Should I apply for Cambridge?

Hey guys,

I don't know what to think or to decide. I'm 17 years, living in Germany and I will enter my last year of school this September. Maths is really my subject of passion and I'm not sure whether Cambridge is right for me. I skipped two grades in maths and - if there's no unseen trouble - I'm going to finish my finals as the best student of the year. Our school system is different - I study about 14 subjects in my last two years of school, whereas in your A-levels you focuse on 3 or 4. Therefore, I'm just familiar with 5 - 10% of your maths syllabus at most. My plan is to take a gap year, using this time to travel and prepare for Cambridge and STEP. Although it seems twice as daunting as it might seem to you, I think with persistence, hard work and joy it is possible to do really well in STEP.

But still my big problem is: Only the best students attend Cambridge, and even if you are ranked in the last 10 % at your part IA finals you're still far better than anyone else at another Uni. But for me it seems, as a 3, 2.2 oder even a 2.1 is not sufficient when you're leaving Cambridge later on. Do employers know that you're still brillant with a 2.2 from Cambridge? I don't want to be there and have "bad" grades. Should I rather go to a different university (for example ETH Switzerland) ?

Thank you for your experiences and opinions!!!

Reply 1

Izzythestudent

I think going to cambridge is enough to show employers that you’re brilliant!
If its something you want to do then go for it. You miss every opportunity you don’t take

Reply 2

mateeash

As stated above, you don't lose out by applying and the reward is amazing, so I would definitely suggest you apply. But most of all, work hard and commit to your studies and you'll have many opportunities.

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

I know someone who got a 3rd in Cambridge maths and now works at a major oil and gas exploration company, so...I think it depends what you do with yourself and how you market yourself afterwards. Said person did several internships and industry focused research/programming projects during the course, which doubtless helped him market himself later on. Conversely I know someone else who did maths & CS at Oxford, got a 3rd, and ended up in a fairly generic sysadmin role in a regional office of a national business chain. However he didn't really...engage much in anything that might make him employable outside of the course, and just relied on the course itself to hopefully get him a job (which as you can see, didn't pan out), aside from a few personal programming projects he did.

Either way though, they both got jobs, neither of which was e.g. some random retail job. While one may not have gotten the job he may have hoped for coming out of Oxford, it was a good job for someone coming out of many other courses, and a stable and well paying enough role for him to carry on with his life. While Oxford and Cambridge are not a guaranteed ticket to a job these days, the course should (in theory) instill in you appropriate strategies to pick yourself up and deal with the unexpected if need be.

As far as your maths background, they will determine whether you have the appropriate background on application, and you should be able to see on their website what the requirements for German students (presumably doing Abitur) are. They won't take you if they feel from your background you wouldn't be able to do well in the course. Either way, simply applying doesn't obligate you to take up a place if you are made an offer, and you won't be made an offer if you don't apply, so as long as the application doesn't cause financial difficulty (notably, whether you may need to attend an interview in Cambridge, or if they can do a Skype/whatever interview instead), you don't lose anything by putting yourself in for consideration.

Reply 4

CompSciCat

Original post by wilderness_19

Just as a note to the only being familiar with 5 - 10% of the uk maths syllabus at most, idk what Bundesland you're from but for me being from bavaria I'd say it's more like 50% and that's only because we don't do further maths (so really we do most of a level maths excluding mechanics, but if you do physics you'll have covered that as well) (Cambridge wouldn't accept people from Germany otherwise for maths heavy subject, e.g in my case I have an offer for compsci)

and yeah step is hard af and quite different from school stuff, but in terms of catching up with A-Level content (especially considering you skipped grades in maths), it's not gonna take you more than a couple of weeks to catch up.

Should I apply for Cambridge?

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