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

By new assessments do you mean the end of yr 12 exams? Or are there new entrance exams?

My thoughts/ suggestion on access: many people would talk of the 90+ average ums achieved by those who had successfully gained a place at Cam. When I was thinking of applying, this fact/rumour played on my mind (a lot) in yr 12. It motivated me to do as well as I could and I managed to score highly. It was something I didn't think I could do because 90+ sounded ridiculously hard to achieve when you're an outsider/do not know many people who have scored highly. But that worry should no longer affect the new yr 12's.

Now that ums is out of the window, access teams can push the message that strangely there may be one fewer hurdle to clear in the admissions process (I know, it should not be seen as a 'hurdle' ). This may boost applications from those who previously may not have applied. I don't think such a push will decrease the quality of applicants because the admissions team ought to trust the other indicators you have in place, namely interviews/admissions tests etc, will act as a proxy for the old ums indicator (not to mention the conditions of any offer made).

In my limited experience, college access teams are conscientious and they receive good backing from Fellows. So I have no doubt you will try to give as many good students a fair chance!

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.

Is it possible to transfer medical school and gain admission to the clinical school if you've attained a first over the pre-clinical years? My university doesn't award a pre-clinical degree as there is no compulsory intercalation after 2nd year so you go straight into clinical years (3-5). Reason I ask is I'm potentially thinking about the MB PhD route.

I'm thinking of intercalating after 3rd year anyway.

Additional info
Achieved 10A*s at GCSE
4As at AS
3A*s at A level at 94 UMS average

Hello

I am curious to know, as Cambridge have access to the STEP scripts, how is this taken into consideration when deciding who to take from candidates who narrowly missed the STEP offer. Does the quality of work get taken into account or is the number of questions attempted more of a factor. So, for example would a candidate be more likely to be accepted if when you saw their script they missed the grade due to a few silly mistakes but they answered 4 questions reasonable well than a candidate that attempted 6 questions partially and missed the grade by a few marks.

Hi, would you say it is significantly harder to get into trinity college cambridge for engineering than other colleges (I understand it doesnt effect the whole application to cambridge). Are students at trinity worked harder too as trinity has a significantly greater 1st %. Thanks

Trinity is one of the more popular colleges for Engineering (indeed, one of the more popular colleges in most subjects). As such, it gives fewer direct offers per place than some other colleges, though, as you recognise, this is mitigated by the Pool (in 2015 Trinity had 134 applicants and made 21 offers including one from the Pool, while a further 13 applicants to Trinity got places at other colleges in the Pool) but this rate of applicants to direct offers is not out of line with other popular colleges such as Churchill, Downing, Emma, King's, Pembroke, Queens' and John's.

Trinity's significantly greater proportion of firsts comes in one subject, Maths, where they massively outperform the rest of the colleges Because they take so many Mathematicians (c.20% of their intake, compared to c.5-10% in most colleges) and they do so well this gives them a huge advantage in the published (Tompkins) and unpublished (Baxter) league tables.

In other subjects Trinity's students do well, as one would expect given the number of applicants they receive, but not noticeably more so than many other colleges.

Trinity is one of the more popular colleges for Engineering (indeed, one of the more popular colleges in most subjects). As such, it gives fewer direct offers per place than some other colleges, though, as you recognise, this is mitigated by the Pool (in 2015 Trinity had 134 applicants and made 21 offers including one from the Pool, while a further 13 applicants to Trinity got places at other colleges in the Pool) but this rate of applicants to direct offers is not out of line with other popular colleges such as Churchill, Downing, Emma, King's, Pembroke, Queens' and John's.

Trinity's significantly greater proportion of firsts comes in one subject, Maths, where they massively outperform the rest of the colleges Because they take so many Mathematicians (c.20% of their intake, compared to c.5-10% in most colleges) and they do so well this gives them a huge advantage in the published (Tompkins) and unpublished (Baxter) league tables.

In other subjects Trinity's students do well, as one would expect given the number of applicants they receive, but not noticeably more so than many other colleges.

Trinity pooled this years Senior Wrangler 😂😂😂👍 to Churchill.


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Thank you for your reply. Does the amount of work vary across colleges or are the varying acedemic results based purely on a better quality of applicant.

post-interview?

Hello

I've applied to study MML at Emmanuel College, and naturally I'm absolutely petrified whenever I set my mind to results day! My offer is A*AA – were I to obtain A*A*B, with the A*s being in French and Spanish and the B in psychology, would I have much of a chance in the summer pool?

Thanks in advance!

Hello again, thanks for doing this thread!

I'm currently an offer holder, for Comp Sci w/Maths. I have a STEP requirement, but at the interview I was explicitely told that if I miss the STEP grades, but still hit my A level grades, I would be given a place for Comp Sci w/ something else.

My query is, so that I know what to do, if I happen to of missed my STEP requirement, but do hit the A level grades, will I have to do anything such as submitting UMS scores, or waiting any longer, or will my track update at the same time as everyone else? I only ask because I know I'll have to choose an alternative option if I didn't get grades good enough to do the Maths option, so I was therefore assuming track wouldn't update at the same time as others.

Any ideas?

Additionally, reckon there would be any chance I'd ever get to find out how I did on the CSAT? Ever since doing it I'd wondered how my score stacked up against averages etc

Thank you in advance!

Hello!

I'm an international student (EU citizen though) who would like to apply for medicine at Cambridge. I got my IGCSE results two days ago and they're 7A*s (sciences, maths, English Language included) 1A (English lit), and 2Bs. I'm one of the best in my school, but I don't know whether that would be taken into account during admissions.

I would like to choose Cambridge as I went there for an open day and fell in love with the city, let alone the university. The course is interesting too.
I will not be doing A-levels, but much rather IB. Am I a worthy applicant despite my IGCSEs?Does Cambridge distinguish between GCSEs and IGCSEs, or are they treated equally?

Also, would compensating for the Bs with quite a lot of volunteering at the Red Cross and a foster home, as well as ghosting of a surgeon, help?

And for my chances to be higher do I provide % for my HL subjects too?

Thank you very much in advance.