Imperial College London Mathematics

I am currently in year 12 studying maths, further maths, physics and history. My GCSE grades were 99998888875 ,including a 9 in maths and english langauge, coming from a very average state school. My a level target grade is an A* and I would love to study maths at imperial but i know i need lots of extra curriculars and work experience. Can someone please give me some ideas of activities and work experience i can apply too, and also are my stats even good enough to get me in? thanks!

hi 🙂 in terms of work experience, if you know what you actually want to do with your maths degree, then it could be worth trying to contact companies that offer that role (e.g. if you wanted to work in data science, reach out to different firms to see if they could take you). if you're not sure what you want to do - and that's completely normal - you could try to contact academics to see if they'd take you. this was how i organised my work experience: i emailed researchers until i finally got one who could take me for a week, and it was really great because it meant that i was getting to see the university he worked at while also learning about what it would like to do a phd. try not to get discouraged - i think i emailed about 50 people until i got someone to agree!
your gcse's are perfectly good enough for imperial (well done!) so don't worry about that. the main thing is keeping up your predicteds to get as many A/A*'s as you can. also, try to prepare for TMUA when you can as i believe it'll be better to do that than STEP

thankyou so much!! i will definitely begin to search for work experience, do you have any recommendations or places where i could start to search? i will also definitely begin to search more into the TMUA and how to prepare. again, thankyou !

you're so welcome!! if you're set on imperial and live close enough to commute, i think you could start out with them - maybe look here and try to send out some emails to anyone whose work looks interesting to you. i did mine at kcl and the people there were very friendly so you could always try them too! it might be a good idea to go for anyone who has outreach as one of their roles in their bio as they may be more inclined to help you out, though this isn't necessary. avoid asking phd students as they more than likely won't have clearance to host you. to anyone who says no, ask them if they know anyone else who could help you (i didn't initially contact the person i ended up working with, he actually was a recommendation from someone who wasn't able to host me). hope this helps

I am currently in year 12 studying maths, further maths, physics and history. My GCSE grades were 99998888875 ,including a 9 in maths and english langauge, coming from a very average state school. My a level target grade is an A* and I would love to study maths at imperial but i know i need lots of extra curriculars and work experience. Can someone please give me some ideas of activities and work experience i can apply too, and also are my stats even good enough to get me in? thanks!

How is it toxic? Did you study mathematics there? I'm concern now as I have submitted my application for maths at Imperial. Can't be that bad?

Why Imperial? It's very toxic and in my opinion the maths department is in decline. There are better places that will offer good student support.

Why do you generally have such a hate against imperial? Its not the first time I have seen you reply to someone aspiring to go about how toxic it is, it also seems in your opinion every department in Imperial is in decline.

Oh dear you are so mistaken - I do think it's toxic but have only ever said Maths is in decline. I've got so many examples of poor student support that I could write a boook and may well do that.
Some of the things said to prospective students are outrageous - lecturers boasting about drop outs for example.

If you got to the Imperial response to the FOI request for dropouts:

We can work out the drop out rates including academic and personal reasons to be (correct me if my maths was wrong):
2021/22 = 2.24%
2020/21 = 3.64%
2019/20 = 2.03%
2018/19 = 2.26%
2017/18 = 3.80%
Although we cannot know what the dropout rates were for more recent years of 2023/2024 and 2024/2025, we should assume it would remain similar unless we have a reason to suggest there would be a drastic change.
In perspective the national average is around 6-11% (depending on year) meaning Imperial is well below it.

Oh dear you are so mistaken - I do think it's toxic but have only ever said Maths is in decline. I've got so many examples of poor student support that I could write a boook and may well do that.
Some of the things said to prospective students are outrageous - lecturers boasting about drop outs for example.

I'm sent an application in for imperial recently, and seeing this quite worrying. What exactly makes them toxic??

So why do they boast about how many drop outs - maybe it's certain subjects that have a high drop out rate? Anyway that doesn't detract from the impression they are giving and I'd avoid studying Maths there as there are far better.

I'm sent an application in for imperial recently, and seeing this quite worrying. What exactly makes them toxic??

Yiu need to go to an Open Day.
I've had too many students report poor support - after the pandemic they wanted to stop all face-to-face lectures but still charge the same fees!.

I have never heard of them boasting drop outs. Still even if its certain subjects if you look at the number of total dropouts its still quite low. If you go to discoveruni.gov.uk and look at maths at Imperial, 89% views claims that the staff supported learning well and 87% reported staff valued student opinions. Simply in other words, the gathered statistics just don't back up what you are saying.

I would agree here, the best you can do is to go to an open day and talk to people who actually are on the course.

If it worries you too much you can still substitute it within 14 days, I don't think it should be an issue. If you are unsure, reach out to anyone at imperial studying maths or a third opinion. Look at Mathematics at Imperial College London | Discover Uni, Mathematics (3 Years, Full-time) - Imperial College London - The Uni Guide and the student satisfaction statistics. My overall impression of Imperial has been quite professional (although take it with a pinch of salt, I have never studied there properly) and have never heard it being toxic, although I have heard about hard work and workloads as you would expect.