The Student Room Group

Is it worth applying to Trinity?

Hello, I will be applying to Cambridge this year for maths, however I am still floating between the college I will be applying for. The one I would most want to go, but the one I am equally concerned about is Trinity. It is by far my favourite college, and has a strong mathematical community, but I have heard it is difficult to get into by Cambridge standards, and I heard a big thing for them is Olympiads, which I have done, but not greatly. I have a lot of strong things to put on my statement, and I believe in any other college I would probably fair a good chance, but I have heard Trinity is on a whole other level. I was wondering if I would be more likely to be pooled/rejected if I applied there (At current, the list goes Trinity, T. Hall, G&C, Peterhouse in terms of the ones I like the most)
Original post by Anonymous
Hello, I will be applying to Cambridge this year for maths, however I am still floating between the college I will be applying for. The one I would most want to go, but the one I am equally concerned about is Trinity. It is by far my favourite college, and has a strong mathematical community, but I have heard it is difficult to get into by Cambridge standards, and I heard a big thing for them is Olympiads, which I have done, but not greatly. I have a lot of strong things to put on my statement, and I believe in any other college I would probably fair a good chance, but I have heard Trinity is on a whole other level. I was wondering if I would be more likely to be pooled/rejected if I applied there (At current, the list goes Trinity, T. Hall, G&C, Peterhouse in terms of the ones I like the most)


Trinity would be more likely to reject you - by quite a lot. This is because they have such a high number of applicants they can't interview a lot of applicants who would get interviews elsewhere, and so anyone with a weaker paper application might not even get the chance to prove themselves at interview.
Original post by Theloniouss
Trinity would be more likely to reject you - by quite a lot. This is because they have such a high number of applicants they can't interview a lot of applicants who would get interviews elsewhere, and so anyone with a weaker paper application might not even get the chance to prove themselves at interview.


Thank you very much, I greatly appreciate the advice. It is true, the higher number may just mean that could cause me to get rejected, and my goal is Cambridge in general over Trinity specifically, so best avoid that. Would smaller colleges have the opposite issue? Meaning because they get so few applicants, each one faces more scrutiny? As I was thinking T. Hall for my second choice, but I was thinking that might make it potentially risky to apply for due to the aforementioned scrutiny on each applicant.
Original post by Anonymous
Thank you very much, I greatly appreciate the advice. It is true, the higher number may just mean that could cause me to get rejected, and my goal is Cambridge in general over Trinity specifically, so best avoid that. Would smaller colleges have the opposite issue? Meaning because they get so few applicants, each one faces more scrutiny? As I was thinking T. Hall for my second choice, but I was thinking that might make it potentially risky to apply for due to the aforementioned scrutiny on each applicant.


No, not at all. This issue essentially only exists for Maths at Trinity and Computer Science at Churchill (possibly other combinations). The issue is worse for maths at Trinity because they really don't care about applicants. Every other college will be the same.
Original post by Anonymous
Thank you very much, I greatly appreciate the advice. It is true, the higher number may just mean that could cause me to get rejected, and my goal is Cambridge in general over Trinity specifically, so best avoid that. Would smaller colleges have the opposite issue? Meaning because they get so few applicants, each one faces more scrutiny? As I was thinking T. Hall for my second choice, but I was thinking that might make it potentially risky to apply for due to the aforementioned scrutiny on each applicant.

The Maths Admissions Guide says that "All Colleges like to interview all realistic applicants" but Trinity does seem to be an exception because they receive a vast number of good candidates. My son took the view that he would apply where he wanted to go (but not Trinity - too risky) and if he got pooled then so be it. If you like the look of Trinity Hall, go for it, and best of luck with your application. The Admissions Stats are interesting to look at as you can see whether colleges give to the pool or take from it (or both): https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
Original post by Anonymous
Thank you very much, I greatly appreciate the advice. It is true, the higher number may just mean that could cause me to get rejected, and my goal is Cambridge in general over Trinity specifically, so best avoid that. Would smaller colleges have the opposite issue? Meaning because they get so few applicants, each one faces more scrutiny? As I was thinking T. Hall for my second choice, but I was thinking that might make it potentially risky to apply for due to the aforementioned scrutiny on each applicant.

Whilst yes it's definitely good to avoid the most oversubscribed colleges like trinity for maths, one thing to think about is smaller colleges often accept fewer students and also draw more from the winter pool. As an example, Murray Edwards gave 21 offers for maths in 2022 whilst only having 27 applicants, which would seem like around an 80% success rate. However, in reality only 6 of the offers given were to students who directly applied to the college, with the rest given to students from the winter pool, so the acceptance rate for applicants who directly applied to the college that year was actually just as low as trinity that year, around 20%. So don't try and "game the system" by applying to "smaller" colleges thinking it'd make you more likely to get in, apply to one you like, although it's definitely an idea not to apply to majorly oversubscribed colleges. If you genuinely like trinity hall as a place to apply to then yeah, apply there, why not.
Original post by Theloniouss
No, not at all. This issue essentially only exists for Maths at Trinity and Computer Science at Churchill (possibly other combinations). The issue is worse for maths at Trinity because they really don't care about applicants. Every other college will be the same.

Hi, I know this thread is quite old, but I wanted to ask whether, if you apply for less popular courses at trinity (e.g. architecture) , would it be easier to get an interview at trinity than, say, for maths? In that case, would it be feasible to apply to trinity as a state school student?
Original post by Anonymous
Hi, I know this thread is quite old, but I wanted to ask whether, if you apply for less popular courses at trinity (e.g. architecture) , would it be easier to get an interview at trinity than, say, for maths? In that case, would it be feasible to apply to trinity as a state school student?

As someone who applied to and got into Trinity this year, I’d recommend looking up specific admissions statistics for your subject it’s very easy to find these online as Cambridge makes them public. For most subjects, Trinity is not especially more competitive than anywhere else, so the pooling system works just fine. If there are few applicants for Architecture, you’re very likely to get an interview. That’s the important thing, since you can’t be pooled elsewhere if you’re rejected pre-interview However, if it’s a generally very popular and oversubscribed course (as many STEM subjects are) I’d avoid Trinity just in case and apply somewhere with fewer applicants. Humanities are pretty safe at Trinity, but Architecture may be STEM enough to be risky.
Just to add this is small, but I did think the application experience at Trinity was very nice! They sent out offer emails at about 7 in the morning. Lots of other colleges kept people waiting until the afternoon, so that promptness was very good of them.

Quick Reply