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applying to Trinity for Maths is the hardest task a schoolchild can set themselves in this country. There is no shame in being rejected without an interview.
It is the equivalent of the SAS in the Army.
Original post by username1939826
The application process at Cambridge is holistic, they take all aspects of the application into account and not just one can let you down.

Okay so many people on here have told you it’s because of the 8 in maths. It is the 8 in maths. When they look at the wider context of your GCSEs it would still be the 8 in your maths. You haven’t sat your a levels so it’s the only maths exam you have actually sat. It’s probably not an error seriously listen to everyone on here. Speaking to people who had offers for maths, it’s the 8, it’s actually really quite obvious and it’s a shame your school haven’t told you this.
Original post by username1939826
I will be asking in January for feedback so that I can improve my application based off what they suggest should I apply again next year.


Some colleges don't like Maths reapplicants. Honestly, as someone who was rejected from Oxbridge for UG, and is here now for postgrad, I'd take another university offer rather than delay your life on the off chance that you might get in next year. Statistically, they don't seem to like Maths students who take gap years anyway.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by Edminzodo
Some colleges don't like Maths reapplicants. Honestly, as someone who was rejected from Oxbridge for UG, and is here now for postgrad, I'd take another university offer rather than delay your life on the off chance that you might get in next year. Statistically, they don't seem to like Maths students who take gap years anyway.

This is a great point, there's a table somewhere of each college's views on gap years for maths, so you would have to keep that in mind while picking, and make sure you do something really worthwhile in the time out and really prove you're keeping the maths up.
Hello all, thank you for your kind advice regarding reapplication. After reconsideration with additional evidence, I have just been offered an interview by Trinity. I will not be checking this forum any more, but I recommend that anyone who really thinks they deserve a place at Cambridge explores all avenues before giving up.
;

Original post by username1939826
Hello all, thank you for your kind advice regarding reapplication. After reconsideration with additional evidence, I have just been offered an interview by Trinity. I will not be checking this forum any more, but I recommend that anyone who really thinks they deserve a place at Cambridge explores all avenues before giving up.

Well done! This is brilliant news.
Congrats, that's excellent news!!!!!:biggrin:
Original post by username1939826
Hello all, thank you for your kind advice regarding reapplication. After reconsideration with additional evidence, I have just been offered an interview by Trinity. I will not be checking this forum any more, but I recommend that anyone who really thinks they deserve a place at Cambridge explores all avenues before giving up.

Terrific news. If you do return to the thread at any point, could I ask whether the additional evidence was academic or mitigating circumstances or somesuch? It may help people in a similar position in the future.
Original post by username1939826
Hello all, thank you for your kind advice regarding reapplication. After reconsideration with additional evidence, I have just been offered an interview by Trinity. I will not be checking this forum any more, but I recommend that anyone who really thinks they deserve a place at Cambridge explores all avenues before giving up.


Great news! All the best with your interview!
I got rejected pre interview with 10A*s predicted A*A*A and I’d say good PS and references. I know it sucks, especially when you believe you have a high chance of at least getting an interview, and you don’t understand what you did wrong. Idk if it really is a ‘private schools get priority’ sort of thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was despite Oxbridge claiming that they take a significant proportion of state school students. I applied for science at oxford. I’ve sort of got over it, I think I 100% will if I get an offer from my 5th uni as it’s my first choice.

It’s crap, but we need to show them what they missed by not giving us a chance x

(Sorry this rly doesn’t answer to question at all I just realised!)
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by username1939826
Hello all, thank you for your kind advice regarding reapplication. After reconsideration with additional evidence, I have just been offered an interview by Trinity. I will not be checking this forum any more, but I recommend that anyone who really thinks they deserve a place at Cambridge explores all avenues before giving up.

The fact that you won’t be checking this forum anymore despite the fact that others would want to ask you questions makes me think that you are still rejected and just don’t want to dwell on it anymore. Universities do not make uturns often. Especially when there was no error on the form. If it was evidence of your extenuating circumstances then you should have seen that was missing when you checked it days ago.

Honestly, I am so fed up with people and their bs on here. No update on how he got a uturn or an update on whether he got in. A bland username. This is a troll or a disposable account so he could vent (rolling my eyes).
Original post by mintchocchip
I got rejected pre interview with 10A*s (9s and a couple of 8s) predicted A*A*A and I’d say good PS and references. I know it sucks, especially when you believe you have a high chance of at least getting an interview, and you don’t understand what you did wrong. Idk if it really is a ‘private schools get priority’ sort of thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was despite Oxbridge claiming that they take a significant proportion of state school students. I applied for science at oxford but I’ve contacted the college I applied to for feedback - they usually reply within 20days according to the website. I’ve sort of got over it, I think I 100% will if I get an offer from my 5th uni as it’s my first choice.

It’s crap, but we need to show them what they missed by not giving us a chance x

(Sorry this rly doesn’t answer to question at all I just realised!)


Sorry to hear about your rejection. For science applicants although the minimum A level requirement is A*A*A, there must a large number with A*A*A* or above. Entrance assessment score will be important as well. I don’t think private schools are definitely a priority but the best students private schools will get in of course.
Overall it still depends on the number of applicants they get which will determine the % that will be invited for interview. For Oxford even an applicant that been interviewed still only a 1/3 chance of being offer a place.
Good luck with your other applications.
Reply 92
Original post by FingersXedAgain
The fact that you won’t be checking this forum anymore despite the fact that others would want to ask you questions makes me think that you are still rejected and just don’t want to dwell on it anymore. Universities do not make uturns often. Especially when there was no error on the form. If it was evidence of your extenuating circumstances then you should have seen that was missing when you checked it days ago.

Honestly, I am so fed up with people and their bs on here. No update on how he got a uturn or an update on whether he got in. A bland username. This is a troll or a disposable account so he could vent (rolling my eyes).

I must admit I do find the whole thing rather suspicious. I have enormous empathy for people who suffer the disappointment of rejection from something they've set their hearts on when they haven't done anything apparently wrong, but unfortunately that is life whether it's university application, job application, enforced redundancy or whatever. And I have little time for people who claim they "deserve an interview". In my experience, the people who most "deserve an interview" are the ones who do enough to get one and keep quiet about it.

I'm also suspicious based on the OP's behaviour in arguing immovably with just about everyone on here who offered reasonable advice on why the rejection might have happened. If the OP argued like that in a (maths) interview assessment, they might just deem him "unteachable" anyway!

Still, perhaps the OP will surprise us and come back with an explanation of this mysterious "additional evidence" that was so crucial :smile:
Original post by davros
I must admit I do find the whole thing rather suspicious. I have enormous empathy for people who suffer the disappointment of rejection from something they've set their hearts on when they haven't done anything apparently wrong, but unfortunately that is life whether it's university application, job application, enforced redundancy or whatever. And I have little time for people who claim they "deserve an interview". In my experience, the people who most "deserve an interview" are the ones who do enough to get one and keep quiet about it.

I'm also suspicious based on the OP's behaviour in arguing immovably with just about everyone on here who offered reasonable advice on why the rejection might have happened. If the OP argued like that in a (maths) interview assessment, they might just deem him "unteachable" anyway!

Still, perhaps the OP will surprise us and come back with an explanation of this mysterious "additional evidence" that was so crucial :smile:

Yes I hope I’m wrong too but suspect that I am not. It would be great if the applicant was reconsidered. However, his attitude to more qualified people than him telling him what it is and being all round supportive means he’s probably not what they are looking for at Cambridge. I know I certainly didn’t go with an anticipation that I was entitled to anything. I was shocked to get in. And so were most of my class.
Original post by Edminzodo
Some colleges don't like Maths reapplicants.

This attitude seems to mostly be a historical thing these days, most colleges (certainly my own) are entirely neutral about gap years and consider all applicants equally on the basis of their academic record and interview performance.
Original post by Forecast
This attitude seems to mostly be a historical thing these days, most colleges (certainly my own) are entirely neutral about gap years and consider all applicants equally on the basis of their academic record and interview performance.

This document is recent and suggests many colleges discourage gap years for maths. There's a table showing the various colleges' attitudes to maths gap years:

Guide to Admissions - Faculty of Mathematics - University of Cambridge
Original post by FingersXedAgain
The fact that you won’t be checking this forum anymore despite the fact that others would want to ask you questions makes me think that you are still rejected and just don’t want to dwell on it anymore. Universities do not make uturns often. Especially when there was no error on the form. If it was evidence of your extenuating circumstances then you should have seen that was missing when you checked it days ago.

Honestly, I am so fed up with people and their bs on here. No update on how he got a uturn or an update on whether he got in. A bland username. This is a troll or a disposable account so he could vent (rolling my eyes).


I get what you mean, he might be lying. It might help him to cope but it's not going to benefit him. I've never heard of U-turns in applications unless it was an error in the system. Anyway, best have sympathy because if he has been rejected it's a real kick in the teeth.
India CBSE applicant
Class 10 : A1,A1,A2,A2,B1 in Maths,Science, SocialScience, English and Sanskrit (sad ik)
Class 12 : A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 predicted in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science and English

In addition to this I’ve been very active in Kaggle competitions which attract people from all levels ( undergrad, professionals, academics) for data science and AI projects and I have fairly good positions on several as I have mentioned in my PS and scientific conference associated competitions (NeurIPS, ECCV, etc very popular cs conferences) as well. (these comps were associated with Google, Stanford, CMU, OpenAI, Lyft, Computer Vision Companies, the likes and I recieved sub 50 or 100 rank in ones with nearly >2000 participants)
In competitive programming, I have a good score on INOI second stage in India for International Olympiad in Informatics qualifying for Asia Pacific Informatics Olympiad and good score on USACO Gold last year as well(2019). I have qualified for google codejam round 2 this year and facebook hackercup round 3, master on Codeforces.

Just received word that I am not even invited for Cambridge maths interview and many users here including myself believe that it might be cause of how intensively my past achievements(and possible motivations conveyed in PS too?) were focussed on CS. I did mention that maths course is appropriate for me because of how broad and deep the syllabus was and how it would help me gain a deep foundational perspective but I guess they are just more interested in keeping to the traditional maths applicants.
Pinning my hopes on MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, CMU, UCLA (first options) and some others.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by FerlockX
India CBSE applicant
Class 10 : A1,A1,A2,A2,B1 in Maths,Science, SocialScience, English and Sanskrit (sad ik)
Class 12 : A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 predicted in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science and English

In addition to this I’ve been very active in Kaggle competitions which attract people from all levels ( undergrad, professionals, academics) for data science and AI projects and I have fairly good positions on several as I have mentioned in my PS and scientific conference associated competitions (NeurIPS, ECCV, etc very popular cs conferences) as well. (these comps were associated with Google, Stanford, CMU, OpenAI, Lyft, Computer Vision Companies, the likes and I recieved sub 50 or 100 rank in ones with nearly >2000 participants)
In competitive programming, I have a good score on INOI second stage in India for International Olympiad in Informatics qualifying for Asia Pacific Informatics Olympiad and good score on USACO Gold last year as well(2019). I have qualified for google codejam round 2 this year and facebook hackercup round 3, master on Codeforces.

Just received word that I am not even invited for Cambridge maths interview and many users here including myself believe that it might be cause of how intensively my past achievements(and possible motivations conveyed in PS too?) were focussed on CS. I did mention that maths course is appropriate for me because of how broad and deep the syllabus was and how it would help me gain a deep foundational perspective but I guess they are just more interested in keeping to the traditional maths applicants.
Pinning my hopes on MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, CMU, UCLA (first options) and some others.
Would appreciate any opinions on how to portray myself in my essays better or generally improve my app


Original post by Anti-Covid19
Hi again, you are right that the Cambridge admission process is supposed to be holistic. But when you are applying to the most over subscribed and competitive college for Maths at Cambridge, however holistic the process might be and how ever competitive your application might appear on paper can still not be enough for you to get shortlisted for interview. For 2020 entry Trinity got 331 applicants for maths and 58 were made direct offers and 43 pooled. That’s mean 101/331 were considered suitable for Cambridge admission. How many of the 43 that been pooled who eventually got an offer I do not know. Those 331 applicants are from both UK and around the world and a large majority will be the most competitive applicants around and the competition will be unbelievably fierce. It will be interesting to know what is the percentage of applicants have been interviewed this year.
Try to get your best grades and apply to another college next year would be my advice. All the best!

I found a stat from 2018 that said out of 45 applicants to trinity from India only 1 was made an offer! And we don't even know if that was for a stem subject. So we can only imagine how many out of those would have been given an interview :frown: In their admission statistics, it's around 5 percent accepted for Indians, 12 for overall international, and around 21 for UK students.

From a blind look at the data seems like they might be preferring A-level curriculum to CBSE maybe? But I can assure you that both are equally rigerous from a high-school point of view. Another factor might be that applicant pool from India just doesn't have as good ECs and hence doesn't get the same consideration? But I've met another person here who was qualified to the last stage of Indian Maths Olympiad and still didn't get an interview ( it has around 4 stages so you can imagine how hard the elimination process is). So I really don't know what else might be the reason :frown:

Guess I'll just have to wait till Jan to get their feedback but would appreciate your opinions :s-smilie:
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by ShootForTheStars
This document is recent and suggests many colleges discourage gap years for maths. There's a table showing the various colleges' attitudes to maths gap years:

Guide to Admissions - Faculty of Mathematics - University of Cambridge


But, as I said, most (over half) colleges are entirely neutral. 'Discourage' also doesn't mean that they won't consider strong post-A-level applicants, quite the opposite in fact. Ultimately, the idea that some colleges might be opposed to the idea shouldn't put anyone off taking a gap year to apply for maths.

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