Cambridge Linguistics Students and Applicants

Offer of A*AA from Christ's!

Hi, I'm currently a year 12 working on AS Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry, Physics & German. The obvious choice for me would be to apply for NatSci, however, I absolutely love German! Of the 13 A*s @ GCSE (crazy huh!), two were in Latin and German. Latin was my definite favourite, but my college doesn't offer it at AS.

In short - has anyone come from a science background and if so, what sold Linguistics to you? Any help would be appreciated as I am very torn between the two disciplines!!


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What I really liked about linguistics was that it offered a nice balance between science and arts, and an opportunity to actually think for myself and form my own opinions, whereas natsci is more about learning facts.

Thanks for the reply, very helpful! Do you think NatSci is more or less intellectually challenging?

It also depends on how much work you want to do, natsci is VERY time-consuming. In first year you would have 12 lectures a week (including Saturdays), at least 4 supervisions a week, and also practicals. Whereas if you were to do linguistics you would only have 4 lectures a week and far fewer supervision (I think it's like 24 a term for the first 2 terms).

In short - has anyone come from a science background and if so, what sold Linguistics to you? Any help would be appreciated as I am very torn between the two disciplines!!

Hey, my A levels were Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Further Maths and I currently have an unconditional offer from Corpus. What I really liked about linguistics was that it offered a nice balance between science and arts, and an opportunity to actually think for myself and form my own opinions, whereas natsci is more about learning facts. It also depends on how much work you want to do, natsci is VERY time-consuming. In first year you would have 12 lectures a week (including Saturdays), at least 4 supervisions a week, and also practicals. Whereas if you were to do linguistics you would only have 4 lectures a week and far fewer supervision (I think it's like 24 a term for the first 2 terms).

Depends on what you want from your uni experience.

What does everyone know about the 'college tests', apparently at St. John's you have an hour long linguistics paper beforehand but I have no idea on what it would be. Also do you think Cambridge would accept A levels of A*A*B instead of A*AA?

From what I can remember (!!) of my test in 2012, I was given data from a made-up language and had to deduce its characteristics. Noticing patterns and noting what affixes could denote or agree with, for instance. There was plenty to say, actually.

St. John's isn't famous for taking lots of linguistics students, I must say- colleges like Selwyn and Newnham are much more likely to take up to three a year, and have better stocked college libraries too. Having said that, the pooling system is in place for that reason. I was summer pooled after missing my higher-than-typical A*AAA offer, as my original college didn't want to have two linguistics students. The college that took me then had three in total! I'd recommend perusing the application statistics page: http://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
Do you think you'll get A*A*B or have you already done your A levels? I think it would depend on the college whether that would matter (and on what you got each grade in, of course).

Well, everything's been thrown up in the air after AS level results day. I was expecting to get 200/200 ums in english, a medium A in history, and either a low A/high B in maths - which is why I was wondering about the A*A*B entry grades. However, on results day, I got a D in English (which can't be right as I got 144/150 in the mock and 77/150 in the exam, so hopefully a remark will sort it and it was just a case of mismarking), a low A in history, and a high A in maths (I did better than I had expected). And I think I would still apply to St John's as it's the sister college of my sixth form.

From what I can remember (!!) of my test in 2012, I was given data from a made-up language and had to deduce its characteristics. Noticing patterns and noting what affixes could denote or agree with, for instance. There was plenty to say, actually.

St. John's isn't famous for taking lots of linguistics students, I must say- colleges like Selwyn and Newnham are much more likely to take up to three a year, and have better stocked college libraries too. Having said that, the pooling system is in place for that reason. I was summer pooled after missing my higher-than-typical A*AAA offer, as my original college didn't want to have two linguistics students. The college that took me then had three in total! I'd recommend perusing the application statistics page: http://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
Do you think you'll get A*A*B or have you already done your A levels? I think it would depend on the college whether that would matter (and on what you got each grade in, of course).

Something really similar happened to me in English! I was 1 mark off an A in the mock and then somehow I got a C in the exam - the overall grade evened out to a B but I was still really disappointed Are you definitely applying to Cambridge for Linguistics? I really want to apply to Downing but I'm not entirely sure because of the test at the interview, but I'm going to do some research and see! How's your personal statement coming along? Have you thought about school/college essays yet?

I am still applying, but I've changed from St John's to Corpus Christi as I prefer it. I've finished the opener for my personal statement and I've read a couple of books + started a MOOC so I'm hoping I can finish the middle of it tomorrow (I've been at Newcastle open day all day). Also forgot to mention my predicted grades are A*AA as I'm resitting AS English, but I'm not sure about the essays yet (guess I'll cross that bridge if I get that far...)

I'm sure you will get far enough for the essays! Yeah, people have told me that lots of the other colleges really dislike St John's because it's a bit elitist and snobbish, so Corpus sounds like a much better idea! I was thinking of applying there too because of the drama facilities, but I thought Downing was prettier (really shallow, I know!) and better for Linguistics, so that's probably going to be the one for me! What MOOC are you doing? I tried the Open University one on corpus linguistics for a couple of weeks last year but I had literally no time to do any of the reading so I dropped it - but it may be worth giving one another go! What's Newcastle like? It isn't one of my options at the moment but Linguistics is supposed to be really good there! Where else are you thinking of applying?

I can't decide whether to drop English or not - keeping it means having to retake and a lot more work, but I don't know whether dropping it will make my application look worse or not. Think I'll give it another week and then make my mind up - and finding out my predicted grades this week will probably help!

Which books have you read? I've read some of The Language Instinct, which I know everyone reads so I'm going to have to find some other stuff, and loads of journal articles on language acquisition for my EPQ, so I'm hoping that'll be enough!

I completely understand about picking unis based on their looks, my parents called me a snob for not wanting to go to Lancaster as it didn't have a lot of character . I feel a bit guilty about my MOOC, it's on Corpus Linguistics too and it's run by Lancaster. I actually really liked Newcastle, it was a bit busy as there was a home match but not too bad, and the course looks quite fun. My other unis (at the moment) are York, Leeds, and Edinburgh - although I haven't been to the last two yet. I've read about 150/200 pages of the language instinct as it's almost a compulsory book, I've read most of Chomsky's 'syntactic structure' (I got my best grade in maths so I find it quite interesting although it's a tough read), I'm going to talk about the use of language in 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale with my English (i.e. ingsoc's attempt to exploit linguistic relativity), and I need a book about how English became the World's language. I've also got to talk about a Cambridge and Lancaster study on language for which I'm providing research so I hope that'll be enough.

Wow, that sounds really cool! I have Syntactic Structures as well, but I haven't got very far into it - hopefully the fact that the interviews are really close now will spur me into it! I did The Handmaid's Tale for my English coursework last year as my partner text to Tess of the d'Urbervilles! The linguistic relativity thing sounds really cool - and you can compare it with George Orwell's Newspeak and use what Pinker says about it in The Language Instinct! I'm applying to York and Edinburgh as well, and also UCL and either King's College London or Lancaster, I haven't quite made up my mind yet - though I know what you mean about Lancaster not having as much character. I went for a tour of the Edinburgh uni in the summer and it was quite nice, though I find the modular structure there really odd - I think you only have to do a couple of Linguistics modules in your first year and you can choose any module from any subject (History, Physics, Art - anything!) for the rest of them, so you don't have to specialise early but I think you also can't do just Linguistics if you want to! Are any of your teachers helping you prepare for your interview? Mine don't seem to know much about Linguistics at all...

Something really similar happened to me in English! I was 1 mark off an A in the mock and then somehow I got a C in the exam - the overall grade evened out to a B but I was still really disappointed Are you definitely applying to Cambridge for Linguistics? I really want to apply to Downing but I'm not entirely sure because of the test at the interview, but I'm going to do some research and see! How's your personal statement coming along? Have you thought about school/college essays yet?