Applications
This section is a guide through the application process. University of Cambridge Admissions Policy was changed in 2008 and so this section might be more up to date than your teachers or elder siblings.
Girton JCR is committed to championing our diverse student population. We're one of the few Colleges with a near 50:50 male:female ratio (which is not engineered); we're a College with international students from all over the European Union and beyond; and we're proud to support CUSU's Black Students' Campaign. Bottom line: If you're academically able, apply.
If you're from a school that doesn't have a strong history of sending students to Oxford and Cambridge you might benefit from our shadowing or eMentoring schemes.
Any prospective student with more questions about Girton, Cambridge, or University life should contact us.
Colleges & Open Applications
You can submit an application directly to a College or make an open application which will be assigned to a College by the University's Central Admissions Office.
It is not true that you have a different chance of getting in at some Colleges compared to others due to different ratios of applicants:places since:
- Open applications are assigned to Colleges with lower competition ratios. Women should be aware that all-female Colleges typically have relatively low numbers of direct applications and so open applications are likely to be assigned as such.
- Colleges do not fill all of their places with direct applicants. Some places are reserved for the Winter Pool, into which candidates who the admissions tutors wish to offer a place to, but are unable to due to competition from other applicants, are placed.
This ensures that an applicant isn't rejected because of high competition at a given College - they will be accepted by another College if they reach the entrace score (every aspect of your application - personal statement, module scores, interview performance - will be rationally socred numerically) for that year.
Similarly, this also ensures that less able applicants are not accepted at the cost of applicants who applied to other Colleges since the latter will be transferred to such a College via the pool.
The Winter Pool
Applicants placed into the pool will be tagged into 4 groups:
- A: Recommended if there are places available.
- B: Probably worth an offer.
- P: The applicant was good on paper but peformed poorly at interview.
- S: Special reassessment (for applicants with interrupted interviews, recent bereavement etc., or with wildly different assessment score from different interviewers).
The pool operates 2-4 Janurary. Pooled applicants may be reinterviewed at another College (during mid-January) before another round of offers and rejections are made.
The applications process is closed by 16th April.
The Summer Pool
A process similar to the Winter Pool occurs around A-Level results day to redistribute a small number of applicants from Colleges who have too many successful applicants to Colleges where too many students have failed to meet an offer. This may be particuarly relevant to students whose offers depend on a STEP or AEA grade if the offer of a given College is not met, for example.
Choosing a College
Colleges vary between the old and new; tourist-ridden and tranquil; and large and small. If you have a preference for a particular College for any reason then it is sensible to apply directly to that College since you might be assigned to a College you dislike if you submit an open application.
Girton is the obvious choice - we've got a cat.
Download the Alternative Prospectus!
UCAS
Personal Statement
The only criteria that will determine whether you are offered a place is your academic potential. Extra-curricular activites are important, but they cannot compensate for academic achievement and so your personal statment should reflect this - a large section should outline your dedication to the subject you're applying for. Medicine and Veterinary Medicine are the exceptions, where approxmiately 2/3 (according to an admissions tutor) is expected to be a reflective account of work experience. This means describing your work experience, how it made you feel, and explaining how it made you more suited to a career in medicine/vet medicine.
However, there will still be mention of extra-curricular activities - it is a personal statement after all. One Girton admissions tutor described extra-curricular activities as evidence that you're not performing to your maximum at A-Level, and that the University could squash your extra-curricular activities in favour of more work if you were offered a place. That sounds rather depressing, and it certainly isn't true that Cambridge students lack a social life (see Student Life), but it is a useful pointer. If you have a part-time job, you play football at the weekends, or you are musically gifted then give it a mention on your UCAS Personal Statement.
Specifically, musically talented people might wish to consider applying through the special procedures for a Music or Choral Scholarship.
Lastly, if you put something in your Personal Statement its considered fair game by the interviewers so don't say how much of a Marxist you are if you've only read the Wiki analysis of The Communist Manifesto. Personal Statement based questions are often used as supposedly easy ice-breaker questions so don't look like an idiot by lying!
Qualifications
You can show off your grades here, and not just GCSEs. Music, Open University and many other certified courses can be added to your UCAS form. Make sure you add everything you possibly can to show that you're actively seeking knowledge, or making use of your time, if you've completed certified courses.
If you attend, or attended, a poorly performing educational institution, or if you have exceptional personal circumstances that have negatively affected your academic performance you can apply via the Cambridge Special Access Scheme. Applicants without a family history of higher education or from a school/college where few people proceed to higher education are also eligible. All applicant's qualifications are considered in the context of their school, but the Special Access Scheme flags up serious difficulties to the admissions tutors.
College Choice
Enter the campus code of the College you wish to apply to, or else the open application code.
Reference
This section is usually completed by a teacher and acts as a testament to your personla character and academic efforts. Try and co-ordinate with your referee to avoid repetition if you're having trouble staying within the word limit.
Deadline
The University requires that your application is submitted by 15th October (normally, check here), which is also the compulsory deadline for dentistry and medicine nationally. Those applying for scholarships, medics and vets registering for the BMAT exam and students wishing to be interviewed overseas have earlier deadlines.
University of Cambridge
Entrance Examinations
BMAT
Applicants for medicine and veterinary medicine are required to sit the Biomedical Admissions Test in September which creates a normal distribution of applicants (even though most people have the same AS Level results) and contributes to the assessment of the admissions tutors. The single page essay that you write will be available to the interviewers. The BMAT is sat in local exam centres, such as your School or College, so you should contact your Examinations Officer (probably a teacher) to register to sit the exam.
A word of BMAT advice form the Accesss & Academic Officer - do buy the approved text book, and do sit AS Level Critical Thinking (if the choice hasn't already been made) which is similar to one of the sections of the exam. Remember that the exam is intended to put you under heavy time pressure to test your logic skills on questions that are based on core GCSE knowledge, so keep calm and carry on!
Other Exams and Tests
You might be asked to bring a portfolio of work with you to interview, to write an essay before your interview as a platform for discussion (e.g. English and History), or to sit exams as part of your offer (e.g. STEP for Mathematics). The tests are supposed to be difficult to discriminate across the entire ability range of candidates, so remember that you need to do well relative to other people rather than ace the paper AS Level-style.
Supplementary Application Questionnaire (SAQ)
The SAQ replaced the additional application form that the University used to require applicants to complete with their UCAS form. This online form is free of charge and applicants will receive an email inviting them to complete the form after they submit their UCAS application. The University publishes a guide to completeing the SAQ on its website.
Notably, you will be asked for the modules you've completed so far, including UMS marks for AS Level modules, and your class sizes. This allows the admissions tutors to make informed discriminations between candidates with the same grade.
The SAQ allows applicants to provide additional information about their choice to study at Cambridge (hint: talk about the course, supervisions, praticals etc. NOT about Colleges or student life) without jepoardising chances of success with their other UCAS choices.
Applicants who have experienced personal difficulties (such as difficulty studying due to a poor home environment) or educational difficulties (such as poor teaching or a lack of teaching) can also inform the admissions tutors via the SAQ. In this case, you should consider the Cambridge Special Access Scheme, along with applicants from families without a hisotry of higher education or from schools/colleges where few people proceed to higher education.
Beware that the photo you submit will be the one on your student ID card if you get a place!
Interviews
After submitting your UCAS application and SAQ you will be invited to interview or rejected.
You will be given two interviews (each around twenty mintues long) with two interviewers (usually). Interviews will be set in the main College building (except for overseas students who request an interview in a foreign country and some small subjects where one of the interviews is reciprocally held by another College) in supervisor's rooms. Some rooms are historical, some are up the tower, and some are like modern offices - it doesn't matter. Neither does your attire - if you feel more comfortable in a suit, wear one, but don't if not. You should look clean and presentable either way. Jeans are not discouraged.
There are some really funny stories about Cambridge interviews, most of which are untrue or hopelessly out of date. The interviews are designed to test your ability to think, not your current academic knowledge which has already been revealed by your grades. As such, the interviewers ask questions about your subject that you are not expected to know the answer to. You are expected to produce an answer nonetheless, and it is important that you explain your thinking to display your reasoning skills. Don't worry though, if you get stuck the interviewers will drop hints or leading questions - indeed they're rather looking for how many such hints you need to produce an argument.
Preparing for an interview is difficult given the lack of a syllabus. You can prepare answers to obvious questions such as why you have applied for your course, and read around your subject in the months prior to your applicaiton (science journals, news articles and famous literary or academic works) so that you have extra-curricular material to draw on if asked, or just to distinguish yourself.
If you're invited to interview you'll be offered the chance to stay in College the night before if you live an awkward distance away to meet your interview time slots by travelling from home, and you'll be offered free meals during your time in College.
Once all that's happended you can go home and enjoy the Christmas holiday. Just don't tell anybody about the questions you were asked - you will lose your place if you're found out.