Imperial College London Applicants 2018

Applied to computing and electronic and Information Engineering at Imperial.
Grades are somewhat esoteric since I'm from a different education system. I studied computer engineering at polytechnic and topped the class.
Did the SATs and Scored near perfect. Prepping for Cambridge ENGAA while doing the computing test and have an interview with Imperial engineering next week. Pretty tough period right now.

How you preparing for the engaa?

There isn't much resources online so I just practiced the Oxford PAT and used the I want to study engineering website

yeah Im doing the same thing.

How far are you through the PATs and the website?

I have completed pat papers up till 2011. Averaged at about 80 percent for math cos some questions are just plain painful to solve so I just skipped them. Also these kinds of questions are unlikely to be tested on the ENGAA. Physics i averaged at about 97 percent. The website I went through all the relevant parts before the interview so I will just have to revise before the test.

you had an interview? how did it go?

I have no idea how I did during the interview. The questions are supposed to be hard for normal students but they are easy for me and the interviewer didn't make extra effort to challenge me to assess my intellectual ability

In short he didn't look impressed because I didn't have the chance to show how I would perform under stress

Ahh, don't over think it you probably did amazing, I'm sure you will get an offer.

How where the questions? where they a level mechanics?

I have no idea what level they were as I come from a vocational institution. I did computer engineering prior to applying and had to communicate with the admission tutor at Wolfson at length to confirm my eligibility to even apply, let alone be accepted. I'm greatly disadvantaged by my course as physics isn't taught at all and math was taught at basic level so I had to self learn quite a bit. If I were to gauge the interview I would say it's so easy that if I were an interviewer I wouldn't even ask the interviewee. One particularly weird question that I surmise many wouldn't know the answer to is to sketch the graph of (sinx)/x when x approaches 0. I had to apply l'hospital rule to solve it. But since I know the approach to that question I wasn't challenged and thus the interviewer did not see me perform in an unfamiliar situation. That's what I'm weird about primarily.

Ahh, Would it not interect the y axis at 1? then decrease until a normal sin wave?

I Have done that one before as well, it definitely would shake some students.

In total how long was the interview and how many questions?

Yeah it's at one. I will differentiate both the numerator and denominator seperately to get cosx/1 and sub in x equals 0 to get 1. But I don't think A levels teach students this rule and hence I think the interviewer expects me to do it by some other fancy way. Do enlighten me on how to get this answer without using a table of values or a graphic calculator and without using lhospita rule. Also if there's another way is it universally applicable so that I can solve for other functions such as lnx/exp. Haha ok to your question. I'm an international so my interview duration is capped at half an hour. I got 7 questions in total and spent about 20 minutes answering the questions. The rest of the time I spent talking about my role in promoting smart nation in my home country

Yeah it's at one. I will differentiate both the numerator and denominator seperately to get cosx/1 and sub in x equals 0 to get 1. But I don't think A levels teach students this rule and hence I think the interviewer expects me to do it by some other fancy way. Do enlighten me on how to get this answer without using a table of values or a graphic calculator and without using lhospita rule. Also if there's another way is it universally applicable so that I can solve for other functions such as lnx/exp. Haha ok to your question. I'm an international so my interview duration is capped at half an hour. I got 7 questions in total and spent about 20 minutes answering the questions. The rest of the time I spent talking about my role in promoting smart nation in my home country

Ahh, Would it not interect the y axis at 1? then decrease until a normal sin wave?

I Have done that one before as well, it definitely would shake some students.

In total how long was the interview and how many questions?

For f(x) = sin(x) / x, f(0) is undefined. It doesn't intercept at 1.

I would state for small values of x, sin(x) is roughly equal to x, hence lim( sin(x) / x ) as x -> 0 = 1.

It wouldn't cross the y axis at 1 but would approach it both both the positive and negative direction. This can be shown by using the small angle approximation. you know for small values of x sin x is approximately equal to x

Hence limit as x tends to 0 of the function = x/x = 1

Just out of interest, would I stand a chance at Imperial? I’m in Year 12.

I’m interested in doing Medicine

GCSE
12A*

FSMQ
Maths B

A levels
Biology
Chemistry
Music
Maths

Your GCSEs are excellent so that will definitely be taken as a positive aspect. There maybe some questioning of your B in Maths though.