCL, Durham.

If I was to sit STEP I,II and III in the summer and get something like 1,1,1.
Would it be advisable to reapply, like are my chances higher the next time around? If I was to reapply do they usually ask for STEP again? Or do they not because you've technically met the conditions? Does anybody know anyone who did this? Or have any experience with something like this?

Thanks a lot to everyone, and to Minerva. Good luck to those people who havnt heard


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I would be so up for helping you make this point to Cambridge. I can't imagine the state I'd be in if I were put in the pool! Absolutely awful way of dealing with things... can't they do it in the background like Oxford seems to?

The other thing that would be amazing is if everyone could log on to a website and get their decisions at the same time, across all colleges. The tension up to that point would be huge, but at least everyone finds out at the same time!

OK enough ranting. I recently got an exam result late by ten minutes and was screaming bloody murder, so for you all to be put through this is just awful

If a mischievous applicant ever want to put a spanner in the works... they should submit a Data Subject Request under the Data Protection Act just as the pool is going on, just so they Cambridge is put at a conundrum on what part of his pool file is requestable data and what is not, or before they had any chance of destroying interviewer notes.

If a mischievous applicant ever want to put a spanner in the works... they should submit a Data Subject Request under the Data Protection Act just as the pool is going on, just so they Cambridge is put at a conundrum on what part of his pool file is requestable data and what is not, or before they had any chance of destroying interviewer notes.

Commiserations. By all means take STEP; if you change your mind about Cambridge, you'll need it for Warwick and probably for the other universities you've applied to as well.

If you get 1, 1, 1, you'll almost certainly be sufficiently prepared for an interview and hence another offer. However, your offer will be conditional on STEP again, and will be S, 1 or S, S (and I believe that would be the case even if you got S, S, S).

We don't know whether this is university-wide policy, or whether its just isolated cases we know about. Farhan Hanif took a gap year, got an S, 1 offer and is now studying there now. Can't remember if he had taken STEP previously though.