Hello Peterhouse!
Firstly, thank you so very much for doing this! It's greatly appreciated by hundreds of worried Camb applicants, myself included.I have a couple of questions about the SAQ, interviews and that sort of thing; I'm sorry if it comes across presumptuous asking about dates of interviews as I've only just finished my personal statement!
On my PS I've only mentioned 2 well known books for Linguistics and evaluated them - would that place me at a disadvantage instead of mentioning one of the more off-piste books I've enjoyed? If not, could I mention the other books in the 1,200 SAQ slot, or do Camb prefer hearing about other things in the second mini PS? I was just planning on taking all the analysis of books that I couldn't fit in the 4,000 PS and putting it in the shortened one, unless there are other Camb specific things it's worthwhile to include?
Another question is about marks in the reference - at AS I think I performed quite highly in terms of raw marks not UMS: History (44/50 and 48/50 raw marks), English Lit (59/60 and 60/60 raw), English Lang (53/70 but 70/70 so high A overall) and Class Civ (91/100 and 98/100 UMS) so 4 decent As with predictions of 2-3A*s (I also got 10A*s at GCSE). However, since the school say that the reference has limited space, would it look like I have something to hide if my reference just mentioned good marks in Lit overall and full marks in the second Lang paper? Or is it worth declaring them all? I only ask because I was overjoyed with the marks and then have seen everyone with 100 UMS which is a little off-putting!
With interviews, I know they are mid-December and I've heard that you can put down dates you can't make if there are serious reasons why not. I'm the lead in the school play this year which I got back in July, and the performances are, you guessed it, mid-December: 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th. Would it be silly putting those down as dates I can't do? Or, if I got an interview (which would be amazing!), what time would it roughly finish - midday, afternoon or evening?
Final question: why are you called Peterhouse and not Peterhouse College? It's something that's always intrigued me!
Thank you so much, sorry for the length!