The Big 'Which Cambridge College?' Thread

I thought the pooling system thing worked until I heard of trinity college rejecting people with S, 1 grades in step while some other colleges accept people with like 2, 2...
I would definitely want to apply to trinity college but last thing I want is an SS offer and then not being able to make it

Go and look at the Offer holders threads from recent years - most Trinity offers were 1,1. A very few were S,1. No one will be rejected from Trinity with S,1.
Also the 2,2 acceptances are likely to be near miss 1,1s
So it turns out you do want to go Trinity not Tit Hall. Apply to Trinity.

I heard their interview is harder though and also someone from my school is applying there as well (for engineering I think and he got more a8s at gcse than me)

If they aren't also applying for Maths it makes no difference.
Apply to Trinity.

Considering it if all of these conditions are met:
UMS average is over 96% for maths and over 94% for physics
I get a 1 in STEP 1 this year...

because I know if I get anything less my chances are unrealistic and I would probably be better off applying to a college that not as nice as trinity but I have a more realistic chance of getting into rather than being pooled to somewhere I dont want to be.

As repeated by many already, your chance of 'getting in Cambridge' won't change which ever college you applied to. The whole purpose of pool system is there to ensure the University as a whole get the most capable applicants, no matter which college they applied to. From the early stage of admission process, all the colleges can see the field of all applicants, so if they think they can get better applicants from the pool, they'd reject the weaker applicants to their college and try to get the stronger ones who were rejected but put to pool by more oversubscribed colleges. They wouldn't settle with weaker applicants only because they happened to applied to them.

Considering it if all of these conditions are met:
UMS average is over 96% for maths and over 94% for physics
I get a 1 in STEP 1 this year...

because I know if I get anything less my chances are unrealistic and I would probably be better off applying to a college that not as nice as trinity but I have a more realistic chance of getting into rather than being pooled to somewhere I dont want to be.

As repeated by many already and many more times in the past in other threads, your chance of 'getting in Cambridge' won't change which ever college you applied to. The whole purpose of pool system is there to ensure the University as a whole get the most capable applicants, no matter which college they applied to. From the early stage of admission process, all the colleges can see the field of all applicants, so if they think they can get better applicants from the pool, they'd reject the weaker applicants to their college and try to get the stronger ones who were rejected but put to pool by more oversubscribed colleges. They wouldn't settle with weaker applicants only because they happened to applied to them.

Well, I think his point is that he doesn't want to get pooled to Girton. Or Homerton.

Don't try to play that game - for example last year there was a higher chance of being pooled away from Emma and John's than Trinity.

lol I can understand the fear , but I know someone who was pooled to Homerton and is very happy there now. At least they're not John's......

MATHEMATICS - 08bkcomp (A*A, 1 in STEP III)
MATHEMATICS - Cryptophage (A*A*, 1,1 in STEP II and III)
MATHEMATICS - tysonmaniac (A*A, S,1 in STEP II and III)
MATHEMATICS - Wild Cat (A*A*A, 1,1 in STEP II and III)

Even if that were true, I still don't want to get pooled and have to go to homerton or something. I rather settle for a college in the middle like fitz or something than have to go to homerton, though i would still prefer trinity over fitz.

secondly, yes there is a pooling system in place, but the extent to which the system actually works in making the best applicants get places is questionable. I feel like trinity college isn't pooling as many applicants as it maybe should be, making it even more risky. Also, their admissions test and interview is likely to be significantly harder than other colleges which may mean you score worse than some guy that did an easier an admissions test somewhere else..

hmm yeah okay... I don't see any SS offers, maybe they are for the gap year applicants. But girton's standard offer is 1, 2...

Incidentally, I know of one person who got pooled to Homerton too. Thing is, he was in the IMO team last year...

I thought the pooling system thing worked until I heard of trinity college rejecting people with S, 1 grades in step while some other colleges accept people with like 2, 2...
I would definitely want to apply to trinity college but last thing I want is an SS offer and then not being able to make it

Every year there're some people in this forum who're so keen to play the strategy game in deciding which college to choose, and every year they're told by many people who know the system better that it wouldn't work. You're just one of them, I'm afraid.

Where was he pooled from?
Has he started already or is he an offer holder?

Trinity, and he's an offer holder. Though the IMO stuff came after his interview.

The college give out a standard offer of 1,1. S grades are asked of gap year applicants most typically. I have never heard of someone with S,1 being rejected. I have heard of S,2 and/or S,3, but it is worth bearing in mind that we cannot see the respective scripts. The person with 2,2 who got in may have 3 perfect solutions in each paper, whereas the person with S,2 could have 6 3/4 solutions in one paper and a very borderline 2 in the other. Without taking the other data into consideration (Which the Maths faculty repeatedly state they do) it's not a fair comparison.

Also, devils advocate. If you are so sure Trinity is more respectable, then doesn't it also follow they will be popular in the pool and have a high chance of ending up in another college they rate highly anyway?

Mostly, don't try predict the pool. I have a friend who studied Engineering 1st year who was pooled from Girton to Pembroke, and Pembroke are at or around the top of the table for Engineering.