Imperial CS with no math/cs competitions (UKMT, Bebras, etc)

No, they would not. As always, these things are quirks that make an application individual; individually standing out is what matters, not the competitions. If you for example were already involved in your own programming projects or contributing to open source, or something else that is not typical of your average candidate but looks impressive, it would probably have the same effect. Computer science is not so math heavy that you need to be winning national math competitions to do it.

Alright well I think I have other computing supercurriculars that I could possibly talk about which could hopefully help me stand out. Thanks for the clarification

When discussing my personal statement, we spent a good 10-15 minutes discussing the project in detail because my interviewer didn't know anything about it or how to approach/do it.

So definitely worth doing projects....some of the other people in my group also did loads of interesting things. About 3 people made their own chess AI (which also happened to be what I did for my CS NEA because I play chess competitively outside of school at various county and national tournaments so thought it would pique my interest). @alinara

In actual fact, my interview ran over for 10 minutes so that could be a good sign but I'm not too sure. There was one shaky Maths question which took a couple of prompts to spot the answer (even though I had the entire working out completed on the board).

Also in answer to your questions about UKMT and Bebras competitions, I didn't mention a single competition (other than essay competitions that I had partaken in) in my personal statement, even though I performed mid (I got gold twice in SMC and then a merit certificate both years) in them so it is not a necessity but there must be something about your application that stands out which attracts the admissions tutor's attention.

Wow Id be really annoyed with the TMUA thing ngl. Sounds like you actually had a good shot with Cambridge but hopefully u get the Imperial offer. I’ve sent in my application last week and decided to mention the competitions but just didnt state what awards I got in them (just said “I participated and won awards”, I feel like my personal statement is pretty strong, Ive mentioned a lot of supercurriculars/projects and have tried to make it sound personal to me. Just need to make sure to do well in the test but haven’t gotten the email for that yet.

Do you mind telling me what sort of supercurriculars u mentioned in urs? And where else are u applying?

Where have you applied?

I felt that Imperial was better than Cambridge so if I got a Cambridge offer, I would have seriously considered Imperial over Cambridge. You have some amazing choices.

Manchester is very good for Computer Science. If you have the 3 A* grades, you are more or less guaranteed an offer. Now from what I saw, Bath is good to have as a safety as you can reduced offers from them if you meet certain requirements e.g. doing an EPQ.

I was actually considering applying to the places you have put down but this is what put me off (This isn't intended to put you off but is what made me make up my mind about my backups after Cambridge and Imperial).

My friend went to the UCL Open Day for Economics. He told me all about the stuff going on there and it put me off from applying though I was considering applying to it. There were LOADS of student protests and even though the main campus is really cool, the facilities weren't amazing. However, I don't know how it is with regards to CS so it may be worth applying. Another friend went to the UCL Open Day for CS and said that the teaching staff are really interactive and great.

Someone in my CS set went to the St Andrews Open Day and said that the tech was outdated and so this put me off applying.

If I may, I would like to recommend Durham for CS. They just built a new department for CS and maths and the facility is simply AMAZING (I saw it when I went on the Open Day)! It's ranked 4th in the country and A*AA minimum entry so shouldn't be a problem if you are applying to the other places.

As a guide, I'm not sure whether you are aware of this but Bath recently changed their minimum entry requirements from AAA to A* A* A affecting several applicants. Now, given that you are also applying to Imperial, this shouldn't affect but I thought I would raise this to your attention beforehand.

I know this because my friend has applied to the exact same places as me for the same course except he applied to Bath over Edinburgh (which my Computing teacher and I felt was a bit of a mistake). Both are good for AI but the foundations of AI came from Edinburgh which propelled me to apply in addition to their focus on things like cybersecurity.

The opinions I have mentioned on this post are my own personal views and preferences. You don't have to take these as gospel and go for these options but it's what made me make up my mind. I don't have anything against you or the places you have applied and in fact, have great respect for these institutions.

I will hopefully be applying to Imperial for computer science this year and was wondering if they would look down on me for not having any math/cs competitions such as the UKMT in my personal statement. All the recent personal statements I have seen online that got into Imperial CS seem to have awards in these competitions.

I have actually taken part in the UKMT before and in the UK Bebras, I received a Silver award in the UKMT Senior Challenge and a Merit in the UK Bebras. I am not sure if it is worth mentioning these as they arent as good as the awards I have seen on many other personal statements. Would it be better to just say I have participated in these competitions?

If anyone has received an offer to Imperial for Computer Science without mentioning competitions please could you let me know?

You can just say you received awards in these competitions. Yes, there are people at imperial in Comp sci who haven’t done these competitions, don’t worry about that. (Source: i study there) But I would make sure you are confident with step questions in case you get an offer.

I know that you think that Durham is posh and I completely understand why. The reason it's posh is because it has long been a place considered important like Oxbridge, but obviously not quite to the same standard. So the place has lots of Oxbridge rejects, which is why it has the notorious impression of being posh. However, on the Open Day, it doesn't seem like that but I think the thing that is making me re-think Durham after applying is that aside from the university itself, there isn't actually that much to do. I went to Durham outside of the Open Day just for a day's excursion and it all seemed very quiet. There's stuff to see like the Cathedral and things but it's not got the buzz that I felt in other places.

St Andrews is great, don't get me wrong. The course is really good with regards to content and flexibility and covers a large area but I think it does greater justice to the social sciences and humanities courses. I think entry straight into second year is extremely brave because if you do A level Computer Science, I think first year will be similar to that but I want to use the first year to get used to the rhythm of university life.

I'd say Bath is a very good choice if you don't particularly like Durham. I didn't like the city too much personally so I went with Durham instead but that's my personal taste.

When you say that all universities expect you to complete the degree yourself, I mean that's sort of expected though, is it not? There should come a point in your life where you aren't spoon fed everything you need to know.

That's why our Computing teachers have been extremely good with us in terms of preparing for university. Unless the topic in hand is notoriously difficult or long, they haven't taught us any of the other topics. We have had to conduct self-study both in the lessons and at home. If we have any questions about the material, by all means, we can ask them but the studying part itself is up to us. If we find anything difficult, they will teach the content to us at this point.

Warwick used to be AMAZING for Computing but lost their footing last year. They lost the funding for their technology and so the facility isn't that great anymore. When my friend went to the Open Day, he said that the staff in the CS department weren't very warm and welcoming.

Don't worry about your A level grades. Provided you have an A in Maths, that will allow you to enter most universities for CS in this country. Having lots of A *s is obviously a plus point but by no means is it the end of the road and you aren't going to go to a good university.

You can just say you received awards in these competitions. Yes, there are people at imperial in Comp sci who haven’t done these competitions, don’t worry about that. (Source: i study there) But I would make sure you are confident with step questions in case you get an offer.

I had my interview a week ago. I think it went OK and my interview ran over by 10 minutes. Is that a good sign? Also, what is the chance I get an offer and how do I go about preparing for STEP excluding doing past papers?

I think you should be all good in terms of getting an offer.. usually getting the interview is the hard part..I think once u get an interview u r fairly likely to get an offer as long as it goes decent for imperial comp sci.. mainly because they have STEP as a final filtering process anyways lol… you should probs start as early as possible.. maybe start looking at some old step 1 papers as they tend to be easier and maybe have a go at some problems in the step support programme.. then once you are comfortable slowly start moving into step 2 papers.

I've applied for Computer Science BA at Cambridge (rejection) , BEng at Imperial (interview complete, just waiting on decision now), BSc (Hons) at Durham (no news so far), BEng at Edinburgh (offer received) and BSc (Hons) at Manchester (offer received.
I was so upset the first few days after TMUA, I lost the fire to do any work and I was seriously depressed but then I accepted my fate. The worst bit was recently when there are people in my school who are scoring like 5.5 on TMUA (which is a good score, don't get me wrong, but I know that I've performed better in practice) and getting interviews, which is EXTREMELY infuriating.
I don't feel too comfortable in informing people about the activities I have done publicly but I will send it to you on a PM. Please ensure that this doesn't get spread out to other people on this site or in real life.