Ask the Admissions Teams - Results Day 2020

Whilst this information would be interesting a Cambridge application would only be 1 of 5 and applying post A level with 'Cambridge level' grades your son or daughter is likely to get unconditional offers from their other Unis. Therefore, even if the numbers are not available before October, reapplying to Cambridge is low risk.

Thank you for your diligence @Peterhouse Admissions - are you able to give any guidance to those who now have their required offer grades as a result of yesterdays' announcement. Is your understanding that they have now met their offer conditions and will therefore be able to take up a place, even if it needs to be in 2021 rather than this year?

I agree, but I may want to compare the numbers with Oxford before making my choice.

Indeed, the doubt in the process is why we didn't pursue it. There are a few other equally good universities, with equally rigorous courses and we decided not to put excessive faith in infallibility or quality of any one particular institution. Things can and do go wrong everywhere. That is life. :-)

I would completely agree in a normal year, but if e.g. places are reduced by 50% and you don't have a strong preference on either it could help to make an informed decision.

Numbers definitely won't be reduced by that much. Cambridge made about 4500 offers for 3500 places, so if all 1000 of the difference deferred to next year there would be 30% fewer places available. But:

We'd really recommend that you make your decision on the basis of the course content and structure, rather than which university you think you're more likely to get into.

As I understand it, it means we cannot admit everyone regardless of grades.

There are two reasons for this. One is, as given by the VC, space. This means space in accommodation (as a university where 99% of our undergraduates live in College-owned accommodation, this affects us more than others, including Oxford), lectures theatres, labs, the architecture studio, you name it. We also need to ensure that we are able to adequately support students academically and pastorally. We also have to think of the impacts this larger cohort has down the line - even if they all came in 2020 or were deferred to 2021, the pressure on rooms will not just be with us for this academic year, but for three or four years to come.

The other reason is that we want everyone who studies with us to do well. Every year, we have applicants who miss their conditional offer and go on to other excellent universities. Taking everyone, regardless of CAGs would mean admitting people we would not normally admit, on account of them missing their grades. There is a very real worry that these students may struggle if they were to come to us. (That's not to say all of them would struggle, or that everyone who gets their offer coasts through, but we have conditional offers for a reason). In particular, if we were to admit everyone in Maths, we would be taking twice as many students as usual. All offer holders have sat STEP this year (albeit in an online format rather than in person) and we were able to make decisions from that, something conveniently forgotten about in the discussions surrounding this topic. Were we to admit those students, not only would it put a huge pressure on the Maths course, but many of those students would find the course incredibly challenging and would be at risk of failing their first year exams. That would not be fair on them and as such would not be the right course of action to take.

I would agree that it probably also has the added meaning that not everyone will be permitted to defer should they wish to do so, but that has been our policy for several months now and, if Peterhouse is anything to go by, we have not seen anywhere near the volume of requests that was predicted.

As a parent of a reapplicant - will Cambridge be publishing the approximate number of expected places on each course before the UCAS deadline for early applicants? We are worried that there will be a lot less places for 2021 applicants

I agree, but I may want to compare the numbers with Oxford before making my choice.

Choose the course you prefer, not the admissions stats...


Speaking of which, which course is this for?

Hi @Rose1721 !

I work with schools and my daughter has just graduated out of a Cambridge college.

My colleagues and I always advise: choose the specific course first, not the University! The student has to work the course, not the place.

My daughter would never have applied to Oxford because the course there in her subject is so different.

Anyhow, good luck to your child and to your family!

By the way, which subject?

I wish your son every success. Not everyone will agree but it is the destination that matters. Have as much fun as possible on the journey but university is three years a career is lifelong, When we are 70 all we'll care about is our post university achievements, whether they be amazing partners, the joy of children, pursuits we've conquered or fulfilling careers we have enjoyed.

Deep sympathy with the admission team and volunteers. Just feel that it is utterly difficult to defend "fairness" of Cambridge's admission decision process, in this very special year.
I could hardly find an element of fairness, if the university decides to use obviously inflated grades (CAG %12 higher than past exam grades) to override the other components of assessment, e.g., interview, pre-interview test scores, personal statement, recommendation letter, ...
Friends of the admission team have been trying to comfort anxious students and parents in this thread, by reiterating that applications are always considered in a holistic manner. Let us say, offer holders A and B both missed the offers, but B is clearly better than A based on "holistic consideration", or even that B is a near miss and A is a wide miss. Last week, A was rejected outright and B was pooled and then rejected. Now with CAG being used to replace the moderated grades, A meets the condition but B does not, because the CAG of A is inflated more, for reasons that perhaps only A's school knows about.
This is a hypothetical example, obviously. What I am trying to say is that the university's decision of using CAG this way is really disappointing. I have followed this thread since it was started by the admission team, and have seen many posts emphasising fairness to offer holders (and adjustment qualifiers), and the core value of holistic admission decision. Blanket adoption of CAG simply says that the university does not truly value the system that she proudly presented to people.
I hope that the admission team would be more cautious in the future when claiming fairness and holistic admission.

Deep sympathy with the admission team and volunteers. Just feel that it is utterly difficult to defend "fairness" of Cambridge's admission decision process, in this very special year.
I could hardly find an element of fairness, if the university decides to use obviously inflated grades (CAG  higher than past exam grades) to override the other components of assessment, e.g., interview, pre-interview test scores, personal statement, recommendation letter, ...
Friends of the admission team have been trying to comfort anxious students and parents in this thread, by reiterating that applications are always considered in a holistic manner. Let us say, offer holders A and B both missed the offers, but B is clearly better than A based on "holistic consideration", or even that B is a near miss and A is a wide miss. Last week, A was rejected outright and B was pooled and then rejected. Now with CAG being used to replace the moderated grades, A meets the condition but B does not, because the CAG of A is inflated more, for reasons that perhaps only A's school knows about.
This is a hypothetical example, obviously. What I am trying to say is that the university's decision of using CAG this way is really disappointing. I have followed this thread since it was started by the admission team, and have seen many posts emphasising fairness to offer holders (and adjustment qualifiers), and the core value of holistic admission decision. Blanket adoption of CAG simply says that the university does not truly value the system that she proudly presented to people.
I hope that the admission team would be more cautious in the future when claiming fairness and holistic admission.