What do you look for in a College?

Hi all,

Just a very general, open question. Call it market research! What is important to you prospective students when you are shortlisting Oxbridge Colleges? Location? Accommodation? Size? How do you find these things out?

Thanks all!

Reply 1

BankerBoi

8

gym facilities, distance from sports grounds or any other places where they do hobbies/activities you're interested in. Well for me, distance from the lectures would be the first thing I consider. And search online the different colleges, theres a summary page on here somewhere about all the Cambridge colleges

Reply 2

Doones

21

Original post by chrisidialu

gym facilities, distance from sports grounds or any other places where they do hobbies/activities you're interested in. Well for me, distance from the lectures would be the first thing I consider. And search online the different colleges, theres a summary page on here somewhere about all the Cambridge colleges

You did notice the OP is an Admissions Tutor at Peterhouse? :wink:

Reply 3

BankerBoi

8

Original post by jneill

You did notice the OP is an Admissions Tutor at Peterhouse? :wink:

yeah kinda realised that the second after i posted reply :colondollar:

Reply 4

The Warsmith

18

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

Hi all,

Just a very general, open question. Call it market research! What is important to you prospective students when you are shortlisting Oxbridge Colleges? Location? Accommodation? Size? How do you find these things out?

Thanks all!

1. Number of lawns
2. Number of gardens
3. Relative abundance of trees
4. Proximity to the botanic Garden and arboretum
5. Proximity to a river or lake
6. Number of flowerbeds
7. Everything else

Not even joking.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 5

Doones

21

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

Hi all,

Just a very general, open question. Call it market research! What is important to you prospective students when you are shortlisting Oxbridge Colleges? Location? Accommodation? Size? How do you find these things out?

Thanks all!

Factors my son considered:
* college opinion of gap year for subject
* offer rate for subject in recent years
* wealth - specifically assets/student
* Tompkins rank
* number of fellows in subject
* any specific entrance process/requirements (TSA (prefer not), STEP (ok))

Christ's for Engineering

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 6

Protoxylic

14

I considered:
Location relative to Cambridge market and lecture halls.
Accommodation; availability of en suite rooms, living cost etc.
Reputation of the College with certain fields I would be interested in specialising in.
Size of the college (Not too big nor small)
Notable Alumni and current fellows at the college.

Ended up choosing Caius for NatSci(Phys)

Reply 7

aersh8

14

1. Price of accommodation/ food
2. Availability of financial support
3. Admissions process (I preferred more interviews and tests so as to not put all the eggs in the same basket)
4. Gut feeling (I hadn't visited Cambridge before interviews but I still felt just from looking at descriptions online that I should apply to college X)
(in that order)

Edit to add: most of my "research" was looking at the college websites and TSR's college pros and cons list, since I was unable to visit in person. I consciously tried to not spend a lot of time choosing a college since I knew that chances were that I will be rejected or if I even got an offer pooled to a more undersubscribed college (and anyway any college is good and I didn't see a point in applying to an undersubscribed college if I liked another more because of the pooling system), so I didn't even look at pictures or the college's location since I knew this would make deciding much harder.

Posted from TSR Mobile

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 8

BioStudentx

16

For Cambridge it will be whichever college I think I have the greatest chance of getting accepted into. I'm sure most students agree but won't admit.

Reply 9

Anti-Dirac

2

For me the following things are of high importance:

Cost of accommodation and catering
Looks/buildings/gardens etc. (in general prefer the old colleges)
Reputation for teaching in my subject
Admissions process (number of and type of interviews, how BMAT is used and so on)
Proximity to main university buildings and lecture halls

Reply 10

username1162972

18

Friendliness.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 11

Serine Soul

18

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

Hi all,

Just a very general, open question. Call it market research! What is important to you prospective students when you are shortlisting Oxbridge Colleges? Location? Accommodation? Size? How do you find these things out?

Thanks all!

The first thing I'll decide on is the way a college looks :tongue:

Then I'll move onto the size of the college. I like the idea of a small college. I'll get that information by looking at college websites and articles on TSR.

And finally, I've been thinking about the location of the college. I want the college to be quite central and close to most faculties because I'd like it all be a walking distance away. I have been looking at maps in the prospectus and on websites for this :smile:

Reply 12

the.leyton

Original post by Protoxylic

I considered:
Location relative to Cambridge market and lecture halls.
Accommodation; availability of en suite rooms, living cost etc.
Reputation of the College with certain fields I would be interested in specialising in.
Size of the college (Not too big nor small)
Notable Alumni and current fellows at the college.

Ended up choosing Caius for NatSci(Phys)

Those are almost exactly what I was looking for in a college, but mostly the reputation and number of staff related to my course. Also, I couldn't miss the first year accommodation en suite and all the freshers in the same place (the Stephen Hawking building sounds like the right address for a scientist).

Chose Caius for Medicine

Reply 13

Doones

21

Original post by physicsmaths

Friendliness.

Good one, but how did you go about researching it?

Reply 14

Mini-Me

13

1) Location compared to Downing Site
2) accommodation and food costs (found on the prospectus website)
3) the TSR pros and cons list
4) remembering that it was one of the colleges I'd seen when visiting a friends sibling two years previously), and I hadn't disliked any I'd seen so it couldn't be too bad (I completely forgot all the names of the ones I had visited)
Ended up choosing Emma

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 15

Protoxylic

14

Original post by the.leyton

Those are almost exactly what I was looking for in a college, but mostly the reputation and number of staff related to my course. Also, I couldn't miss the first year accommodation en suite and all the freshers in the same place (the Stephen Hawking building sounds like the right address for a scientist).

Chose Caius for Medicine

Yup, when I went for my interview last year, I loved Harvey Court and it just felt right to be there. Fully en suite and the social aspect of being able to walk outside your room onto the roof-type structure and see your fellow freshers is amazing.

Reply 16

lukejoshjames

7

How close it is to the local Sainsbury's.

Reply 17

Goods

16

Original post by Peterhouse Admissions

Hi all,

Just a very general, open question. Call it market research! What is important to you prospective students when you are shortlisting Oxbridge Colleges? Location? Accommodation? Size? How do you find these things out?

Thanks all!

I applied to kings because I was told that college choice didn't matter. I went to a private school and ignored all advice I was given against my choice on the simple premise that if cambridge says it doesn't matter it shouldn't.

Since arriving at cambridge, although admittedly not at king's, I have seen huge evidence contrary to this idea.

Rents vary massively, room sizes, food prices, frequency and quality of hall, JCR budgets, availability of travel grants there are loads of small things, all the really important small things are completely ignored in much of the college literature.

I don't really care if a college is 'friendly' which seems to be the primary selling point of a lot of colleges because that's down to the intake of students and no self respective admissions tutor will be using friendliness as an admissions criteria. What would be nice is to know if you'll subsidise me playing university sport, if my supervisors will be PHD students (I prefer phd supervisions compared to academic staff) more knowledge of these sorts of things would have perhaps swayed me from applying to king's.

Crucially I think more emphasis should be put on how colleges are different as opposed to how they are the same.