Official Cambridge 2020 Postgraduate Applicants Thread

@TwoLimes @Kaylee Frye @Mariana47 @alpha pigeon @artisadoom Sorry if I missed anyone! There's a general English applicant thread for MA, MPhil and PhDs up and running over here: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6335924

Please do pop over and say hi, and maybe we'll stop clogging up this one quite so much while the degree committee mulls it over!

I was perusing the website for the department I applied to and came across a page that had the meeting dates for their degree committee and graduate studies committee. Their next meeting date listed isn't until late-February. Does this mean we shouldn't expect applications to move beyond departmental review until this committee meets? Or does anyone know if the degree committee discusses applications year round and these listed meeting dates concern existing PhD/MPhil students? Thanks!

Someone eventually tracks this down every year and it sets of a new wave of paranoia In theory, as well as other discussions, the Degree Committee meetings do make decisions about applications. However, by the time they've got back to the Depts and the Depts (who have the admin staff) sort out the files and send the straightforward ones to the GAO and get all the queries sorted etc, from the applicant point of view, there is often very little relevance to the date of the committee and more news. There are all sorts of reasons why you might not get a decision immediately after the DC date, but still get an offer eventually.

Ooh, mysterious - could I kindly ask which department? Xx

Same as happens at undergrad level. They make an over-offer int he expectation a large proportion of offers can't get the funding or choose to go elsewhere and a small proportion miss their grades. If they are left with spaces on the course, they they take the nearest near-miss cases. So in any case, get as close as you can and if you miss, keep your fingers crossed while they work out if there are spaces and if you are a nearest near-miss.

So Cambridge will very possibly rescind their offer if I got a 3.98, for instance?

I'm afraid so, the offer is conditional on you getting a 4.0. That's not an absolute though, if they have a space on the course because lots of people miss their offer grade, and you are the nearest near miss, they will probably confirm your offer anyway. The point is that they don't have to, and if there is no space on the course then they won't.

Is it the college or the department that makes those decisions? Thank you so much for your responses!

It's MMLL!
But as threeportdrift kindly pointed out, don't put too much stock into it!

Received conditional offer today. Hope this info helps, and best luck to all!

Current University: China top 20 university (BA in English, equivalent to UK First class Honours Degree)
Prospective Course: Mphil in Politics and International Studies
Submitted: Jan 7
Reviewed by Department: Jan 9
GAO: Jan 27 (directly moved to GAO)
Conditional Offer made: Jan 31

Got rejected for PhD Astronomy yesterday pre-interview... I'm not too disappointed about it tbh but thought I'd at least stand a chance for getting an interview (I'm doing a Master's at Cambridge now), maybe it's because my research area is too popular (the email they sent stated that some areas have 10+ applications per project/supervisor). Good news is that I'm still in contention for PhD Physics (interview coming up end of this week).

Received conditional offer today. Hope this info helps, and best luck to all!

Current University: China top 20 university (BA in English, equivalent to UK First class Honours Degree)
Prospective Course: Mphil in Politics and International Studies
Submitted: Jan 7
Reviewed by Department: Jan 9
GAO: Jan 27 (directly moved to GAO)
Conditional Offer made: Jan 31

Hi, I sincerely doubt that the department had 10 serious applicants per project/supervisor - this sounds like it could be partial information at best.

It's certainly a good sign that you're in standing for an interview for the second - best of luck with everything!

Congratulations! I'm a Chinese student, currently doing third year IR in the UK. I applied for MPhil in Sociology and my application status got to move to GAO this Wednesday. The result will probably come around next Tuesday. It's nice to see someone here who studies in China.

Prospective PhD in Biological Anthropology here - under the Archaeology Department. Submitted before the funding deadline (which is 7th January for the course) - status still 'Submitted'. Does anyone know how the Archaeology Department considers applications - am I looking at waiting until March, or has anyone experienced a faster turnaround?

I applied for an MPhil in the Arch dept in October and was under department review until yesterday when it jumped to GAO. I wouldn’t worry if your status in the portal doesn’t change—they may still be looking at your app. From what I’ve heard, status change depends on someone checking a box which doesn’t always get done.

If it's in the area of plasmas (disks) or exoplanets, it's actually quite likely that they had 10 applicants per spot! Acceptance rate is <10% overall I think, so easily lower for the most popular topics. There's a huge influx of people interested in exoplanets in particular since the Nobel Prize.