CS supercurriculars -- Am I in a poor position?

8

I'm aiming for imperial, ucl, edinburgh cs. Whilst working on my a levels and extra entrance exams (like the TMUA for imperial), I'd like to "upgrade" my personal statement (or whatever the new system is called now).
My supercurriculars related to CS are almost all about coding and AI projects -- innovation competitions (kinda like science-fair, but focuses more on the idea and application of existing techniques instead of deep dive into academic research), collaboration with some local science organisations and people from other school for AI projects, or even just regional coding competitions in general.
I find out that I lack supercurriculars that focuses on mathematics a lot, will I be disadvantaged just because I "specialised in" the project and coding side instead of the math side for my supercurriculars? If so, any recommended supercurriculars that can help upgrade the "math" side of my PS?

Thx :biggrin:

Reply 1

olivia_n

3

Original post

by Ben123123123

I'm aiming for imperial, ucl, edinburgh cs. Whilst working on my a levels and extra entrance exams (like the TMUA for imperial), I'd like to "upgrade" my personal statement (or whatever the new system is called now).
My supercurriculars related to CS are almost all about coding and AI projects -- innovation competitions (kinda like science-fair, but focuses more on the idea and application of existing techniques instead of deep dive into academic research), collaboration with some local science organisations and people from other school for AI projects, or even just regional coding competitions in general.
I find out that I lack supercurriculars that focuses on mathematics a lot, will I be disadvantaged just because I "specialised in" the project and coding side instead of the math side for my supercurriculars? If so, any recommended supercurriculars that can help upgrade the "math" side of my PS?
Thx :biggrin:

Being good at maths and having an interest in it is very important if you want to study computer science, but it is not hard to show engagement with maths in your PS.

Project Euler is a popular supercurricular that integrates math and coding. The best way to go about it is to choose one reasonably hard problem, have a go at it, and spend a decent amount of time optimising your algorithm. That will give you a decent amount to talk about in your PS.

Another thing that I'd suggest is to make sure that you understand the maths underpinning your AI projects. There is a lot of complex maths that goes into building AI models. If you truly understand it, demonstrating your interest and ability in maths shouldn't be a problem.

Here is the UCAS personal statement guide for computer science: https://www.ucas.com/applying/applying-university/personal-statement-guides/personal-statement-advice-computer-science

Reply 2

oceanb1ue

12

Original post

by Ben123123123

I'm aiming for imperial, ucl, edinburgh cs. Whilst working on my a levels and extra entrance exams (like the TMUA for imperial), I'd like to "upgrade" my personal statement (or whatever the new system is called now).
My supercurriculars related to CS are almost all about coding and AI projects -- innovation competitions (kinda like science-fair, but focuses more on the idea and application of existing techniques instead of deep dive into academic research), collaboration with some local science organisations and people from other school for AI projects, or even just regional coding competitions in general.
I find out that I lack supercurriculars that focuses on mathematics a lot, will I be disadvantaged just because I "specialised in" the project and coding side instead of the math side for my supercurriculars? If so, any recommended supercurriculars that can help upgrade the "math" side of my PS?
Thx :biggrin:

Tbh I think it'd be alright, I have an offer from Imperial and UCL and my ps was very focused on the projects and coding I did, I didn't do anything maths related as such (and I didn't have any olympiads it was just I got gold in ukmt one time lol which was in my teacher references). My tmua was pretty mid as well (i did have a* predicted in maths and fm but that was my only indicator in terms of mathematical ability) so honestly I think if you show how passionate you are about computing and coding I think you'd be ok

Reply 3

ReubenB17

1

Original post

by oceanb1ue

Tbh I think it'd be alright, I have an offer from Imperial and UCL and my ps was very focused on the projects and coding I did, I didn't do anything maths related as such (and I didn't have any olympiads it was just I got gold in ukmt one time lol which was in my teacher references). My tmua was pretty mid as well (i did have a* predicted in maths and fm but that was my only indicator in terms of mathematical ability) so honestly I think if you show how passionate you are about computing and coding I think you'd be ok

Hi there, could you tell me more about the projects and coding you did if you don't mind? Thanks :smile:

CS supercurriculars -- Am I in a poor position?

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