What is the hardest cambridge college to get into?

Clare is so very competitive, but if you do your research, for a couple of subjects (like mine, maths :smile:

* they're relatively low, around 2.2 per place. A huge advantage if you happen to want to do that subject.

Reply 4

Tina

7

whocares

What is the hardest cambridge college to get into?

Who gets the most number of applicants for the least number of places

i think it varies from year to year

Reply 5

http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/ugprospectus/applying/applying02e.html
shows the relative applicant-to-place averages over the years 1999-2001. That would indicate Kings, Clare and Emma being the more difficult to get into, whether they get the best applicants overall though is a different matter entirely. The Tompkins table might argue with that conjecture.

I'd tend to say Clare and Emma is fairly difficult, Kings is pretty tough, but so is Trinity, Jesus, Churchill and Christs.

Alaric.

Reply 6

Alaric

http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/ugprospectus/applying/applying02e.html
shows the relative applicant-to-place averages over the years 1999-2001. That would indicate Kings, Clare and Emma being the more difficult to get into, whether they get the best applicants overall though is a different matter entirely. The Tompkins table might argue with that conjecture.

I'd tend to say Clare and Emma is fairly difficult, Kings is pretty tough, but so is Trinity, Jesus, Churchill and Christs.

Alaric.

What subject do you do? Is your second name nightingale?

Reply 7

Bumblebee3

8

rah

last year queens' got the highest number of applicants, i don't know what happened this year

traditionally seen as hard are christs, clare, trinity, emmanuel, kings etc but i was talking to an admissions tutor from kings a while ago who said their numbers have been falling, kinda weird

Are you kidding? Christs has a really low number of applicants - possibly something to do with the tag 'suicide college'. I know someone who was pooled from Newnham to Christs.

Reply 8

fishpaste

What subject do you do?

I'm a compsci! Hence, dealing with the Clare Students' website etc
It was with great amusement (to them) that all my friends said that initially when introducing me to their new college children etc this year, as if it was some concise summation of who I am. Which was rather annoying as people tend to have a dim view of compscis (and sadly for you also mathmos for some reason!). Not that I could really escape from it anyway as I was giving the freshers' computing intro talk... which is compulsory attendance.

fishpaste

Is your second name nightingale?

It is indeed... it's even in the signature at the bottom of every post vvvvvv

Alaric.

Reply 9

Unregistered

Haz

Are you kidding? Christs has a really low number of applicants - possibly something to do with the tag 'suicide college'. I know someone who was pooled from Newnham to Christs.

really? i thought it was popular and academic? isn't it the EE college?

basically any college on the river is hard to get into

Reply 10

Bumblebee3

8

rah

really? i thought it was popular and academic? isn't it the EE college?

basically any college on the river is hard to get into

it is the EE college (about 1/3 offers) which seems to attract work aholics. There are a few sad/amusing stories about Christs students disappearing. After Newnham, New Hall and poor old Girton (which consistantly has the lowest number of applications) Christs had the lowest number of applications in 2002. I dated a compsci from Christs. Turned out to be a bit of a stalker but I should have known.... :wink:

Reply 11

Minta

5

Haz, do you know anything about the numbers applying to each college this year? I thought New Hall was really unpopular, but the admissions secretary said they were 'snowed under' this year. Sounds very odd to me!

Reply 12

covered farm wagon

11

i reckon that the statistics given out sway the applications for the next year. in the prospectus they said that new hall has less applications than other colleges for everything. so maybe lots of people applied there this year hoping it would be easier to get in.

i foolishly applied to emmanuel without sufficient research on how popular it is. i was about to write pembroke on the form but somehow emmanuel came out. i wish i hadn't done that, because i like to think that i might have not been pooled if i had applied somewhere less competitive. ah well, live and learn. i haven't heard anything from the pool yet - i do hope they haven't forgotton about me.

love emma
xxx

Reply 13

Minta

5

covered farm wa

i reckon that the statistics given out sway the applications for the next year. in the prospectus they said that new hall has less applications than other colleges for everything. so maybe lots of people applied there this year hoping it would be easier to get in.

i foolishly applied to emmanuel without sufficient research on how popular it is. i was about to write pembroke on the form but somehow emmanuel came out. i wish i hadn't done that, because i like to think that i might have not been pooled if i had applied somewhere less competitive. ah well, live and learn. i haven't heard anything from the pool yet - i do hope they haven't forgotton about me.

love emma
xxx

Good luck with your application Emma, and remember you can always try again next year! :smile:

Don't ever regret trying for Emmanuel - it might be very popular, but it was the college that you really wanted, and from my own experience applying to the college you want first time round helps you to be utterly scientific about college choice the next year, as you will not have got an offer from a girls'/less popular college and be thinking 'what if'

Reply 14

Alaric

I'm a compsci! Hence, dealing with the Clare Students' website etc
It was with great amusement (to them) that all my friends said that initially when introducing me to their new college children etc this year, as if it was some concise summation of who I am. Which was rather annoying as people tend to have a dim view of compscis (and sadly for you also mathmos for some reason!). Not that I could really escape from it anyway as I was giving the freshers' computing intro talk... which is compulsory attendance.

It is indeed... it's even in the signature at the bottom of every post vvvvvv

Alaric.

Let's face the facts, that dim view is probably justified most of the time =P

Anyway, to the point, I have a feeling I've met you. This might seem like the oddest thing, and you may well not remember me, you might not even be who I think you are. I was shadowing a guy called Andy Rendel around March last year, and he was maths and I wanted to do compsci, so he introduced us and you told me lots about the compsci course and applying whatsoever, you had the coolest titanium computer casing I'd ever seen in my life? Sound familiar, at all? So sorry if I've baffled a random stranger now.

Reply 15

fishpaste

Anyway, to the point, I have a feeling I've met you. This might seem like the oddest thing, and you may well not remember me, you might not even be who I think you are. I was shadowing a guy called Andy Rendel around March last year, and he was maths and I wanted to do compsci, so he introduced us and you told me lots about the compsci course and applying whatsoever, you had the coolest titanium computer casing I'd ever seen in my life? Sound familiar, at all? So sorry if I've baffled a random stranger now.

Yeah of course I remember you, I can't exactly picture what you look like as alas I don't quite have a photographic memory, but I certainly recall meeting you and would probably recognise you again. Did the doing half natsci in the first year make you change to maths in the end - or did you just think maths would be nicer? Are you not even trying maths with compsci?
You came and sat in my room for a while and Andy's phone went off and he didn't realise it was ringing and he had to be told that it wasn't my computer making the noise if I recall correctly. I also seem to recall I talked rather a lot, as I have the habit of doing on occasions, about whatever random stuff about applying that came into my head at the time.
I do have a rather nice shiny computer case, though it's aluminium not titanium, hopefully no one ever makes a titanium one because I'd probably buy it and it would probably take my entire student loan :tongue:

.
I'm missing having as nice a room as last year :frown:

. Although it is still a decent size, albeit without a seperate bedroom and ensuite.

Small world really!

Does Andy know that you've got an offer yet by the way?

Alaric.

Reply 16

covered farm wa

i reckon that the statistics given out sway the applications for the next year. in the prospectus they said that new hall has less applications than other colleges for everything. so maybe lots of people applied there this year hoping it would be easier to get in.

The statistics of the applicants-to-place ratios are the average of the years 1999-2001, so it'd be fairly silly to take that approach to applying.
Although there is undoubtedly variation, the extreme cases such as New Hall are going to be fairly accurate. There is the perhaps overly harsh view by some people in Cambridge that you'll find the intelligent women in mixed colleges and the ones who are just 'scraping' in at the female ones. Of course, everyone is fairly intelligent here though :wink:

Indeed if they did publish the annual results in the prospectus, a lot of colleges would probably oscillate, which would look very silly indeed. A lot of people are very keen on playing the system, one compsci I met during my interviews told me he'd applied to Clare because of them taking 10 compscis. To which I pointed out that the figure he was quoting was actually the average number over the three years, and they usually only take 3/4 a year. However, despite this, he still got a place and lives downstairs from me! The moral is probably playing the system will probably get you so far, but if you are good enough you'll probably get in anyway.

Alaric.

Reply 17

Alaric

Yeah of course I remember you, I can't exactly picture what you look like as alas I don't quite have a photographic memory, but I certainly recall meeting you and would probably recognise you again. Did the doing half natsci in the first year make you change to maths in the end - or did you just think maths would be nicer? Are you not even trying maths with compsci?
You came and sat in my room for a while and Andy's phone went off and he didn't realise it was ringing and he had to be told that it wasn't my computer making the noise if I recall correctly. I also seem to recall I talked rather a lot, as I have the habit of doing on occasions, about whatever random stuff about applying that came into my head at the time.
I do have a rather nice shiny computer case, though it's aluminium not titanium, hopefully no one ever makes a titanium one because I'd probably buy it and it would probably take my entire student loan :tongue:

.
I'm missing having as nice a room as last year :frown:

. Although it is still a decent size, albeit without a seperate bedroom and ensuite.

Small world really!

Does Andy know that you've got an offer yet by the way?

Alaric.

Amazing! Second accidental I-already-know-you-in-real-life-but-came-across-you-on-uklearning moment this week!

Yes I didn't feel up for natsci, as I wasn't taking physics at the time. Though after I found out they'd like to see physics whether I applied for Maths or Compsci, I took it up anyway, though it's not as easy as I thought.

I decided to do straight maths in the end because I realised I do enjoy it more, and although I'm not hugely gifted in it, it's something I'd want to do for 3 years. I do still want to work with computers in my career, I figure I'd like to work with ciphers etc, Turing style, and that maths would be an ideal route to that.

Hah, yes, I remember the incident with Andy's phone, apparently he wasn't used to owning one then. :P I was hoping you'd talk alot, I really didn't have too many ideas about Cambridge, or Clare, or applying. I don't think I even knew interviews had a technical aspect then, that's something you enlightened me to. At the time I was still trying to work out what got you a place, and talking to people like you helped greatly.

The fact that I assume anything smooth and shiny is titanium is probably why I shouldn't be a natsci, not even for 6 months =P Your room was great last year, that was hilarious how people could see into it at night and you'd have no idea. As I said though, I was pretty preoccupied with "wow, he has the coolest PC ever." and "ooh, the code book, in miniature form!" to notice your room.

I don't know if Andy knows, I did send him a quick email, though I don't know if it made it, or he's checked. Let him know if you see him around!

Very small world, hoping I make the offer now, so glad I already know a few people at Clare. Do you know what you'll be doing next year? Do you goto old court, IIRC? or somewhere else?

Alex.

Reply 18