Ask Peterhouse - 2017 entry

OP

Original post by Reaver Daniels

I'm glad you asked this, as I am literally in exactly the same situation as you, but for economics. Remarking is atrocious this year. My teachers saw my script and said the marking was bad, so I sent it off for a remark and it went down an extra 1 mark as opposed to going up 3 marks to an A, as my teachers said it would due to the erroneous marking. The new regulations are awful in my opinion, and are very, very unfair. So this is a question that needs answering.

Additionally to this then, how much focus will Cambridge put on reformed AS grades? If predictions are immaculate, how will our grades themselves be assessed against those that didn't do them? Surely this doesn't even make us comparable. I am going to presume that the admissions tests will have significant weighting to put everyone on an even playing field??

Posted from TSR Mobile

Exam results are one indicator or an assessment of your ability and aptitude, not the totality of your ability and aptitude. We look at other indicators to make sense of you as an individual, what your strengths and weaknesses are, how these match to the Cambridge course, whether we think you'd suit our style of teachign and whetehr we thing you could flourish here.

Those other indicators are things like the personal statement, teachers' reference, predicted grades, interview performance, submitted written work, admission assessment scores, admission assessment essay etc. Where different pieces of evidence seem to disagree we will form a judgement on this.

Reply 321

Doones

21

Original post by 210555

Apologies for the intrusion. The two are very different courses , I suggest you think hard about what engineering degree you want. It would appear from what you say you are interested in biomedical engineering? So why the Meng? You maybe have a career in mind?
Your degree choice should come first. Again apologies for jumping in here.

No they aren't. OP can specialise into bioengineering at Cambridge, in the same way they can specialise into aero, or chemical, or...:

http://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/engineering
"The following specialisations are available within our Engineering course:
Aerospace and Aerothermal Engineering
Bioengineering
Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Electrical and Information Sciences
Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Information and Computer Engineering
Instrumentation and Control
Mechanical Engineering"

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 322

OP

Original post by gmahapatra

Hi Peterhouse,
I'm intending to apply for Economics, with the following grades:
A in AS maths (300/300)
A* in A2 maths (592/600)
A in AS physics
A in AS economics
I have a few questions:
Ought we disclose our raw marks for our papers in the reference?
How important will the ECAA be in reviewing our applications?
How are extenuating circumstances taken into account during the application process?
Thank you,
From Gautam.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Hi, thanks for asking. Which A levels are you taking this year?

Teachers can disclose raw marks in their reference (to be seen by all universities) or send them to us separately if they wish, if they think it is helpful. This is their decision to make and you are not required, expected or particularly encouraged to submit them.

The ECAA will be considered, as will any extenuating circumstances. Our assessment is holistic, considering everything in the proper context without weightings or sums or any consideration of only one piece of evidence in isolation at any point.

Reply 323

OP

Original post by Nobody213

Hi Peterhouse, thanks for doing this :smile:

Earlier this year I sat my Maths A-Level a year early (and got an A* ). However my school only cashed in my AS. This year I am sitting all my Further Maths modules. I know I can't mention my A-Level Maths modules on UCAS, however can I mention them on the SAQ without them being cashed in? If I don't, is it going to look weird that I only have an AS in Maths and not one in Further Maths when it seems like I am completing both at A-Level this year? It feels like a weird position to be in to have sat exams and done well in them, yet not be able to speak about them.

I might just be over thinking it, just wanted to know the perspective of admissions. Thanks :smile:

You should mention all results on the SAQ, whether or not they are cashed in.

Reply 324

OP

Original post by profileradian

Thank you for your reply!

As I didn't take the GCSEs last year so the only grades I have is the AS grades and UMS, I learnt that in this case I have to hand in my transcripts to Cambridge via the SAQ. However, I didn't get it from my previous school in China. All I have are the annual school report cards. Can I submit those instead of transcripts? Thanks

Hi, yes for us (at Peterhouse) we think that would it be fine to submit reports. Other Colleges might have a different perspective so check with them if you're not applying to Peterhouse.

Reply 325

OP

Original post by spico

Hi Peterhouse, thanks for the thread. I will be applying for engineering this year, however the other courses I will be applying for will be biomedical engineering courses. My question is whether having a personal statement tailored more towards biomedical engineering will affect my prospects of getting an interview?

Spoiler

This is another case where you should use the SAQ statement to talk about why you're excited to study our Engineering course with broader study at first before specialising later.

For candidates applying to more specialised Engineering courses elsewhere( bio, electrical, aeronautical etc.) we'd expect the UCAS PS to be focussed on this and the SAQ statement to talk about broader engineering interest.

Reply 326

OP

Original post by Reaver Daniels

How much do Cambridge look at the reformed AS levels? Surely if they're only looking at the grades for them and not the raw marks or UMS then they can't be as important? How will people who have taken them and got, in my case AABB (both Bs in reformed subjects) be compared to people who haven't taken them?

Surely this can't be compared?

Am I to take it that the pre-interview assessment will form the basis for comparison across the board??

Posted from TSR Mobile

Relax

. We will look at AS levels alongside everything else and we appreciate that exams can give unexpected results and aren't a perfect measure of your ability or potential.

As one quick example of their utility, we can look at the result in context and see how realistic we think your predictions are. If a candidate had AS results of BBDD, no extenuating circumstances and was at a reasonably good school, we could see that their teacher-predicted A*A*A* might be a bit of a stretch and we shouldn't really look at that too much. AABB achieved with A*AA predictions is perfectly reasonable though.

The pre-interview assessments will be one more piece of evidence and will only be considered in context and looked at alongside everything else we know. As another example, a candidate with an A in History AS who performs poorly on a source-response exercise in a pre-interview assessment is different to one who got a B in the same AS but wrote a very good response in the assessment and is different again to a candidate who did OK on the assessment but hasn't studied any history since GCSE.

Reply 327

fedoratipbot

7

Hiya Peterhouse. For candidates who've AS subjects with CIE, do the admissions people still look at individual module scores, or just the overall UMS/PUM for each subject?

Reply 328

OP

Original post by 210555

Apologies for the intrusion. The two are very different courses , I suggest you think hard about what engineering degree you want. It would appear from what you say you are interested in biomedical engineering? So why the Meng? You maybe have a career in mind?
Your degree choice should come first. Again apologies for jumping in here.

This is quite misleading. Bioengineering is part of our course. I appreciate that you want to help prospective students but answering without being in full possession of the facts can be quite damaging.

Can you or the mods please delete this post?

Reply 329

OP

Original post by fedoratipbot

Hiya Peterhouse. For candidates who've AS subjects with CIE, do the admissions people still look at individual module scores, or just the overall UMS/PUM for each subject?

For candidates with PUMS or UMS we will continue to loom at this on a module-by-module basis as we have done in the past.

Reply 330

OP

We just wanted to make a general point: forget the idea of a level field. This isn't a competition where those with the best grades win. There are no ties so we don't need tiebreaks

We are committed to widening participation within the constraints of our tariff level, which is a function of our broad, fast-moving academic courses. If we only cared about grades without context then the Unviersity would be a much less diverse and interesting place.

All of our applicants are unique individuals with their own thoughts, hopes, interests, strengths, weaknesses etc. The aim of Cambridge's assessment is to try the best we can to do justice to all of these aspects of you as a person and a scholar with the ultimate aim of trying to decide who would get the most out of our courses. This is why we collect so much information on you all and spend so long looking over it with so many sets of eyes before making any decision.

There's no level field because you're all different and we'll never forget that. Digging down into all of your stories is one of the best and most rewarding parts of working in Cambridge admisisons.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 331

gmahapatra

10

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

Hi, thanks for asking. Which A levels are you taking this year?

Teachers can disclose raw marks in their reference (to be seen by all universities) or send them to us separately if they wish, if they think it is helpful. This is their decision to make and you are not required, expected or particularly encouraged to submit them.

The ECAA will be considered, as will any extenuating circumstances. Our assessment is holistic, considering everything in the proper context without weightings or sums or any consideration of only one piece of evidence in isolation at any point.

I'm taking Economics, Further Maths, and Physics this year, given that I already have a standard Maths. :smile:

given that there's just one specimen paper, is there anything you can advise doing which is similar to the ECAA in preparation?

Reply 332

OP

Original post by gmahapatra

I'm taking Economics, Further Maths, and Physics this year, given that I already have a standard Maths. :smile:

given that there's just one specimen paper, is there anything you can advise doing which is similar to the ECAA in preparation?

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=67566902&postcount=309 :smile:

Reply 333

210555

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

This is quite misleading. Bioengineering is part of our course. I appreciate that you want to help prospective students but answering without being in full possession of the facts can be quite damaging.

Can you or the mods please delete this post?

Will do, Apologies

Reply 334

anonmouse221

Hello Peterhouse!

I would like to ask if requesting for a 2 year deferment makes my application less competitive relative to other applications, particularly for Computer Science.

Being a Singaporean male I would have to serve my 2 year national service and there would be a 2 year gap between the completion of my A levels and university.

Would this be a big problem?

Also I take 5 A levels, CIE Further Maths being self taught. Will I be given an offer based on my best 3 A level subjects or all 5 of them and am I expected to get straight As for all 5? (There are no A* grades in our Singaporean A levels) Assuming I get an offer for a place to study at Cambridge of course.

Reply 335

username1350010

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

Relax

. We will look at AS levels alongside everything else and we appreciate that exams can give unexpected results and aren't a perfect measure of your ability or potential.

As one quick example of their utility, we can look at the result in context and see how realistic we think your predictions are. If a candidate had AS results of BBDD, no extenuating circumstances and was at a reasonably good school, we could see that their teacher-predicted A*A*A* might be a bit of a stretch and we shouldn't really look at that too much. AABB achieved with A*AA predictions is perfectly reasonable though.

The pre-interview assessments will be one more piece of evidence and will only be considered in context and looked at alongside everything else we know. As another example, a candidate with an A in History AS who performs poorly on a source-response exercise in a pre-interview assessment is different to one who got a B in the same AS but wrote a very good response in the assessment and is different again to a candidate who did OK on the assessment but hasn't studied any history since GCSE.

Phew, ok, thank-you for putting my mind at ease. :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 336

OP

Original post by anonmouse221

Hello Peterhouse!

I would like to ask if requesting for a 2 year deferment makes my application less competitive relative to other applications, particularly for Computer Science.

Being a Singaporean male I would have to serve my 2 year national service and there would be a 2 year gap between the completion of my A levels and university.

Would this be a big problem?

Also I take 5 A levels, CIE Further Maths being self taught. Will I be given an offer based on my best 3 A level subjects or all 5 of them and am I expected to get straight As for all 5? (There are no A* grades in our Singaporean A levels) Assuming I get an offer for a place to study at Cambridge of course.

Hi thanks for asking. We do sometimes have concerns about deferrment for courses with a strong mathematical component (Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering) and these would be stronger for a two year deferral. However, provided you had good plans on how you would maintain your mathematical ability by regularly doing hard maths problems this needn't preclude a successful application.

Reply 337

Fbiemad

@Peterhouse Admissions,
1- For Economics applicants, if someone is doing A-Level Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Economics and a few extra AS levels, what will the offer be on?
For example: will it be A* in maths and then A*A in any of Further Maths or Physics or Economics (by the choice of the student)? Or will the offer be specified on only 3 subjects?

2- Is doing AS Computing and AS Psychology along side them benefit the Economics application in any way?

3- How important is the new pre-interview exam for someone who has already done their A-Levels? Are people on gap year with already achieved grades in advantage of getting an offer?

4- What is the point of view of admissions on average UMS of AS and A2 students? Basically, AS students will have higher "average UMS" compared to students who have already done their A2. So will this disadvantage the A2 students?

Thank you for the help!

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 338

OP