Ask An(other) Admissions Tutor 25/07/2017-08/08/2017

Applying to, and being assessed by, the SLC is the easiest way to prove your eligibility for the Bursary, but that doesn't necessarily mean you then need to take out the funding available from Student Finance. There are, I think, other ways to demonstrate eligibility (and these are usually taken up by EU students - most UK students with a household income at the Cambridge Bursary qualifying level find they have little option other than to utilise Student Finance support), but you would need to check the detail of how to go about this with a College Admissions Office.

Sorry, I don't think I made my case clear. I am a UK student but my parents will pay the tuition fees and any accomodation costs so I wouldn't need to get involved with Student Finance. So, if I still meet the critera, can I still receive the bursary?

Sorry to be blunt but if your parents can afford to pay your tuition and maintenance why do you need to claim a bursary? A bursary that's intended for lower income households.

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LOL. I thought I'd get this response. It's complicated, but basically, if I AM from a lower income household but I don't apply to student finance am I still eligible for a bursary?

According to this...
http://www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/cambridgebursary/how-apply
...you do need to go through the process with SFE but you don't then have to take up the loans.



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Hi!

Is it possible for an offer holder who has met/exceeded all conditions of offer to switch membership to a different college before matriculation?

Hi everyone, I'm the Admissions Tutor at Christ's College, and I'm here to answer any questions you might have about applications or admissions to the University of Cambridge, or to Christ's College specifically, until August 08. So please fire away!

Hi,

I'm going into year 12 in September hoping to do biology, chemistry and maths at a-level. It's been my dream to do NatSci at Cambridge for a while now. I'm really enthusiastic about my subject and I do online courses about science, I've done a silver CREST award, I've started reading popular books around topics I'm interested in (mainly genetics) and I'm going to a science summer school in a couple of weeks. My predicted GCSE grades are all As and A*s and I'm prepared to do anything possible to try and get an offer. Other than working really hard for the next two years, is there anything you can suggest that could boost my application? I was also slightly worried about only planning on doing 3 as levels as when I've seen Cambridge applicant's qualifications they all seem to have 4 as levels. Will it make a difference to my application? I could do further maths as well but my school may not offer it this year due to a lack of interest and I'm worried it could bring my other grades down. Sorry this is a bit of a long message.

Thanks,
Jasmine

Hi Jasmine,

I'm guessing from your likely A-level combination and your interest in genetics that if you applied for Natural Sciences, you'd be aiming for the Biological Natural Sciences pathway, rather than the Physical Natural Sciences. In which case, A-level Maths alone is fine - you don't need Further Maths, and it's better to focus on three subjects and do well in them, than spreading yourself too thinly. Plenty of successful applicants are only doing three A-levels.

So the best advice I can give you is to keep doing all the kind of things you're doing already - online courses, reading and taster days/summer schools and enrichment activities like CREST are all really good ways to demonstrate your commitment to the subject

Given the comments about Churchill College and Law, is it a bad idea to apply to Churchill if you are hoping to study a humanity, such as HSPS?

Hi everyone, I'm the Admissions Tutor at Christ's College, and I'm here to answer any questions you might have about applications or admissions to the University of Cambridge, or to Christ's College specifically, until August 08. So please fire away!

Given the comments about Churchill College and Law, is it a bad idea to apply to Churchill if you are hoping to study a humanity, such as HSPS?

Hi again
I was wondering if it was worth asking for a predicted grade for Further Maths if I've only done one/six modules but have given evidence to my teachers that I'm worth of said grade.

Hi! Thank you for doing this thread.

I saw you said earlier in the thread that it is harder to catch up chemistry than biology (for bio natsci), so biology is not required. My question is, what significance does chemistry have in a bio natsci application? I find it a lot harder than my other A levels (bio, maths, FM) and will therefore most likely be predicted an A. Chemistry is in the NSAA but would it come up in interview?

Thanks

I just looked at St Edmund's College website (I'll be considered a mature student when applying), it said CompSci with maths will likely have an offer of STEP I. Is this an anomaly or the offer is a stringent grade 1 in STEP II and III across the university?

Sort of like Churchill recommending prospective law students to "strongly encourage" to take four A-levels?

I've just finished the first year of CompSci with Maths, and when I applied I found out that STEP offers for that varied quite a lot between colleges. Most of them want either 1,1 or 1,2 in II and III (although presumably many of the colleges that ask for 1,1 will sometimes let people in with 1,2 anyway since that is the case for Maths), but a couple wanted different things: one said they'd ask for 1,1 in I and II, another said they'd want a 1 in either II or III, and allegedly Trinity only wanted a 1 in STEP I (but that seems very odd). I'd email the admissions tutors of the colleges that don't put their requirements on their websites to ask what grades they will ask for and what their policy on letting people who fail STEP but meet the A-level part in anyway (probably for the non-maths option).

Hello,

American student here. When is it too late to think about Cambridge? Due to some personal issues, I only recently considered getting in, but I fear I may be too late. I will be a Senior in a decent public high school this upcoming fall, and I don't think my academics are going to be enough as hard as I'm trying to recover them. To reduce redundancy, I'll just link the thread I started with my specific AP/SAT scores:

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4864084&p=73054680#post73054680