Does being good looking help your chances?

Yeah but its not like its to the extent of 'Ugly people need not apply! We have had too many sexually appealing applications this academic year!'

It's human nature to assume Cambridge will be full of ugly people - in the same sense it's human nature to assume that the back stage of a fashion show will be full of stupid people. We try and compensate for an individuals asset with some form of defect (models are stupid, cambridge geeks are ugly, scientists are socially inept, art students can't count, etc).

If there were two similar applicants and one of them was gorgeous would that one stand a better chance?

Given that interviewers discuss candidates with each other, and at least one is often female, (out of the four or more interviewers) I would imagine that physical attraction plays very little part

Ain't that the truth.

Being good-looking is obviously going to be an advantage, especially if you're a girl and your interviewers are male. Contrary to what you may believe, even professors of mathematics at Cambridge have a libido. The magnitude of that advantage is debatable. I'd argue that it's small, but nonzero.

Off topic, there seem to be a HUGE number of stunners at Cambridge, but unfortunately many of them are of the appearance-obsessed socialite types. Perhaps that's WHY they look so good all the time! Obviously this is good if you're the kind of guy for whom it's all about who you know, rather than what you know, but people like me would tend to lose out - because I'm not interested in sailing, I despise Margaret Thatcher, I don't shop at Jack Wills and I refuse to wear my collar up.

Ah well, I already have a hot girlfriend. Watch me care.

[Pet anecdote] When I had a mock interview with an Oxford biochemistry tutor she said that she looked for people who weren't that charismatic or sociable because they were less likely to get distracted and would spend more time in the lab.

They told him. He was there while they were making the decisions.

[Pet anecdote] When I had a mock interview with an Oxford biochemistry tutor she said that she looked for people who weren't that charismatic or sociable because they were less likely to get distracted and would spend more time in the lab.

I guess you could extrapolate that to looks.

My brother (who's a student there) was sitting in one of the interviews last winter at Exeter college. Apparently this girl came in, answered all the questions badly but they ended up letting her in because she was attractive. Says a lot.