The Student Room Group

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Reply 260
Christ Church College: Full of your stereotypical "rah" oxbridge students, who after a spiffingly good game of croquet go and drink lashings of exceedinlgy expensive fine spirits.


Is this really true, as I don't think I would like to spend three years with the stereotypical oxford posh students, but this is where I'm seriously thinking of applying so where you joking or serious!
Reply 261
chriswilky
Honestly cannot decide - Gonville and Caius or Trinity College???
Here are the positives and negatives.....

G+C -------- + Really like the location
+ Really like the Old Courts atmosphere
+ New accommodation block being built
+ Italian tutor on the site
- May miss out on living in Old Courts
Trinity ----- + Language labs on the site
+ Fantastic old buildings I will be definitely live in
+ OK location
- No italian tutor on the site

Which one should I go for?



don't take any of the language facilities/tutors into consideration. all of 1A and most of 1B italian is taught by the faculty, (sidgewick site is next door to 1st yr caius accomodation). with trinity, italian tutors aren't exactly far away (antonello at johns, helena sanson at clare, sandra paoli at christs..) so wouldn't worry about that. i don't know how much the trinity linguists use language labs, but i've not heard anything about them, and in any case, the language centre and the faculty have them anyway, so it's not an issue.

trinity's location is probably better from a lifestyle p.o.v by the way. with caius, you WILL be living out of college in first year, so it'll be about a 7 min walk to college and into town centre, which will be on your doorstep if you're at trinity.

so really, just think about what you want from the college in terms of a lifestyle, rather than the teaching (cos it will be pretty much the same everywhere)
Willa
You said that Robinson college is rumoured to be closing in the future. Are there any developments to this or is it just a rumour?
Reply 263
donaldduck
Willa
You said that Robinson college is rumoured to be closing in the future. Are there any developments to this or is it just a rumour?


as far as I know it's still a rumour. Any actual official word would probably be well publicised.
Reply 264
In terms of sciences like chemistry, is there any college that outstands itself from the rest?
Reply 265
Hello, I'm posting for a friend here who needs help choosing a college.

This post isn't about "choosing a college you prefer". You see, her birthday is in December which means she would be 17 when term starts. Now each college has their own policy, for example for St. Johns ...

Is it possible to apply if under 18?
We have a firm policy at St John’s that all applicants to St John's must be 18 at time of entry (by 1 October). If you will not have attained the age of 18 by 1 October you will be asked to defer entry, even if you have not indicated this as your preference.
http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/faqs/#15


Whereas with Trinity ...

Do you make offers to students who will be under 18 when they start university?

Child protection legislation means that our new students have to be 18 or over by the 1st January of the academic year in which they come to Cambridge.

http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=89


Now my friend doesn't fancy taking a gap year so that automatically eliminates St. Johns (Oh well, rather be at Oxford than ... :p: ). What trouble her most is not all colleges specifies their age requirement policy and there doesn't seem to be a comprehensive list.

I think it would be great if some people can help dig out these sorts of admission criteria. Perhaps Willa would find it useful and add it to his initial posts making this already superb topic even better! :biggrin:
Reply 266
OR...rather than us doing a lot of work for little benefit to ourselves, your friend could e-mail the college's she's interested in and ask them what their age policies are.
I hate to be one of those really stupid people who asks a questions that i'm sure has already been answered, but better safe than sorry. I am intending to apply for econmics and management at Oxford. Merton seems to have an ideal location and atmosphere for me. However, i am concerned it is at the top of those tabily thingys. And it has a quota for the amount of people to let in for joint honous, which could affect their likelyhood of pooling me. Feel free to ridicule me in your response if you feel i am being silly lol. I just don't want to risk lowering my chances of getting into a fantastic course because the place is 'very nice'.
Josephinetaylor1989
I hate to be one of those really stupid people who asks a questions that i'm sure has already been answered, but better safe than sorry. I am intending to apply for econmics and management at Oxford. Merton seems to have an ideal location and atmosphere for me. However, i am concerned it is at the top of those tabily thingys. And it has a quota for the amount of people to let in for joint honous, which could affect their likelyhood of pooling me. Feel free to ridicule me in your response if you feel i am being silly lol. I just don't want to risk lowering my chances of getting into a fantastic course because the place is 'very nice'.


Ignore the tables, they depend on who applies that year. If all the genii apply to Merton one year, they will be top (as presumably the genii will all get 1sts). If dunderheads apply to Merton one year (don't take this literally, I know Oxford wouldn't accept dunderheads as such) then Merton will be at the bottom. And so on. Basically what I'm trying to say is, the tables vary from year to year.
Reply 269
although merton is consistantly near the top
alispam
although merton is consistantly near the top


Yeah, I guess because some of the 'stronger' applicants see it is good and want to apply there. Still, I think it's worth applying where you want to, regardless of how ambitious that choice may be.
Reply 271
Is there any college like Churchill at Cambridge which is renowed in the physical sciences? Any help would be appreciated!
Can anyone tell me which colleges in Oxford are good for English Lit.? Thanks in advance. :smile:
To everyone asking practically the same question, no colleges are "good" for certain subjects. For English, since almost all the colleges offer it, the teaching is equal across the university, not to mention the fact that a lot of lectures, classes etc are centralised, and you can get sent to tutors at other colleges to talk to them about a specialism of theirs.

Do NOT choose your college based on a subject reputation, since they don't exist (hence the lack of replies to your questions up to this point). DO choose your college because it offers your course in the first place, particularly for smaller subjects like music that aren't offered at all colleges.
Sidney Sussex will take you if you are 17 years old.
I'm sorry if this has been asked a thousand times (I'm sure it has), but basically I was going to apply to Homerton for NatSci after going the the July 7th open day. Then a friend of a friend at Cambridge said I should go and look at Fitzwilliam as it was so friendly. So I went back up there Fitz was very nice, but I also looked at Downing and decided I love the place. On the way home I decided to apply there - but now I've checked it's popularity it's got the second highest applications per place for NatSci!

I know you'll all say go for it anyway, but I'm a weaker applicant anyway - look at my sig. They say in the prospectus that they expect As in science AS's taken so far - I asked the admissions tutor at Fitz and apparently 'it's just one thing they look at' - but am I just being too ambitious applying for Downing?
MissSurfer
I'm sorry if this has been asked a thousand times (I'm sure it has), but basically I was going to apply to Homerton for NatSci after going the the July 7th open day. Then a friend of a friend at Cambridge said I should go and look at Fitzwilliam as it was so friendly. So I went back up there Fitz was very nice, but I also looked at Downing and decided I love the place. On the way home I decided to apply there - but now I've checked it's popularity it's got the second highest applications per place for NatSci!

I know you'll all say go for it anyway, but I'm a weaker applicant anyway - look at my sig. They say in the prospectus that they expect As in science AS's taken so far - I asked the admissions tutor at Fitz and apparently 'it's just one thing they look at' - but am I just being too ambitious applying for Downing?


Definately apply to Downing if you prefer it. I worried slightly that I was applying to King's (the statistics looked a bit scary) but then realised that all colleges are equally competitive in the sense that if you're not good enough, you won't get into any college, and if you are good enough, you should either get into your first choice or be pooled. It's quite a fair system, so go with your instincts. Otherwise, if you apply to Fitzwilliam and get in you will probably regret not applying for Downing.
Reply 277
MissSurfer
I'm sorry if this has been asked a thousand times (I'm sure it has), but basically I was going to apply to Homerton for NatSci after going the the July 7th open day. Then a friend of a friend at Cambridge said I should go and look at Fitzwilliam as it was so friendly. So I went back up there Fitz was very nice, but I also looked at Downing and decided I love the place. On the way home I decided to apply there - but now I've checked it's popularity it's got the second highest applications per place for NatSci!

I know you'll all say go for it anyway, but I'm a weaker applicant anyway - look at my sig. They say in the prospectus that they expect As in science AS's taken so far - I asked the admissions tutor at Fitz and apparently 'it's just one thing they look at' - but am I just being too ambitious applying for Downing?


all colleges will look at lots of factors, not just your AS grades. What you need to do is convince them that you can handle the course and it will get a lot out of you. If you're walking around proclaiming yourself to be a "weaker candidate" out of anything other than modesty, then you're just making the admissions tutors jobs easier. I'd like to see you walk in to an interview and say "yes, I'm not as good as the other candidates, so pick them instead of me". You need to walk in to that interview and convince them that you're not the weaker candidate. So please, stop doubting yourself - I personally like to believe that almost everyone at cambridge deserves to be there. So start acting like you deserve to get a place!

But I shouldn't be so mean, you did at least acknowledge that what you're asking is something that loads of people ask....so why not take the next step and predict what our answer is going to be if you know it's been asked hundreds of times before. It will save you having to ask the question in the first place. What were you expecting, someone to post on here "Yes, you're definitely way out of your league with downing, follow the statistics and apply to a different college"?
^^ Thanks for the advice, but a lot of people have said to me to go for the less popular colleges - so I didn't know what you'd say. The question's been asked before but by people who seem to have 10A*s at GCSE and all that.
I'd also like to point out that grades aren't everything. I know for a fact there were some people who applied to my college for my subject who were predicted AAAA and had however many dozens of A*s, and were still rejected. My grades were probably below average, but there are so many other factors they considered- written exam, reference, personal statement, interview...

What I'm saying is, your B in AS Biology would be compensated for by showing an excellent aptitude for it in the interview.