Any chance I could convince Cambridge to let me in after rejecting me ?

So I know I effed up the interview, and I know for a fact I won't get in (results come out end of January). I also know this is far fetched and probably won't happen (I am happy with my other universities so no need to try and convince me it's fine, because I know!). But let's say I get through to round two on the chemistry olympiad during the end of January (which only 25-30 students do) if I work very very hard on it. Is there then a chance that if I then emailed my college, or maybe any other college, and asked if they could let me in, would they? I could say that I am happy to come back for another interview anyway, and I'm sure they can squeeze in one more person? By the way I'm not just doing this for Cambridge, I am scoring highly so far and I'd like to try my best to do very well in the olympiad anyway. What do you think?

That's not how it works. Also, you don't know how they will ultimately consider things from the interview - @Doones did an analysis a few years ago and found that there was basically no correlation between how TSR posters thought their interview went vs whether they got an offer in the end of nor.

If it does work out that you don't get an offer, if you do end up doing well on your A-levels and engaging in the kinds of activities you describe above, you may want to consider reapplying in a gap year.

But you can't call them up after a rejection and ask them to reconsider - they won't. You also can't ask other colleges to consider you, as they have a pooling process so you either will have gone through the pool and been rejected by the other colleges, or the college that interviewed you did not feel you were strong enough to be considered by the other colleges. So your best (and only) option in that case would still be gap year and reapply.

Thank you! It was very clear to me that I did badly though like genuinely, I could tell. Are you absolutely sure there's no way? Because if I score in the top 0.25% of people that do the chemistry olympiads, is there no way they could make an exception and reconsider?

Thank you! It was very clear to me that I did badly though like genuinely, I could tell. Are you absolutely sure there's no way? Because if I score in the top 0.25% of people that do the chemistry olympiads, is there no way they could make an exception and reconsider?

Thank you! It was very clear to me that I did badly though like genuinely, I could tell. Are you absolutely sure there's no way? Because if I score in the top 0.25% of people that do the chemistry olympiads, is there no way they could make an exception and reconsider?

So I know I effed up the interview, and I know for a fact I won't get in (results come out end of January). I also know this is far fetched and probably won't happen (I am happy with my other universities so no need to try and convince me it's fine, because I know!). But let's say I get through to round two on the chemistry olympiad during the end of January (which only 25-30 students do) if I work very very hard on it. Is there then a chance that if I then emailed my college, or maybe any other college, and asked if they could let me in, would they? I could say that I am happy to come back for another interview anyway, and I'm sure they can squeeze in one more person? By the way I'm not just doing this for Cambridge, I am scoring highly so far and I'd like to try my best to do very well in the olympiad anyway. What do you think?

UCAS doesn't even have the fields for you to fill in Olympiad awards. I know an applicant didn't mention all of his three BMO 1 gold medals in his application process.

Be content you got the interview opportunity. Lots of people get rejected due to the competitiveness of the applicant pool (including myself this year ☹️ ) ..I'm afraid that you won't be able to mention this to them this year and if you email the college letting them know that this is the case, they won't care. Adding the Chemistry Olympiad will mean nothing as after the interview phase, they will consider your interview score in addition to your admissions test results to determine your merit (your personal statement will still count for something but a lot less than what it was pre-interview). Also, there is a reason that there is an early applicant deadline detailing that you have to send all of your details and activities before a certain date - it's so that people don't keep on adding stuff to it. They even made an SAQ for people to complete that allowed you to add any extra activities you have done and wish to add in addition to talking about why Cambridge etc. I don't think that there is something similar to the SAQ after the interview.

Going to Cambridge will no doubt prepare you well for the graduate workforce but by no means is it the only option. If you are set to go into academia, there are 130 universities in the UK where you can conduct research (it's not just Oxbridge) so you have options.

Just out of interest, what are your other options?

Seems pretty odd that they wouldn't mention that in their personal statement.

They’re looking for the best candidates for the course not the most annoying or persistent.

But why wouldn't a candidate mention gold BMO medals in their PS? What would they be prioritising in their PS ahead of that?

Sorry, but not mentioning gold BMO medals seems odd to me. Those are objectively very good achievements.

And if the applicant didn't have space it's a bit wild that the referee didn't include them.

Getting 3 gold BMO medals also shows interest, as well as achievement. And it's a more objective marker than vague statements about passion for maths.

I would consider it a very poor decision for an applicant to leave that out of a personal statement (I am just making this point in case future applicants etc are reading this thread). I cannot believe that someone couldn't have room in their PS for that. I can't think of much which would be more impressive for a maths PS?

Cambridge might care, they might not, but deliberately witholding information about impressive relevant achievements does not make sense. Even if they don't care, other universities might be impressed, and there is no disadvantage to mentioning it.

Unfortunately, C doesn't give offers based on the performance of competitions rather than interviews. However, I understand that the referee did mention at least one in the reference letter. It is suggested that PS is the place to show interest, not achievements. In the other TSR thread, the maths tutor from Oxford clearly said they don't care about your UKMT performance, they care about the interview.