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

Was drowned yesterday for Medicine at Sidney Sussex. Long time coming.
At least they didn't do it via UCAS track...

My daughter has received an open offer for vet medicine for 2013 entry. The letter stated it was a definite offer but she won't know the college until after A level results are out. Her results come out a month before as she is an IB student, she has to get 41 points, 776 at HL which is the equivalent of two A*'s and an A and AAA a SL and a full three marks for EE. This is a particularly hard offer. I wrote this just to confirm that it has been explained to us that it is a definite offer and she will go to one of seven listed colleges, but only if she achieves her offer grades and that she will be under the wing of an allocated college until she has finally been given a name. She has accepted the offer on UCAS. I was thrilled for her and was disappointed to see the negativity associated with the past 5 years statistics listed by another tsr member, you have definitely taken the shine off the offer.

Rejection for medicine by caius... So it's sayonara Cambridge. Nevertheless, thank you all especially to those who constantly motivate and to Minerva, who is ever so helpful. This will be my last post in TSR... Peace out!!!

Aaaaand there's my rejection, 18 days on. Seems to be a medical cull going on today. Feel stupid knowing that there were no open offers actually made in the end :/

Ah well, it's certainly been a journey, thanks to everyone on this thread, especially Minerva, who kept me sane. If I'm honest, this thread is the only reason I ever posted in TSR, and now that the journey's over this'll probably be my last post (Until I next encounter a bizarre pooling system in the future!)
Thanks again.

got my rejection - 18 days no correspondence and hear from track - **** off cambridge.

@Minerva,

I am pretty sad now. when I phoned Clare College yesterday, I was informed that my material is actually at another college which didn't give me a clear direct offer or rejection. I didn't have re-interview and applied to land economy rather than medic. It was really disappointing I must say!

When are Caius sending their letters to confirm offers for 2013 entries?

Rejection came via Track today. Not even a physically letter or email...

Lawl. I was re-reading my rejection letter and it was dated on the 2nd of December, so they knew I was rejected when they sent my pooling letter. Nice one, cambridge.

Then that other college needs to get organised and make its mind up. I'd ring the central admissions office (CAO - number on website) and ask them for help in sorting this out.

Can't say. If the offer is on Track, that's the formal bit so the letter doesn't matter, technically, but it would be good if they just got on with it!

Minerva, I am assuming that with the disappearance of AS (and the UMS) the whole admissions procedure will have to change for Cambridge and that might be quite a good moment for the University to reconsider admissions procedure overall.

I am sure you WERE actually pooled! I would hypothesise that the college just sent out ( re-used) a previous letter template that they had sent out to their first tranche of 'rejected' applicants and omitted to change date or format for the final letters for the returned poolees.The admin person may have felt these people could have the same letter since they knew they could not offer them a place and the situation hadn't changed. But if you have admin assistants of variable quality or actual decisionmaking power they may just feel the original letter 'will do' and needs no further personalisation to reflect the higher achievement of the pooled applicants. If it was a commercial direct marketing operation they would have loads of pre prepared letters marked o, p, q etc for all sorts of admissions scenarios - mainly because they wouldnt want to be offending customers!. The lack of thought and control comes down maybe to not having a very centralised procedure, therefore reactive behaviour and too much variation between colleges. Also no one at the top thinking sensitively about what all this means to the 'Cambridge brand image' or individual applicants self confidence and happiness.

(Yes - I do work in Marketing!)

Minerva, I am assuming that with the disappearance of AS (and the UMS) the whole admissions procedure will have to change for Cambridge and that might be quite a good moment for the University to reconsider admissions procedure overall.

Cambridge do have to deal with some exam systems that do not provide external exam results at the end of year 12 (eg the IB which has no equivalent of UMS) and for these they have to rely on school predictions and GCSEs, so it can be done, but I imagine it will make it even harder for them to pick out the excellent from the very good. I think the Oxford system, which makes all applicants sit entrance tests, would be useful.

Thanks for the reply
But cannot apply for finance etc until the offer is formalised though.
Am I missing something else here?
I am a parent and not a student . The offer has been made and the conditions have been met ( a* aa ) I am wondering when they get in touch formally that's all
Thanks again