An Insider Guide to Applying to Cambridge
While I was in Cambridge last weekend for the 20 year anniversary of my matriculation (how time flies!), I met with Dr Matt Bullimore, Widening Participation Officer on Churchill College’s admissions team to discuss application and admission trends to Cambridge University. We discussed many interesting topics from the impact of Brexit on Cambridge University applications to the new trend of British universities making unconditional offers to students to what is really meant by a “typical offer”.
In light of our conversation, there are some important points worth clarifying so that applicants are able to fully understand the information offered on the university and college websites, undergraduate prospectus and other official publications.
Here are the most important considerations and take-aways for students in the current application round or those considering applying next year:
The Official Line: Choosing a college and the winter pool
Cambridge is a collegiate university; therefore, you are admitted to the university, your subject department and a residential college. Your college is where you will live for the duration of your Cambridge studies. The official line is that the college you choose does not impact your chances of making a successful application. Therefore, you should make your choice based on which college you prefer taking into consideration its geographical location, architecture, and facilities such as library and gym.
The Cambridge University website states the following: “Careful ongoing analysis of our admissions statistics shows that, for equally well-qualified applicants, making an open application or applying directly to a College does not affect your chance of being made an offer of a place. This is because we have rigorous procedures in place to compare all applicants for each subject before selection decisions are finalised. Strong applicants who’ve been squeezed out by the competition at their original College can be made an offer by another College through the pool. Colleges would rather admit a strong applicant from the pool than a weaker applicant who applied directly to them.”
What else you need to know
In practice, the college you apply to can have a substantial impact on your application process, even if the pool allows for the redistribution of applications to other colleges. For instance, some colleges are known for certain subjects, just as not all subjects are offered at every college. Churchill College, for example, is a science and engineering college (although it does also offer most other subjects), whereas King’s College is popular amongst HSPS (Human, Social and Political Sciences) applicants. It makes sense to find out the number of places a college has for your subject and to check the number of direct and open applications it usually receives for each place.
Source: https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
If the College you attend does not matter to you, it makes sense to make a direct application to a relatively undersubscribed College such as Girton College (geographically it is outside of Cambridge and, therefore, less convenient than more centrally located colleges) or open application. If you applied to Girton for in 2018 you would have had a 36% likelihood of receiving an offer vs a 22% likelihood if you applied to King’s College (dependent, of course, on subject applied for).
Source: https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics
The Official Line: Typical Offers
Applicants usually use the UCAS website to access information on typical offers for the courses they are interested in applying to. For example, a look at the UCAS website shows that the states entry requirements for most undergraduate courses at Cambridge are between 40 and 42 points in the IB with 7, 7, 6 at HL.
What else you need to know
This can be misleading for potential applicants, however, as these are usually minimum offers rather than typical ones, and each college in fact has its own entry requirements. A look on the Churchill College website, for example, shows the following:
“In practice, successful Churchill applicants tend to exceed typical Cambridge offers in their final exams by one or two grades.”
Applicants should, therefore, be aware that many of the other candidates they are competing against might be going far above the requirements of the typical offer, in terms of taking additional A-level subjects, choosing the most rigorous IB Diploma subject combinations, taking a seventh IB subject or a fourth Higher Level subject. Simply reaching predicted grades that meet the typical offer is unlikely to set you apart from the crowd academically.
The Official Line: The relative weight of different aspects of the application process
Students, rightly, experience anxiety over writing their personal statement. It is, after all an opportunity to make a positive impression on the admissions team, to show off academic achievements and show a strong engagement with the chosen subject. Students often believe that after their predicted grades, their personal statement is the next most important aspect of their application.
What else you need to know
While this may be the case for the aspects of the UCAS application that students have control over, in fact, the school reference carries far more weight than the applicant’s personal statement. In the words of Dr Bullimore, it is an opportunity to make a positive impression but a poor personal statement will not “damage” an otherwise strong application, especially not if the school reference speaks convincingly to the student’s academic strengths.
That being said, applicants should certainly take the opportunity the personal statement affords seriously. Beyond explaining how their academic experiences to date have informed their understanding of, and curiosity about, their chosen subject, they should also use the personal statement to give examples of topics they find particularly interesting, to highlight where they have undertaken independent study not covered in lessons (which is why a well-chosen Extended Essay topic is so vitally important) and where the school may not have provided some opportunities i.e. not allowing students to take two Group 4 subjects or a requirement to take English B at Higher Level.
The Official Line: Subject-specific written admission assessment
Most applicants are required to take a subject-specific written admission assessment, either pre-interview or at interview. The official line is that these assessments are designed to supplement the information provided in the application and to provide a gauge of the applicant’s abilities - to assess skills, such as comprehension and thinking skills, and levels of knowledge and understanding, relevant to the course.
What else you need to know
In addition to being used for these purposes, the pre-interview tests are used as a predictive tool to assess to what extent the applicant is likely to be successful on their chosen course if admitted. Pre-testing results, which have now been gathered since 2016 when pre-interview tests were introduced for most subjects at Cambridge, can be reliably correlated against achieved academic performance of admitted students to predict which students are most likely to thrive on their chosen courses. Oxford and Cambridge colleges are concerned about their position on the Thompkins Table, a ranking system that allows for comparison between colleges, and performance on the pre-interview tests is the most reliable predictor of future academic performance Cambridge Colleges have (much more so than predicted grades, achieved grades, interview performance or other measures of academic performance which make up the application process).
The tests are designed to be adaptive, meaning that the test’s difficulty adapts to the performance of the applicants, getting harder or easier following a correct or incorrect answer respectively. Therefore, students should not be discouraged if they find the test challenging. As a tool to differentiate between applicants, the tests are not designed to be completed with a perfect score.
That does not mean that applicants cannot prepare for the tests:
Students should do as many practice tests as possible, focussing on managing their time to ensure they can finish the questions that carry the most weight in the time allocated;
Applicants for Mathematics and Science subjects should revise the subject content they have covered in their courses as it is expected that this subject knowledge is fresh in their minds;
Applicants for Medicine will need to take the BMAT which is an assessment required by Cambridge and some other British universities as well as universities in Singapore and some European countries.
Key Take-Aways
The application process for Cambridge University is relatively complex. Not only do students need to choose a course and a college, and complete the UCAS application by October 15, they also need to complete the COPA and SAQ, register for pre-interview or at-interview tests and prepare for them and the interview. Please let me know if you or someone you know would like support in this process.
What other questions do you have about applying to Oxford or Cambridge? Let me know in the comments or contact me at www.the-learning-curve-hk.com for this and other articles.