Rejected by Cambridge for maths.

Have you emailed the admissions team to ask why you were rejected? Unis will sometimes give feedback if you ask because some people rejected from top unis will want to take a year out and reapply so knowing thats not up to scratch on your application is really helpful for that 🙂

They have stated they won’t be giving personal feedback. Instead I got a generic automated response.

That is unfortunate, are you thinking of re-applying or have you accepted that you can go with one of your other 4 choices?

I think Ug imperial is the play then I do my masters somewhere else.

Great plan, i wish you the best of luck with your studies 🙂

Yes but it is Cambridge, it’s ranked as the top university in the UK for mathematics. Inevitably, they are going to reach for the most proactive, determined individuals ( I’m not claiming that you aren’t ) and therefore those who have work experience and multiple extracurriculars may be prioritised as they also have the perfect grades.

Thank you for the kind words.

OP, if you don’t mind me asking, what did you do in super curricular to bolster your application?
Wish you all the luck for your studies, I am sure you will do well.

I briefly mentioned that I participated in my national competition and went to the finals, and explained how this experience held me grow as a mathematician. And I mentioned that i am enthusiastic in teaching other people math, stuff like that.

Are you an international applicant? Or were you referring to BMO, SMC when you said “participated in national competition “

International applicant so i was participating in my country

I've heard Maths is especially hard to get into as an international student. They want a good balance between home and international students, and there are simply a lot of international applicants for Maths, especially from Asian countries (so if you're from China, for example, that might be a disadvantage, cause they don't want to fill the entire cohort with Chinese students obviously). Churchill, being a college that's especially popular among STEM applicants, might also be one of the harder colleges to get an interview from (but don't quote me on this, haven't looked at the statistics).
Your grades are good, but that's never a guarantee for interview, because practically everyone will have those same grades. Others might have done more to make them stand out; work experience might not be necessary, but ofc doing Maths tutoring or having a Maths website or whatever looks good on your PS. Your application might have been impressive, but "less impressive" than other people's. It really depends on the strength of the application cycle.
With those grades, and a solid personal statement, you'll have a good chance to get accepted by other great unis like Imperial. I'm rooting for you!

Thanks man. But isn’t the point of an interview is to discern those who are actually good rather than just being good on paper. Still sucks not getting a chance to prove yourself. But we move on.

Did you complete the additional "my cambridge application" form?

Idk. Honestly it sucks. It may be ums. I achieved an A* in a level math as my school is one of those that do math then further math in separate years. But my uns for one of the modules was a bit low. I honestly don’t know.