The Big &#x27;Which Cambridge College?&#x27; Thread

cherrybomb92

alright no need for such a stern response. you know what i mean- more laid back!

We don't mean to be stern, but the thing is, wherever you go you're going to have a really academically intense experience. You'll have the same lectures of the same difficulty, have broadly the same amount of work, take the same exams of the same standard at the end of it. If you can define what you mean by "laid back" a bit more clearly it might help, but really, there are no colleges that you can just go to and concentrate on extracurriculars rather than work, and there are no colleges that won't mind if you don't do much work.

I know it's difficult because they all seem the same, but I'm not going to tell you one college is "softer" than all the others because it's simply not true.

Reply 1523

cherrybomb92

Of course I didn't mean I was looking for a college which wouldn't mind if I didn't do much work! I love my subjects and consequently love doing the work! However, it is known that there are colleges that are more academically strong than others- hence the Tompkins Table. I comprehend fully that all lectures would be of the same high standard and that no college would have easier exams than another. Maybe I'm not phrasing myself carefully enough, but by no means was I assuming that there would be a college that, overall, would be an easier ride than the others. I'm applying because I'm excited about the challenge!

Reply 1524

cherrybomb92

Of course I didn't mean I was looking for a college which wouldn't mind if I didn't do much work! I love my subjects and consequently love doing the work! However, it is known that there are colleges that are more academically strong than others- hence the Tompkins Table. I comprehend fully that all lectures would be of the same high standard and that no college would have easier exams than another. Maybe I'm not phrasing myself carefully enough, but by no means was I assuming that there would be a college that, overall, would be an easier ride than the others. I'm applying because I'm excited about the challenge!

Awesome, that's great. I mean, you can see the Tompkins Table; some colleges obviously do a bit better than others with their exam results. All I like to try and emphasise is not to try and make a tactical decision based on that; wherever you are, you'll be happy and challenged and the colleges are more similar than they are different. It doesn't necessarily follow that a college lower down the Tompkins table will have less pressure to do well. If anything, they'll want you to do well to push the college back up! But nobody's really that bothered about the Tompkins table...

Reply 1525

Good bloke

19

cherrybomb92

it is known that there are colleges that are more academically strong than others- hence the Tompkins Table.

If you think that this very arbitrary internal league table has any relevance for candidates making college choices or gives meaningful clues to quality, think again!

Reply 1526

Craghyrax

17

cherrybomb92

Of course I didn't mean I was looking for a college which wouldn't mind if I didn't do much work! I love my subjects and consequently love doing the work! However, it is known that there are colleges that are more academically strong than others- hence the Tompkins Table. I comprehend fully that all lectures would be of the same high standard and that no college would have easier exams than another. Maybe I'm not phrasing myself carefully enough, but by no means was I assuming that there would be a college that, overall, would be an easier ride than the others. I'm applying because I'm excited about the challenge!

The others are right to give you a stern response. If you want a 'laid back' experience, then I think you should rethink Cambridge, to be frank.
I think you're missing a crucial detail about Cambridge. The academic pressure that you're put under does not depend on the college you're in. While some colleges place academic pressure on all of their students over and above the pressure students face on their courses, this is usually much less significant and formative of your experience than the direct pressure you get from your supervisors and Director of Studies. And nobody can predict what sort you'll get. Within the same college a language student might have a dragon for a Director of Studies who starts hurling threats and insults if the person slips up at all or shows any sign of slacking, while a Maths student ends up with a DoS who has to be pestered to sign forms and generally forgets their students exist.
So you're looking at trying to calculate:
a) which subjects have a tendency for harsher more pressurised supervisors and DoSes (and here you're not going to get a reliable impression because for many subjects it completely changes according to the academic in question)
b) How nice the particular tutor in your college is - and again that's going to depend on the Tutor, not on the college.
c) What kind of DoS you end up with (again - can be any kind in any college)
d) how driven the people in your year on your course are
e) How many people on your course in your year end up at your college and whether these are slackers or hardworking. To give you an idea, while I consider the students in my college to be 'laid back', I managed to end up with 1) the girl who came top of the entire year for my course without lifting a finger (2) a guy who worked 8hrs each day, partied his socks off and waltzed into a first after first year, while I scraped a 2.1 working my butt off :dry:

So really - you're barking up the wrong tree trying to choose colleges on that basis. Having said that, at the risk of being neg-repped by the internet, you could choose the one college that self-labels itself as laid back. And that's Homerton. And I'd say that it would be the only college that could objectively be described as being 'an easier ride' grades-wise. However this is largely to do with the fact that Homerton has most of the University's Education students in it. The University controversially recently announced their intent to scrap Education as an undergrad course, claiming that they'd failed to attract students of the same quality as they were drawing in other subjects. I dislike this generalisation as much as I daresay Education students do. But even with the above information, if you're not planning to apply for Education at Homerton, then you can't bank on having a laid back student experience. Some of my best friends are at Homerton doing SPS (they claim that its very laid back) - however I can assure you that despite being in a 'laid back' college, they feel the academic pressure as much as the next person does because the standard is obviously the same, University wide, and their supervisors and DoSes are from a range of colleges (which is quite common)

Reply 1527

putscher

Hi, I'm a student applying for Arabic and Persian this fall. I'm an overseas student so a college that's accommodating towards international students would be great. At the moment, I'm leaning towards applying to a richer college (Trinity?) because they seem to be more generous in scholarships to international students, although I like the look of the two women's colleges too. Anyone know if Murray Edwards or Newnham are good for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (or if either are generous with money haha)?

Any advice?

Thanks!

Reply 1528

putscher

Hi, I'm a student applying for Arabic and Persian this fall. I'm an overseas student so a college that's accommodating towards international students would be great. At the moment, I'm leaning towards applying to a richer college (Trinity?) because they seem to be more generous in scholarships to international students, although I like the look of the two women's colleges too. Anyone know if Murray Edwards or Newnham are good for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (or if either are generous with money haha)?

Any advice?

Thanks!

Of Newnham and Murray Edwards, Newnham is right next to your faculty so would be great. I don't know about wealth, neither are known for being vastly wealthy but equally not particularly lacking in money. If you're choosing between those two I'd recommend Newnham for proximity, mainly, as your faculty will be literally across the road.

Also, grants you'll get for study abroad from AMES ought to come from your faculty - the college can 'top it up', but you should get something wherever you go.

Reply 1529

Bluebird93

i m planning to apply to cambridge but wat do these different colleges signify???
its sorta confusing....

Reply 1530

SelfishGiant

8

Bluebird93

i m planning to apply to cambridge but wat do these different colleges signify???
its sorta confusing....

They don't really signify anything, it's where you live, eat and get supervisions (one-on-one tuition with you DoS). Lectures etc. are all done in your department, however.

Reply 1531

Bluebird93

i m planning to apply to cambridge but wat do these different colleges signify???
its sorta confusing....

There are two sorts of university in the UK: campus universities and collegiate universities. Campus universities have all their resources, accommodation, lecture halls, sports facilities, libraries etc on one big site where almost everybody who studies there will live (except second and third years who will probably have to find privately-rented houses somewhere in the town). Most universities in the UK are like this... with the exception of the two most famous.

Oxford and Cambridge are collegiate universities, which means there is no one place that you can call "the university". Instead, all across the city of Cambridge you will find these kind of mini-campuses which were all built at different times (from the 1300s to the 1960s). Each one of these is a college. I, for example, go to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, which means I live and eat in the collection of buildings and land called Emmanuel College. I go to lectures at the Languages department provided by the University of Cambridge, as do people from all the other colleges.

Colleges are quite powerful; whether or not you get into the university will be decided by the admissions tutors at your college. You should think about your college choice carefully to make sure you will be happy there, but equally you shouldn't worry too much, as mostly everyone ends up happy where they are. If you really can't choose a college, you can make an Open Application which means you will be assigned randomly to a college which has spare places.

I hope that makes sense; give me a PM if you've still got questions. Good luck!

Reply 1532

timelordess

9

putscher

Hi, I'm a student applying for Arabic and Persian this fall. I'm an overseas student so a college that's accommodating towards international students would be great. At the moment, I'm leaning towards applying to a richer college (Trinity?) because they seem to be more generous in scholarships to international students, although I like the look of the two women's colleges too. Anyone know if Murray Edwards or Newnham are good for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (or if either are generous with money haha)?

Any advice?

Thanks!

Well as you can see I go to Newnham, and I have found it to be quite generous in terms of money considering that it is by no means one of the richest colleges. Any undergrad from any subject can apply for a travel grant once a year, apart from people who are on their Year Abroad. We also have generous book grants thanks to which I recovered about 40% of the cost of my books for this year. I believe there may also be a fund for AMES students- you might have to e-mail the College and ask. But yeah, like Melzor said you should be guaranteed some money from the faculty.

I can't say if Newnham is good for AMES or not as I don't study it but what I would say is that it generally has quite a small intake for AMES- as far as I know there are two fourth years, one second year and one first year. Murray Edwards has similar numbers of AMES people. Trinity on the other hand takes on average about 5 people each year according to statistics you can find on http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/statistics/. So you might want to consider whether you want to go to a college where there are a lot of people studying your subject, or a college where you'll be the only one studying your subject. The advantage of going to a college that takes a lot of people studying your subject is that you always have someone with whom to compare notes if you get stuck. However, my college wife is studying Japanese and I think she quite likes the fact that she's the only AMES person in our year because she has a more diverse group of friends in and out of college.

The location factor is quite a big one and it's actually partly why I applied to Newnham. You do save a lot of time being right across the road from the Faculty and it means that you have two libraries on your doorstep, the College one and your Faculty one. As for international students, Cambridge in general is very accommodating because we have lots of them so you needn't worry! :smile:

Sorry for the very long answer- I'm just following up some very good advice from Melzor and thought I would put my Newnham hat on to big up my own college! But ultimately the decision is up to you so good luck. :smile:

Reply 1533

twinsforever

cherrybomb92

.....

Like others have said you cant generalise on which colleges will have stricter DoSs' but just look through the prospectus and see what each college offers. You must have some preferences such as the amount they take for subject, how large the year group is, what extra facilities they have such as a gym or sporting grounds near. Or if you dont then you can make an open application. Also it may be relevant to see what subjects each college deems necessary/helpful as they can vary. I'm sure about your particular subject but for Maths, there was a slight difference in what the colleges wanted.

I personally looked through the Cambridge website and looked at the descriptions of each college to see what they offered and picked my college as it had the most of what I was looking for. I think that was quite a logical approach but you can narrow it down that way and then visit the university and you can tell which colleges you feel at home in and seem friendly to you. I picked my college from the list and only wanted to visit that one when I went to the university but I loved it so I didnt have to look anywhere else. It is a personal preference really but most people enjoy themselves wherever they go so I wouldnt spend too much time worrying about it!
I am only a mere offer-holder so I dont have first hand experience of Cambridge but that was my take on it.
Good Luck for next year.

Reply 1534

Hermione17

Which college is best for engineering?

Reply 1535

gethsemane342

11

Zuzia Bulu

Which college is best for engineering?

You get the same quality of education from every college :smile:

There may be one renowned for engineering (though i'm not sure there is) but that will give you an excedingly minute advantage if you get in. It's probably better to base your college choice on something else.

Reply 1536

Sockpirate

15

Zuzia Bulu

Which college is best for engineering?

You can't really say what college is 'best' for a subject - they're basically all the same.
However, you can decide on subject-related things, such as proximity to engineering department, or the number of people doing your subject per year (as this varies from college to college).

You'd be better off deciding what you want from your college (i.e. near centre? sports pitches near? quality and cost of accommodation?) and making decisions based on things like that :smile:

Reply 1537

Hermione17

gethsemane342

You get the same quality of education from every college :smile:

There may be one renowned for engineering (though i'm not sure there is) but that will give you an excedingly minute advantage if you get in. It's probably better to base your college choice on something else.

Thank you

Reply 1538

Hermione17

Sockpirate

You can't really say what college is 'best' for a subject - they're basically all the same.
However, you can decide on subject-related things, such as proximity to engineering department, or the number of people doing your subject per year (as this varies from college to college).

You'd be better off deciding what you want from your college (i.e. near centre? sports pitches near? quality and cost of accommodation?) and making decisions based on things like that :smile:

Thanks for your reply :smile:

Hmm, I've thought of other factors, too. What about scholarships and bursaries? Which college tends to give more financial support? I am an international student so it will be very expensive. I heard that Trinity is the richest one, but are they generous?

Reply 1539