Am I right to discourage dd1 from Cambridge application (NatSci)?

[roundandroundthehouses]

Dd1 is currently Lower 6th and, for a long time, has intended to apply for NatSci at Cambridge. However, I'm concerned that she'd be wasting an application, due to her grades at GCSE and feedback from the current year's applicants.

She is doing AS Physics, Chemistry, Maths and English Lit, whilst following the Further Maths course at home as her school doesn't offer it. Physics is by far her best subject, but her GCSE result doesn't reflect this.

The offers and interview invitations have now started coming in for pupils in the year above. Of the two pupils who applied for Cambridge NatSci, neither was offered an interview. One of them was given feedback that this was because his academic profile was not strong enough.

This chap had 4 As at AS level, so it must be his GCSEs that were the issue. He has 7 As and 6 As. Dd1 has 6 As and 4 As. Two of the As are in Physics and Chemistry. Although both were high As, and unexpectedly 'low' given her previous performances (normally in the top three in her year), those are the grades that she got.

To me, that makes her situation clear, but dd1 is determined to apply anyway. Both dh and I went to Cambridge so we know the form - however, neither of us went for NatSci, which is (one of) the most competitive for applicants.

I'm torn between not wanting to shatter her dreams and advising her, realistically, that she would probably be wasting one of her five applications. Can anyone suggest a middle ground?

Well I'm not going to delude myself in the face of 25% FM A*s and Olympians am I? It was only a passing thought anyhow and I don't think he'd be sensible to pursue it, frankly. He's under no illusions that he's top of the class. It's not a big deal, just that he seems to really like the subject in sixth form.

I'm curious about the support required for a mathematician. Why should kids who are good at maths need special support ? That sounds a bit precious.

Only really good mathematicians take FM in the first place. A level maths itself is difficult, FM is a whole new level. So your ds is clearly very talented. Not everyone who does further maths will do maths anyway, many will go into engineering or entirely unrelated stuff so the field narrows down quickly.

If its what he wants to do, he shoukd do it.

The extra support is a little like supporting a talented sports person. You wouldnt expect a county level runner to manage just on school lessons, they would go to clubs and have a coach.

The support the UKMT gives (which your ds could have have if he wanted, all he needs to do is ask) is to email out a sheet of questions each month. In younger years a school teacher agrees to do it. In the senior mentoring scheme they are assigned an external mentor who answers questions with little hints. Its way more interesting than school maths and is structured well so that it builds through the year.

Support probably not the right word? Just that a large percentage of school is maths lessons and they can be very boring if you can do everything already. You can need a lot more differentiation (non-calculus variety, ha ha), which can be trickier to provide in a classroom setting than for other subjects. I think. Which is partly why stuff like the UKMT mentoring system exists.

Molio why would you want to dissuade him if he likes it enough by the time he needs to decide? He is clearly good enough to do a maths degree. The only doubt at this stage (without knowing any more about him) would be whether he would get in to one of the top universities to read maths but surely it is better to study what you enjoy and are best at rather than aim for certain universities.
From what you say I would n't bet against him getting into one of those top maths courses mentioned by the other posters.

molio I just saw your posts about picking up from Oxford, you know a lot about the different colleges. I think you are being quite grumpy on this thread as you have experience with the system - about a million times more than me in fact.

Thanks for the stuff about the UKMT Kitten.

I'm genuinely not being grumpy. I've never had a DC even think of maths before and know nothing about it at uni level. My father loved maths and would have been thrilled at the idea of one of mine doing maths rather than something frilly like history, but the competition seems especially intense and the parents especially knowledgeable.

I'm conscious this is a major hijack now, so I'm off to bed.

Molio I am genuinely curious about your perceptions. Surely your DS' relative strength in maths and appropriate course can be well judged and aided by the school. I always sort of assumed that for DCs destined to do maths at university it was usually pretty clear by sixth form that was the subject they wanted to do and had natural ability for with perhaps computer science, physics or maths heavy economic courses as other options. I suppose some parents heavily influence that choice but that is not your style from what I have gathered.
Is it that you would want the knowledge of other parents to dissuade him from applying to most competitive course if insppropriate so as to prevent any eventual disappointment rather like the OP?

May I start by saying I have zero experience of this, however DH always wanted to do natural science at Nottingham, also very competitive I believe, but didn't get in and ended up at a different uni. In retrospect he always says he wish he'd applied for a less competitive course at Nottingham and then applied to transfer course after the first term as spaces always become available as some people drop out or transfer out. He had several friends do this to get the course they initially wanted. Don't know if this is the case with Cambridge or if that's incredibly risky, but worth checking if you could still do that (as DH was 20 years ago!) and what the figures for drop outs are...

In exceptional circumstances, some Colleges may consider making offers based on other evidence of academic attainment, for example outstanding performance in STEP and/or Mathematical Olympiads.

Please note the word exceptional.

Of course somebody from the UK team may well get an unconditional offer, but being one of the 100 or so who sit BMO2 does not in itself mean that you won't go through STEP as other applicants.

Obviously a student who did well in an Olympiad from a school with no history of doing Olympiads would be viewed differently than a student from a school with a long history of doing well in Olympiads. Note that this is not a straight state v private school split, as many private schools don't engage in Olympiads and a number of (mostly very selective) state schools do.

I would agree also that different academics have different opinions. It bothers me a great, great deal that the Olympiads are so dominated by selective school educated men. (There's even a female Olympiad to deal with the fact that so few women get involved in the main Olympiad.) It bothers me a great deal that only around 20% of maths undergraduates at Cambridge are female, while the national average for maths courses is 40% female. But such diversity concerns are probably less important to many Cambridge academics than to me.

BTW I think it is incredibly naive to say that no practising is needed for maths challenges and therefore nobody is at any more of an advantage than others. My DC went to a selective private school from a prep; about 40% of the intake came in from state schools. They all came in with high level 5/level 6+ maths but even amongst those who in principle were at the same NC level there were massive variations, reflecting the ways they had been taught. There was in a no way a level playing field, with children from certain schools being way ahead in terms of doing "maths challenge" type questions despite having never explicitly been trained or taught for them.

By the way, quoting the total number getting A*s at further maths is a bit misleading, as not all of those taking FM will want to study maths at university: further maths is also desirable/required for the top university courses in engineering, physics and sometimes computer science/economics.

Warwick is top three in maths and if you look at their entry requirements

www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/admissions/ug/offer/

you can see that even they do not absolutely insist on an A in FM: one of their options allows an A in FM. (Albeit getting a 1 in STEP is harder than getting an A in FM, but at least their offer allows for a student to mess up a couple of A2 papers.) UCL, which I would put at number 4/5 in maths, has a similar policy. Neither UCL nor Warwick would bother to include this option if absolutely all students had A* in FM.

Interestedininfo well I guess I'm just musing over options in the background really, because he's Y12 (but a summer born - very young in his year - so maybe a gap year (although I think that doesn't work for maths from what I gather on here)) and his strength seems to lie in other sciences (he doesn't take physics). He enjoys those a lot but he does seem to have developed a real enthusiasm for maths, even though he definitely isn't anything like top in his year. That said, he is at a superselective state grammar and there are some seriously outstanding mathematicians. Anyhow, there seem to be a lot of parents of maths applicants/ new undergrads on here, so I'm interested in what the actual spread of ability is. I don't think he'd get into Cambridge for maths in a month of Sundays and I don't really want to badger the school or appear to DS to be too intense, so I was just casting around, since it's unfamiliar territory.

his strength seems to lie in other sciences (he doesn't take physics). He enjoys those a lot but he does seem to have developed a real enthusiasm for maths,
Molio there is a real need for bioinformaticians in the biological sciences so that might be a future option for him post a degree in maths to combine his interests.
It does seem that mathematicians are dissuaded from a year out. I have also heard that some universities such as Bath group their 'younger mathematicians' in the same tutorial group.

A student with AAA or AAA including maths and further maths would do absolutely fine at the top 6-20 universities (including places such as Bath, Bristol, Durham, Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton, Nottingham, Exeter....). If you can get AAA (including FM) or AAA then it is essentially a buyer's market outside the top few places as maths is not oversubscribed.

This is quite an interesting link HESA stats
which shows that there were 11,275 students doing mathematical sciences in their first year in 2013/2014. Not sure what the point of me posting it is, other that I was curious! My philosophy is that it is better to do a subject you love, rather than choose a course by the prestige of the uni.

Perhaps he should talk to his tutors, if he does want to try for maths at COWI or some of the other Unis he will need to be starting to think about STEP, AEA, or MAT depending on where he is considering. From having been round a few 6th forms, it seems that different places start them preparing for these at different times. Some places also ask for these for engineering or economics. If he doesn't do any of these exams, it doesn't write him off for a maths degree at all, just narrows the selection of places a little.

That's good to know disquisitiones :)

11k mathematical sciences students (which includes actuarial science, financial mathematics etc) compared to 24k law students, 59k biological sciences students and 22k historians.

This tells you why maths courses select mostly on grades (if you have the required grades you get an offer) and also explains why we are so short of maths teachers! I read a report recently which said we need to produce at least 20k maths graduates per year to meet the demand from all sectors.

Crikey, that's a worry. Is it because students don't want to study maths or because there isn't the drive to create places for them?

This is the worst thread drift in mn history - sorry roundandround.

It's because of culture and education system: we make students specialise too early and we (as a country) value science, engineering and maths less than many other countries. There are plenty of university spaces available for maths, physics and engineering and provision could be expanded if there were more demand.

Out of undergraduate maths students up to 20-25% are foreign (the precise figure should be on HESA somewhere). Amongst the UK students certain minorities are highly represented (South Asian origin, for example, or Eastern European origin) as they come from cultures which value science much more.

I teach maths in schools (supply teacher) even though my specialism is not maths and constantly turning down offers for FT maths roles in schools you wouldn't think would have any problem in recruiting - great schools, great kids.

Utterly irrelevant to the detail of the thread, but I suspect many of the posters on here will enjoy

MrsUltra, dd's current ambition is to be a maths teacher - have told her if she sticks with it (she's only 13) at least she's always likely to find a job

Having said that I suspect in the end she'll veer off into the life sciences. (I also keep encouraging her to consider engineering)

Sadik they would bite her hand off! And pay her double what she asked for! If I were minded to take on a FT teaching job I would go for maths. Much easier marking, and when a kid, particularly one with low confidence, has a lightbulb moment, you and they feel 10 feet tall!

talkin!

thanks disquisitones :) it does seem odd when more and more of our daily lives are tech driven. Things just don't seem to have changed since I was a student (engineer)

She's actually been inspired by helping a friend who struggles with maths, MrsU :)