Official Cambridge 2020 Rejections & Deselected Applicants Thread

I got rejected from trinity to do maths.

I have been rejected from Mathematics at Trinity. I really cannot understand how; I very much believed that I had a reasonable chance of admission and should at least have been given an interview. Applying from the EU.

what were your statistics (grades)

Trying to convert my country's grades, I currently have a 95% weighted average grade-wise. Predicted grades for mathematics was included by my math teacher (who wrote the reference).
Have done my country's olympiad, where placed just outside the top 50 out of a 5-digit number participants. Have diploma confirming I was inside the top 150.

Feels surreal that I was not deemed to even have a chance.

which country are you from?

I got rejected from trinity to do maths.

Maths
predicted: A* A* A
GCSEs: maths 7, german 6, English 5, English lit 6, geography 7, double science 8-7, RE A, history 6.
I might take a gap year and reapply.

Obviously it is your choice, however, as a complete external, with no horse in the race, on the broad face of it, I would say you might be better off focussing on your other choices. Whilst Cambridge don't specifically look at GCSE grades, the profile of most students there would have a lot more 8/9s than you have and, certainly in Maths, would likely have 9s or 8s at GCSE, rather than a 7 (which would influence how likely achievable your predicted A level grades are). Don't rule out going to another university this year, yet, is all I am saying.

Maths
predicted: A* A* A
GCSEs: maths 7, german 6, English 5, English lit 6, geography 7, double science 8-7, RE A, history 6.
I might take a gap year and reapply.

If I achieve higher than expected would u recommend that I reapply?

No. I'd never recommend reapplying and wasting a year. Cambridge really isn't the be-all and end-all, even though it probably feels like it now.

If you were rejected without an interview, then it means there was no realistic chance of your being in the running for a place (cf Oxford's shortlisting process). Unless something really drastic changed in your application, you'd probably be wasting your time reapplying.

It's always a long shot to apply. If it doesn't pay off, then the best thing to do is go elsewhere.

If I achieve higher than expected would u recommend that I reapply?

This may sound bad, so I apologise.

I think you should consider other options, if you have been deselected from consideration. It sounds cliche, but Cambridge is not the be all and end all.

My advise is for you to apply to other unis like Imperial, UCL, Manchester, Durham and Warwick. If you are selected, you go there and you can always apply for postgrad at Cambridge.

If you still want to try next year, then I wish you nothing but the best of luck. Get some feedback on your application, focus on your A levels and make sure you can improve your app over the gap year.

All the best.

I suspect OP has already made choices and applied via UCAS, as their form would have had to be in early for the Cambridge application.

Honestly, probably not...It would be quite a jump if you did do better than expected (your predicted grades do look over high from your GCSE profile to me - were there extenuating circumstances eg were you ill when you took your GCSEs?) Assumably you have a range of other unis on your UCAS form and hopefully will get offers from them that you can choose from.