Ask Peterhouse - 2017 entry

Hi i have a question but first i would like to give you guys a bit of background into my situation. As a singaporean, i will be enlisting in the National Service for 2 years this December and it will be full time. I want to apply to do mathematics in university hopefully at Cambridge/Oxford so i'm stuck in a bit of a dilemma. I do have the slight inclination to want to study at Cambridge as i feel like MAT is not really my thing and i would do better in STEP. That being said, i feel like since i will be in National Service i won't have the time to meet the standard STEP offers given by Cambridge. So i was just wondering, with my results

will i still be looking at a very standard 1,1 STEP offer? Does Cambridge always give out a STEP offer? What is the most lenient? Thank you so much for reading this and any help will be appreciated!!

Dear Peterhouse Admissions, my daughter is weighing up her options to study Music. She has just started Yr13 and is doing Music (Pre-U), German (A2) and English Lit (A2). Her 'data' so far includes:

GCSE - 3A*s & 7As - the A*s were in Music, Maths, German
AS - German, raw mark 176/200, i.e 88% (Speaking 53/60 and Reading/Writing/Listening 123/140)
Predicted A2 - Music - D2, German - A, English Lit. - A

She did her GCSEs at a decent local state school and her AS (and A2s to come) at a good private school in Cambridge.

In your experience, leaving aside interviews, tests, etc, how strong a candidate might she be in applying for the Music Tripos, in relation to what you normally see for these parameters?

Any viewpoints and advice would be gratefully received.

I have a couple questions about the SAQ (specifically the extra personal statement):

What makes a good SAQ personal statement? What things should and should not be included? How many characters do we get? Roughly what proportion of applicants choose not to complete it? And are you at any sort of disadvantage if you don't complete it?

I'm just wondering if it should be in the same kind of style as the main personal statement or if you're meant to take a different approach.

Thanks

Hello, I do not have gcse or anything before my AS level because all my exams were internal, would I be disadvantaged if I just left the UCAS form blank? Would a good AS score be enough? Thank you.

Hello Peterhouse,

I am an international student studying in the UK and planning to apply for Economics in Cambridge.

I did a full A-level mathematics (C1-4,S1,M1) and got UMS 98%, Economics UMS 93%, Chemistry 95%. I will be taking the whole Further Maths module, A2 Economics and Chemistry this year. My teachers said my UMS is sufficient for obtaining an interview, but I am rather worried.

This is because I am from China and my English is not too fluent (IELTS score 7.5) , as I do not think I will perform particularly well in the essay session of the Economics Admission Assessment and the interview (if I got one). It is always frustrating when I couldn't express myself in a second language. May I know how important is the admission assessment and the interview will count towards my application? Will I be at a huge disadvantaged concerning the language barriers?

Thank you very much for replying.

Hello,

I'm applying for English Literature.
For AS I studied English lit, History, Philosophy & Ethics, and Psychology.
I got 4As, with UMS in only Philosophy & Ethics where I got 93 in Philosophy and 100 in Ethics.
I dropped Psychology and received the predicted grades for the three I'm carrying on with, and I got A*A*A.
However, I did not get an A* prediction in English Lit, because of a huge lapse in marking where I got 60/60 on one paper but then 45/60 on the other.
Because my total mark's right on the grade boundary for an A I don't want to risk getting it marked down to a B just to get an A* prediction, but if an A prediction will be detrimental to my application, I think I might have to take the risk.
So basically- will an A prediction in English lit prove detrimental to my application?

Hello,

I'm looking to study Physics, so will be applying for Physical Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Just curious as to how strongly my ability in a second science (i.e. chemistry) is viewed? And also, whether I can choose to only be interviewed in physics and maths for the 2 interviews? Or will one of the interviews have to include chemistry? As I would likely perform much better with maths/physics interview questions then chemistry ones. Assuming one interview will involve chemistry, to what extent would a weaker performance there damage my chances of an offer (also assuming my maths and physics abilities are good enough)?

AS grades:
Maths - A (C1 - 93, C2 - 95, S1 - 100)
Physics - A (Raw mark = 110/160 ... 19 above A boundary)
Chemistry - A (Raw mark = 111/160 ... 8 above A boundary)
Biology - A (Raw mark = 94/160 ... 3 above A boundary)

(Would you suggest disclosing all my raw marks? Would they be considered good? i.e. will they advantage or disadvantage me? )

I've dropped Biology this year and picked up Further Maths AS. My predicted grades are A*A*A in Maths, Physics and Chemistry respectively. Again, would an A prediction for chemistry instead of an A* show that I can't hold a consistent standard across all the sciences?

Also, would an acceptable reason for not taking A2 further maths be that I wanted to study every science in year 12? Obviously I realised I needed to take up AS this year, and am doing an extra module (M3) above the 3 I need for the AS, in order to compensate.

Finally...
What kind of score would a strong competitive candidate with a good shot of getting an offer be achieving in the NSAA? I scored 50% in the sample paper which was released, but am assuming I'll need to improve on that if I want a good chance of receiving an offer?

Thanks
(and sorry for the amount of questions!)

Hi,

Just wondering if Cambridge try to balance gender numbers at all in deciding whom to accept? I.e. is someone applying for a course with a very skewed male:female ratio going to have slightly improved chance of getting an offer if they're in the minority? (For example, a girl applying for computer science.)

Thanks in advance!

Hi i have a question but first i would like to give you guys a bit of background into my situation. As a singaporean, i will be enlisting in the National Service for 2 years this December and it will be full time. I want to apply to do mathematics in university hopefully at Cambridge/Oxford so i'm stuck in a bit of a dilemma. I do have the slight inclination to want to study at Cambridge as i feel like MAT is not really my thing and i would do better in STEP. That being said, i feel like since i will be in National Service i won't have the time to meet the standard STEP offers given by Cambridge. So i was just wondering, with my resultswill i still be looking at a very standard 1,1 STEP offer? Does Cambridge always give out a STEP offer? What is the most lenient? Thank you so much for reading this and any help will be appreciated!!

The most important thing to remember with the SAQ statement is that it is optional. Most candidates leave it blank and this is fine, it's just there in case there's anything you want to add, particularly if the course you're applying for here is slightly different than your choices elsewhere (e.g. NatSci here and a single science elsewhere, ASNC here and something else at other universities etc.). We'd rather it was left blank than you put something irrelvant in there or repeated points from your UCAS PS. Don't talk about why you like the College, this isn't relevant or particularly interesting.

There is no disdvantage to leaving it blank, it is there as an opportunity to add information if you have anything relevant.

Hi there Peterhouse, another question.

A couple of pages back I mentioned that I got 98 UMS in one Politics exam but unfortunately got 66 UMS in the other. Well since then we got the script back and had a look at it, and my teachers agree that it was a well-written script that was marked very harshly. So we're going to send it for a remark. My only concern though is if despite it deserving a higher grade, they will refuse to change the marks due to the A-level remark reforms which came in this year which means that marks will not be changed unless there was a serious 'administrative error', not just the 'subjectivity' of examiners - even if they were marked very harshly the first time around.

It's very disappointing to have been given the short stick by examiners, so if the mark is not changed, would Peterhouse be willing to accept additional information explaining the situation by my teachers and their opinion on what the script should have got, and perhaps could I send Peterhouse a copy of my exam script for them to judge for themselves?

Many thanks

For a natsci applicant, would mentioning what streams I would like to do be worth doing? Also maybe a little bit about why you want to apply to the university?

Hi there Peterhouse, another question.

A couple of pages back I mentioned that I got 98 UMS in one Politics exam but unfortunately got 66 UMS in the other. Well since then we got the script back and had a look at it, and my teachers agree that it was a well-written script that was marked very harshly. So we're going to send it for a remark. My only concern though is if despite it deserving a higher grade, they will refuse to change the marks due to the A-level remark reforms which came in this year which means that marks will not be changed unless there was a serious 'administrative error', not just the 'subjectivity' of examiners - even if they were marked very harshly the first time around.

It's very disappointing to have been given the short stick by examiners, so if the mark is not changed, would Peterhouse be willing to accept additional information explaining the situation by my teachers and their opinion on what the script should have got, and perhaps could I send Peterhouse a copy of my exam script for them to judge for themselves?

Many thanks