Cambridge - MPhil Advanced Computer Science - Entry 2021

According to an email from Cambridge, there are three application rounds. The first round were given their decisions in January, I believe. They seem to be going through and giving the second round their decisions now. Applications in the third round are apparently reviewed in April. So it’ll likely depend on how recently you had your interview, and which round you fall under.

I had my interview over 2 months ago, and I am still waiting!

hi everyone, great to see all ACS applicants in one thread. i applied in December and had my interview in the beginning of January and still did not hear anything

Heya Salim, many of us have had a similar timeline to yours, but still no news. I was told that I was waitkisted but that’s all : (

I think that they won’t release any further decisions until all applications are reviewed.

Also, do you mind sharing your background/stats?

hi sfaradi, i am in my final year in manchester uni studying cs. what about you?
i did not receive any email about the waitlist but i assume that i am part of it as the portal says under review by department

Cambridge is annoying me.
If they don’t get back to me in 5 days I will withdraw my application and accept UCL’s offer.

Do they require a deposit? Cause if not, you can play it dirty and reject UCL if Cambridge offers you a place.

Also, what research group have you applied for? Cause I believe (my opinion) that the chances of getting an offer depends on it.

There are 8 research groups, two of them being "Natural Language and Information Processing Group" and "Artificial Intelligence Group". Many (as in many) of the people I have spoken to have applied to the NLP group, hence being a bit overcrowded. Cambridge cannot afford (in my opinion) to have 90% of students in one group and the other 10% scattered through the rest of the 7 groups. They need to make groups have a reasonable and well-distributed amount students. So if you applied for (lets say) the Security Group then I think (again, it's my logic, no one told me this) you have higher chances.

Let us know!

They did - and the deposit deadline is 1 Apr.
I applied for the NLP group as well.
Tbh UCL isn’t the best placed to do NLP, Edinburgh and Cambridge are probably better.

Arghhh, I feel you. Then it makes sense if you withdraw from Cambridge if the deadline is that close. Fingers crossed tho!

Also, did you apply to Edinburgh?

Cambridge is half the price of UCL so even if you just abandon the deposit and go to Cambridge you'll still be net positive over just going to UCL

Do you guys think there is any chance we will hear back soon? Considering that it's the Easter break, I am afraid nobody will hear back for a few weeks.

In case someone is reading this thread who is thinking to apply for 2022 entry, do yourself a favour and apply between October and early November. The waiting is dreadful after that, many of us are waiting for almost 4 months.

The offer rate last year was 35%. That's out of all the applicants. They don't release the number of people interviewed.

I'm hoping to apply to PhD programmes next year, and I'm already dreading the whole application process.