Cambridge Natural Sciences SAQ

For the mini personal statement for Natural Sciences, would Cambridge like to see which modules you are likely to take in the first year, should you be successful?

Reply 1

RhynieChert

you don't need to - I just put that I was attracted to the course as I wanted to experience a new subject like earth sciences alongside physics, and actually also mentioned being interested in the second year history and philosophy of science course, but I know people here who left it blank and still got in so really put what you want - stating your interest in particular options isn't a terrible idea though by any means

Reply 2

R T

No, you can put it in there if you feel it adds something to your application. Most likely, it doesn't add anything. I don't think it's even unusual to leave the SAQ blank.

Same rules that apply to the personal statement apply to the SAQ and everything else: show; don't tell.

e.g. Don't say "I really like Chemistry" - because this is both meaningless and doesn't show it at all. (Anyone can write this). Instead write something that proves your passion/interest.

For the SAQ, I really don't see what spelling out your intended modules does. I suppose it means you read the website or some other information and thought for more than a minute about what modules you'd probably want to do. In reality this would probably be assumed by admissions tutors, particularly for a more unique course like NatSci. If the admissions tutors thought about the SAQ for more than a handful of seconds, they'd probably just reflect on that sentence as filler, rather than showing anything special about the applicant.

In my SAQ, I wrote just about parts of chemistry and Biology I found interesting (since my Personal statement was for physics) and about a small project I did in my free time related to them. But I'm pretty sure I never explicitly said "I want to do IA Chemistry".

Something good to put in the SAQ is basically something you have done which demonstrates your interest. e.g. building a home made rocket out of mints and diet coke (talk about the pressure and chemistry specifically though), optimising a paper airplane fold with a lot of iterations (talk about the Bernoulli effect, etc.), running a simple computing evolution simulation with (whatever easily downloadable library), doing the basic matrix math required for 3D models in games and graphics, or for proof of concept of a medical MRI machine. I remember a very stupid thing I did once with a tennis racket, some custard and a bike.

Non practical things are also completely fine, provided you actually know what you're talking about. So a few lines about your favourite chapter in a book, or (a bit more dangerous) talking about current research in a particular field of science (this is dangerous because there's a decent chance your future interviewer could be an expert, so I would heavily advise against giving the impression that you are an expert or even remotely competent in your understanding).