Fab exam results and predictions but not even an interview from Cambridge Uni.

[nandio]

12GCSEs only 2As and the rest top grades.4A* and A predicted at A level - no interview from Cambridge. Not BME but white working class.

Why would Cambridge not interview a student of this calibre?

Did she go to a state school or an independent?

If an independent, then exam grade requirements will almost certainly be higher when they consider her application. Plus she is less likely to get any special consideration for being working class.

If she went to the local comp and got those grades, I'd say her chances were higher. They want more state school talent.

Plus she really does need to love her subject and it does need to show.

Just ask Cambs-Admissions why an interview wasn't offered?
They have so many to process, they can make mistakes. So it's valid to ask for feedback about which hurdle not conquered.
if that's not satisfactory, They are subject to FOI requests so you can ask about the profiles of those who did get to interview stage. Here is a very similar FOI request.

Wow, super detailed breakdown here, for 2018 starters.

They'd rather not do FOI requests, so should be able to get your individual feedback pretty easily.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/natsci_admissions_statistics#incoming-1193597

Right... I trawled the last FOI document.
To get feedback about why no interview you MUST ask the specific college. They each have their own policy how they select for interview (the FOI response says the interview info is not held centrally so Camb-Uni couldn't answer what % got an interview offer).

WRT race, about 1/3 of applicants of any race got an offer regardless of race, except if they were Chinese or 'other Asian'; those ethnicities are over-rep'd for getting offers/acceptances, in the 2017-18 admissions cycle.

Computer hamster running very slow this morning, so I am going to look for FOI requests made to individual colleges.

Not helpful at all, but years ago I knew someone on an Olympiad team. They weren't super-early with their application so the 'contact' at the University got a bit worried and they actually chased the applicant to make sure that they weren't applying to the other University.
I think I'd investigate the lack of interview. It may possibly have been an error that could be amended if you tackle it now, but can't be if you leave it until after interviews. Is there a procedure? - if so, follow that.

Maybe they did not get above the cut-off in the pre-admission assessment. Can you ask for a breakdown of the result?

I suspect this is about the personal statement

If you do an advanced search on OP she said in August 2017, that her DD got 5A and 5A at GCSE (missed an A in all three sciences, there is talk of re-marks). The GCSEs are then later reported as 7A*, 2A and 3 grade9.
I'm guessing that re-takes may be counting against the applicant.

It could be the retakes? Or a weak PS?

Looks like Trinity College might be the biggest Cambridge college.
This FOI for 2015/16 lets you see the grades of people who got interviews & those who didn't (at Trinity, natural sciences).
(rough count) 47/191 did not get interviews, so that's 25% as someone else suggested.

Some examples of those who did NOT get interviews, their predicted A-level grades:
A:Mathematics = A A:Chemistry = A A:Biology = A A:Physics = A*

PEIA:Physics = A PEIA:Chemistry = A PEIA:Biology = A PEIA:Further Mathematics = A

A:Chemistry A = A A:Physics A = A A:Mathematics = A EP:Is oil an undisclosed motive for war on Iraq = A

A:Mathematics = A A:Physics A = A A:Chemistry A = A 9U:Further Mathematics = A*A EP:The
Merits and Future of String Theory = A

Well, if she needed re-takes to get those grades then that's going to be a big relevant factor. Would have been helpful to disclose that in the OP.

I very much doubt it's the personal statement. I did admissions (for Oxford not Cambridge but similar) and it would be very difficult for the personal statement to say anything that would put us off. I haven't had time to completely read the thread but I'll tell you exactly what happened for us in Oxford.

Any students who didn't have the required predicted grades would be thrown out immediately (almost all had a straight sweep of A with a smattering of As at GCSE and in the new system would have mainly straight As prediction at A-level but as long as their predictions were at least at the level of the offer and the relevant GCSE subjects were at A* it shouldn't be a problem).

The main cut off would then be the pre-test (for physics and maths at Oxford this was taken prior to interview and would be a massive cut off). Even for students who were accepted for interview the pre test would be a massive part of the decisions as to whether they were accepted after interview as statistically it was the best predictor for degree classification.

Someone would look briefly at the reference (almost all schools write identical references claiming the student is the best ever so this isn't in the least helpful) and personal statement (again doesn't carry much weight most are the same - some international students have slightly poorer English or contain info that is less relevant but it isn't held against them).

In terms of which school you're coming from the person reviewing will not pay any attention to this - most will never have heard of 99% of schools anyway and won't know whether it's private or state. The exception of this is if the school has ever been put into special measures (this might not be the exact terminology it was a few years ago - essentially a school that was deemed to be failing) or if the student has ever been in care it is flagged up and the bar for getting an interview is significantly lowered.

I do think students from less academic schools have a disadvantage when it comes to the pretests and STEP papers which are taken at the end of the course. They are much more difficult papers and being at a school where the students are routinely stretched beyond the syllabus is enormously helpful.

You should be able to get the pre test results back and they usually publish the average result of candidates accepted for interview.

Unfortunately Nat Sci is one of the most oversubscribed courses and they can afford to miss out on the odd good candidate. So many applicants will have very similar profiles. Presumably they also sat a pretest, have they seen results yet? The college dd applied to implied they so not give feedback to those not getting an interview.

If your son (or daughter sorry I'm in a rush) was on the Olympiad team they will almost certainly be a very strong candidate for Oxbridge and I would be interested to see what went wrong. Perhaps the open response questions weren't answered well? Or just a bad day in the pre-test exam?

If they're dead set on Oxbridge I wouldn't give up and definitely don't assume they were looked down upon due to their school. Would they consider a gap year and re-applying? Are they definite on Natural sciences? What about Physics? Maths? Definitely Cambridge not Oxford? What about Imperial? UCL?

I thought Cambridge used the NSAA results to decide who to interview for Natural Sciences?

I would also add that an Oxbridge rejection is NOT the end of the world. I did a PhD at Oxford and a lot of my cohort were people who didn't get a place for undergrad - got a grade degree elsewhere then beat out other Oxford undergrads for a PhD place. (Obviously not everyone wants to do a PhD but it's an indication that options aren't cut off just because you don't get your undergrad at Oxbridge).

At the Oxford Physics open day, the admissions tutors said they use the PAT results to decide who to invite for interview, so I would guess that Cambridge might use a similar process.

OP has not confirmed yet whether this was a state school or private.

TBH I would be surprised if a bog-standard comp had pupils sitting that many GCSEs and A-levels. Maybe a grammar would. (Or maybe I'm just behind the times.)

Thank you all so much for your replies. I should clarify that this is not my child but a good friend of my DDs.

He didn't choose a college, just made an open application. He was at a bog standard 11-16 comp and then got a place in a grammar school for 6th form.

Personal statement should have been fine as the school know what they are doing and can offer good advice. Admission test went well according to the student.

Thankfully the school are chasing it up.

My worry is that coming from an 11-16 school there would be no info about things like open days and taster courses etc that all need to be applied for early in Y12. It takes time for a new school to get to know who their Oxbridge hopefuls are and by that time many super curricular opportunities (that might show you as a passionate committed student) have been missed. He did go to a few open days but obviously missed the residentials available to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Admission test went well according to the student

I suspect 'went well' wasn't good enough in that case. Good that the school is chasing it though.

It won't have had anything to do with missing open days. The choice of college is significant in that some colleges are more heavily subscribed than others and also because the colleges vary a lot and form the basis of your social life so you want to choose one where you feel comfortable. Likewise extra curricular activities aren't a big factor at all. Many students are passionate about their subjects but don't learn an instrument or play sport. It's not taken into account.

It will almost certainly have been the admission test. If he has pretty much straight A grades then while unexceptional among the applications it won't have been a factor. (A lack of A grades in the relevant subjects at GCSE or a lack of A* predictions at A-level could of course be an issue).

Not sure an open application was the most sensible either tbh.

Also agree open applications are a poor choice

• it still gets assigned to a college and then you are just being considered against applicants who have pro actively shown an interest in that college. Much less likely to get short listed I'm afraid

Does going on a residential or open day feed into the application assessment later? That wouldn't happen in the admissions I'm part of (not Cambridge, but medicine, which is also competitive).

We don't have the resources to get to know all applicants that well in a qualitative way, and we wouldn't have any way of being very consistent in how such informal assessments happened or how the info was used. Our admissions procedure is very regimented & the tutors try very hard to make it so, so it can be very consistently applied.

I don't know anything about an open application to Cambridge. Does the applicant get assigned to a randomly chosen college for the application screening?

The main cut off would then be the pre-test (for physics and maths at Oxford this was taken prior to interview and would be a massive cut off). Even for students who were accepted for interview the pre test would be a massive part of the decisions as to whether they were accepted after interview as statistically it was the best predictor for degree classification.

A good friend was a Natural Sciences tutor at Trinity College Cambridge. He claims they basically didn't care about predicted A-levels and relied almost entirely on the NSAA for interview decisions. The final decisions were based primarily on the NSAA and interview scores, with little reference to predicted A-levels or personal statements.

it’s about grades, plus demonstrating a passion for the subject (which subject was it?) and showing that you’re a well-rounded person who will make a positive contribution to student life.

He agrees about the importance of passion for the subject and disagrees about the importance of non-academic contributions. His main concern was to find students that he thought would and could learn, and that he would want to teach. He had no concern about an applicant's potential contributions to undergraduate life.