Hi
I felt like I should reply - I did my master's in Cambridge (at a standard age "unpopular" college, which is really an outsider's perspective on it because, as has been said before, the people there end up loving their colleges anyway and more often than not, it's people from central colleges being annoyed at tourists rather than people from newer colleges being annoyed about being 300 m further away from whatever or having buildings where the heating actually works... but oh well I get that you may feel like that). What I wanted to say is that some of my friends were from Lucy and they loved it (even though none of them originally applied there and they were all in their 20ies!). Lucy has some of the best bops (-> parties) in Cambridge, with people from many different colleges going there - honestly, there are just as many men around at the bops as women (and in general, it's just college members who are female but all your teaching etc will be mixed, all the university wide societies are, ...). Lucy is really supportive, has nice gardens, is not too far out of the centre (plus close to Aldi which is reaaaaally convenient. It doesn't have tourists visiting and you *will* come to appreciate this when in Cambridge. Also, they have a nice community with the other mature colleges (particularly St Eddies and Wolfson, as Hugh's is quite far away) and people there usually are in their 20ies too. Another plus side is that you'll meet people doing the same subject as you in classes and supos anyway, so you really don't lose out on anything by spending time with people studying other things than you do in college but rather have the chance of getting to know more people overall. An extra benefit of mature colleges is that all the postgrads can actually offer so much help in terms of subject specific knowledge and research skills (in an informal way because they're your friends and not your supervisors haha). And really, mature colleges are the only ones where I know that people were friends across the grad/undergrad line. Please, please, please don't make the college you got pooled to change your decision about Cambridge. (If you don't like the course, that's something different, of course!) But Lucy is lovely and so is Cambridge.
Feel free to message me if you'd like to talk about it!
EDIT: Also congrats on getting an offer, that's amazing and you can be very proud. And like, I completely get the gap year issues, I just wanted to say that discarding colleges based on being single-sex, mature, new, far out, not your favourite style of architecture, whatever really ... is absolutely understandable, but all those things don't matter once you're in Cambridge (please believe me! I've been there :b ) and I think it's better to decide based upon the course, the city, and the gap year issue
there's no right or wrong decision - I've never been to Edinburgh but it's also a great uni and surely a nice city - but please don't make your decision based on aspects that the vast majority of Cambridge students wouldn't say matter. And many of them have been in your position. Lots of strength making that decision!! I'm sure you'll find your way