Downing College Medicine

Who's applying to Downing this year?
Based on this, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s9EBal4lzOyhnQLr2s9z4q1g4UZUz7IHvvXBNO8rqKY/edit#gid=547487583
4 out of the 6 medicine applicants are applying to downing. I feel like this doesn't bode well and may mean downing ends up being the caius of last year, where loads of applicants end up in the pool.

You can´t base this kind of assumption on 6 out over 1000 applicants for medicine. And anyway, even if you are pooled it´s still Cambridge

(I don't think you should bump a thread after just 4 hours...)

I've deleted the bump, sorry. And that's eactly my point. There's 5 or 6 medic applicants of which 4 are to downing. Plus, I really like downing, i don't know what to do.

You don't *do* anything. You've applied. It's done.

And it's by no means representative of the cohort, and even if it was it doesn't matter.

What do you mean by it not mattering? Surely, if (hypothetically) all 1000 ended up applying to downing, then they'd pick the top 15 or so, meaning the rest would end up at colleges they don't really like? Also, the number can surely only get larger?

What do you mean by it not mattering? Surely, if (hypothetically) all 1000 ended up applying to downing, then they'd pick the top 15 or so, meaning the rest would end up at colleges they don't really like? Also, the number can surely only get larger?

And I note one of those Downings is a deferred entry. So that's reduced your "competition" by a fifth in one fell swoop...

Edit: judging by the admissions stats I wouldn't be surprised if there was an increase in applicants to Downing this year but that doesn't mean everyone is equally good. Often the ones who play the "stats game" are the weaker applicants and they tend to get filtered out. A good candidate has nothing to worry about no matter which college they apply to. And a weaker applicant doesn't improve their chances either...


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What do you mean by the stats game? Surely John's should increase, but not downing? I understand your points, but surely if all the best candidates hypothetically applied to college X, then someone who really wanted to go to that college would miss out and end up at a college they don't like? I guess everyone may end up loving their college, but I would feel slightly sad if i did get an offer elsewhere (this is of course, a huge if).

The "stats game" takes many forms but one variant is to look at colleges with an apparently improving offer rate and apply there. Downing has had falling numbers of applicants in the past few years but maintained a consistent number of offers, so I wouldn't be surprised if this has been noticed and the "game players" have applied to Downing this year:



And the problem with your statement is it's not the "best" candidates that hypothetically do this. It's the weaker ones. And they aren't your competition.

Oh i understand your point, but haven't applications to cambridge dropped in general (from 1.5k to 1.2/1.3k). Therefore, this may simply be natural? Also, what evidence supports the notion that game players are weaker? i'm just feeling a little demoralised considering i know near 10 people applying there, despite there being only 16ish places.

Stronger applicants apply to the college they like, they don't consider playing "games".



This is what *might* happen at Downing this year.

Do you think Downing will mirror Caius then? Also how effective is the pool? We get told that the pool is placed to ensure fair accessibility but doesn't it depend on admissions tutors actively seeking out students? Doesn't that make a pool place slightly more risky? Also do you think it was jut chance that the no. of pool offers increased in 2017 for caius, when looking at 2013? The no. of applicants were roughly the same.

I honestly have no idea - but I wouldn't be surprised.

Approx 20% of all medicine offers come via the pool. It works well.

It's common for colleges to take better applicants from the pool than weaker direct applicants. Indeed it's not uncommon for some colleges to reject all direct applicants and just fish from the pool.

However, this is all entirely out of your control - there is literally no point worrying about it You've applied, now focus on the things you *can* influence...

For one there's pooling. And for two, there is quite literally nothing you can do. Almost everyone loves their college,no matter which one, and your objective is to get into Cambridge not a college.

Pay no attention to the numbers in that spreadsheet, it is absolutely not representative of the cohort.

what about St. John's?

Only true Johnians love John's...