Ask an Admissions Tutor IX, 4th August - 2nd September

It's certainly worth going for a remark if you are close. The college will honour your place if you meet the conditions by 31 August so go for a priority remark. If your remark comes in after 31 August the college might offer you a place this year or it might offer you a deferred place.

Hi there,
I have some quick questions. I am an international student planning to apply to Cambridge for the coming October. I've been living abroad for last 8-9 years but do I need any english proficiency test, such as TOEFL/IELTS?
This summer I took 5 AS courses, 3 of which were CIE Bio, Phy, Chem, and the two others were AQA maths and further maths. CIE AS results will be out in 4 days, but I am quite concerned. Although I was predicted for 5 A's for AS, I ruined one of my chem paper, which surely will cut off lots of marks. I was hoping for at least 90+ UMS for my chem, but I think my UMS will be somewhere in between 85 to 90 - surely not 90+.
I want to study chemical engineering at university and if my AS chem result happens to be lower than other subjects, is this going to put me in any disadvantageous position?
Thanks in advance.

Hello and thank you for your question. I think it is fair to say that we treat predictions with caution. Predictions are very often wrong and rarely on the upside. We tend to rely more on things that have happpened (in order of occurrance GCSEs, AS, Assessments, interviews etc.) rather than things that might happen. it doesn;t mean that we won't look at them but we treat them with caution.

Hello. Taking a Gap Year is not a problem and many students at Cambridge have done so. It's good that you will be doing some work related to the subject you wish to study. Some colleges are cautious about Maths students taking gap years but not all colleges gel this way & outside of Maths it is not a concern.

From your experience Which STEP paper correlates best with Trispos performance(maths) ?

Interesting - thank you for your reply.
So how much more competitive would an applicant be with an achieved score of 3/4A*s (A level) or 45 points (IB) etc?

Follow up question! Since English is my second language, I'll have to take the TOEFL to apply to the American universities I'm applying to. I've seen on the Cambridge site that the IELTS is mentioned quite a bit when it comes to English language requirements. Would it disadvantage me if I took the TOEFL instead of the IELTS?

Hi there,
Just wondering for the condition of the Summer Pool. Is it true that the offer holders are automatically placed in summer pool once they meet the standard condition?(i.e A*AA for Arts and A*A*A for Science subjects ) But once they did not meet the typical condition, the pool is done discretionary..?

Also, once placed in the pool, someone who achieved A*A*AA when the offer was A*A*A*A(ie missed offer) has a higher position than the person who obtained A*AB when the condition was A*AA(missed offer), especially for Art subjects? If not, does this suggest that although an applicant achieved much higher grades, there is a chance that the other applicant who obtained much lower grades can be accepted for the same course?

Many thanks

Hello and thanks for your questions. Yes, we will still be looking at UMS & PUM data very closely for students taking A levels in Wales & Northern Ireland or with CIE. There's no reason for us to stop using metrics that have been useful in the past just because they have been discontinued in England.

The vast majority of interviews will take place between 5 and 14 December so your CIE exams should be over by then. You can always tell your college dates you can't do and they will try to work around those.

Thank you so much for the reply - that clarified a lot for me! )Also, I read from somewhere else on this forum (perhaps another AT thread by Peterhouse??) that PUMS are treated differently to UMS since it is harder to gain top marks, and that a conversion factor had been created for this purpose. How does this conversion factor work?? Thank you once again for your help!

Hello everyone and welcome to a new Ask an Admissions Tutor thread, back for its fourth year.

I will be here for the next month to answer your questions about admissions to Cambridge, especially if you are planning to apply this year but also to help those already holding an offer for this year and waiting for your results.

Do please fire away and I'll answer them as well and as quickly as I can.

Hi, thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions!

I have two pressing ones:

1. For English in particular, do you frown upon people reading books solely for the application process, and so they can put it on their PS for the interview and can you see through someone who’s e.g. literally just read a play by Shakespeare because that’s what you’re looking for?

2. I want to apply for English, but I also really love Latin. Is there any way I can have the privilege to keep learning just my Latin, even if it is not officially recognised, with the Classics department or are we not allowed to do that?

I hope my questions were clear. Thank you very much !

Hello and thanks for your questions.

1) Well, I suppose that depends. If you love reading but chose to read those certain books because you thought that they would be helpful then I don't think that's a problem, although I'm not sure that English fellows would say that there are certain books you *have* to have read before applying. People's interest in literature is very diverse and should be so.

If, on the other hand, you read the books only because you wanted to get into Cambridge and not because you enjoyed reading for its own sake, then, even if you were successful, you would be unlikely to enjoy your time doing English.

At the interviews, we try to discern a candidate's enthusiasm for the subject as well as their aptitude for it. I'd be interested to know why a candidate chose to read a particular book or play but, perhaps more than that, I'd want to know how they had understood it.

2) You can attend lectures in Classics if you wish (you can attend lectures in any subject) but I don't think that there are any 'shared' papers between Classics and English, though I'm happy to be corrected on this. You can continue your Latin in the university language centre and would, of course, be able to discuss the impact of classical texts on English literature, both within the papers of the course and in any dissertations that you did.

Thank you for your quick response, and clarifying it for me ! I’m just not sure whether to mention the Latin thing on my PS, or keep it strictly English!

Thanks for your question. If you don't have your IELTS until 26th August then yes you might be at a slight disadvantage in the Summer Pool, were you to be there. A candidate who misses a A*AAA offer by getting 3 A*s and a B is unlikely not to get a place either in their original college or a new one through the Summer Pool. I'm afraid that the only way to have avoided this slight disadvantage is to have taken the IELTS exam earlier. The Summer Pool has to get done quickly because of the issue of Insurance offers.