Cambridge - does it really make no difference which college you apply to?

[C1arity]

Hi, just looking at the stats on the Cambridge website, it does look as if the odds of applying to certain colleges for his subject are more preferable at some colleges than others. I realise the pooling system is a form of moderation, but still.... to what extent should we choose a college based on the stats? You can see that some colleges have much more success at having applicants they are not able to offer direct places to accepted via the pool, while others regularly take from the pool.

It should not make a difference to the candidate's place at Cambridge.

Admissions interviewers are required to make sure that choice of college doesn't impact on someone's changes of getting in. So if you're interviewing at a college that doesn't tend to get many applicants for your subject (sometimes this is just because the college is less well-known), you can't simply interview 30 people and accept the top 5. You have to be reasonably sure that all of those 5 are as good as the people pooled from colleges that got more applicants. You wouldn't just say 'yes, number 5 isn't brilliant but they applied here directly so we'll prioritise them'.

The only reason some colleges have 'success' at getting applicants accepted from the pool, will be (should be) because that college regularly attracts a shitload of applicants and therefore ends up with more qualified candidates than other colleges.

The different colleges get hugely different numbers of applicants for the same subjects.

Ds was advised not to stress about college choice at all and certainly not play the numbers game. He choose the college that felt right for him. I think the pooling system means if you are of Cambridge standard you will get an offer- so not to get over invested in a particular College.

Thankyou for the responses. That’s reassuring, but I do wonder about this because there are some quite wide variations when you look at his subject. Also, some colleges might have an intake of say 15, while others only have 2 places a year.

That doesn't change things, though.

Some colleges don't offer some subjects; some have large intakes in one subject and small in another; the colleges are different sizes. That's all taken into account.

I mean, it's absolutely relevant that some colleges have a year group of 15 and others 2 (and if that's something important to a candidate, that candidate would be sensible to chose a college with the number he or she feels happiest with). But it shouldn't make a difference to whether or not someone gets in.

Dont try and play the numbers game, just choose a college based on where they want to live. Some have more ensuites than others, some have scholars rooms, some dont, only one has the "large cat" (if it's still there) www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-28966001

If they are in a college with few students for their subject they may have a more mixed group of friends, not necessarily a bad thing but does mean that your closest friends may have finished exams when you still have them, or vice versa.

There are two large cats living with the master now. (It's my daughters college). They're both lovely 🙂

I guess there may be other colleges with large cats now then.

Self ID at its most useful !!

On the matter of college choice, I would frankly avoid the hugely popular ones unless you are a) an extremely competitive candidate or b) really don’t mind where you end up.

My advice is not to choose a college based solely on the statistical chances of getting in. As PPs said, the pool system exists precisely so that strong candidates will have an opportunity to get into a different college if they miss out on their first choice.

Some points to consider when choosing which college to apply to:

• location, style, "feel" of the college, it is going to be where you live for 3+ years so it helps if you like the surroundings (luckily most are lovely), I picked my college solely on this basis
• number of places for chosen subject at the college, would you prefer to be in a bigger or smaller group within college? (of course students will also meet and mix with other students doing their subject from other colleges)
• demographics eg split of students from state / private schools, split of men / women, % from ethnic minority backgrounds... this might not be important to everyone but diversity is obviously a good thing.
• this one is harder to find out without a bit of research, but some colleges have reputations for being particularly good for sports / music / drama etc - you can get involved in university-wide groups for pretty much any interest but if you have a strong passion it makes sense to see if there is a college which has an established team/group and good facilities.

When I was at Cambridge (years ago now) Kings was a very lefty college, and Trinity had cheap rent and generous grants (because the college is so damn rich) so despite being one of the grander ones it's actually quite a good choice for students from low income backgrounds.

I didn't want to be in a college that was always overrun with tourists so I avoided the big ones along the river, kings parade etc. But it's personal choice.

Lots of sensible advice above. I’ve got a couple more thoughts:-

Location of college and location of department. Some of the departments are actually quite far from the centre of town so it may be worth considering this when choosing a college. You need to be able to get to your department by 9am a lot more than you need to be able to get to Sainsbury’s. (In second year I used to be able to get up at 8:52am and still make my 9 O’Clocks with clean teeth.)

It is better to be disappointed in January than in August. I don’t know if this is still true but in my day and subject there was a huge discrepancy in “offers per place” made with some colleges asking for 4 As and STEP and others making much lower offers.

I would go for the one with a low number of offers per place and lower grades needed meaning that if they make you an offer “they want you”. Disappointment in August is hard to get over before starting elsewhere.

The final thing to remember if you are tempted to go down the “numbers game” is that everyone else in the country can also see that Selwyn only had 9 people applying for Theology and 6 places whilst Trinity had 436. So you suddenly have a big jump of future Selwyn theologians all thinking that they have got a clever ruse here!

DS shortlisted six colleges from online research and then spent a day visiting them ( not an open day). His final choice was based largely on the “feel” of the place and the helpfulness of the college porters!

Ha ha. You can drill down on the figures and see that some colleges reject all their applicants. I wonder if some of the, er, uglier and more distant colleges look at their applications with extra vigour as they are suspicious of the motivations, or whether in fact they are grateful that someone loves them...

When ds went for interview at Oxford the assembled hopefuls were told that they had 8 places and 40 interviewees. If that wasn't sobering enough they were told in the next breath that that didn't necessarily mean a one in five chance, as they might accept none of them!

Virtually everyone applying to Cambridge is a competitive candidate. My child's attitude was might as well go for a popular one if you liked it as you might get a less popular one anyway. Once they get there most people are pretty happy wherever they end up. Some colleges do seem to put more pressure on their students, of course some thrive on pressure.

If you choose a college based on sport/drama/music dont tell the interviewer that, they want you focused on their subject.

If you are going to row proximity to the boathouse is rather important for the 6 a.m starts.

If you choose a college based on sport/drama/music dont tell the interviewer that, they want you focused on their subject.

Actually, I don't think they'd care that much. They do want you focussed on the subject, but all the colleges teach the same basic stuff. It'd be quite nice to hear 'I chose it because Dr So-and-So's research sounds fascinating,' but I don't think 'I chose it because I like the music society' is awful.

I don't think it's considered a good question to ask, FWIW.

Thankyou for all this. The problem this year, obviously, is no open days and it’s hard to get a feel for any college from a website or just staring through the locked gates!

So all we have to go on is the stats

Everyone says to not play the numbers game and I can see why as the ratio of offers does vary year to year. Nevertheless... you can see that, over a 5 year average, the offer rate at one college might be 20% (direct applicants to direct offers) whereas elsewhere it might be 40%. Yes, there is the pooling system, but that’s surely less predictable. Some colleges seem to have a good track record if getting students successfully pooled; others hardly get anyone pooled, but they do tend to take from the pool.

But yes, I think it might be the case this year that people just go for the colleges with the best and most consistent offer rates - in the absence of anything else to turn their heads!

I think the subject choice is relevant to the importance of college choice. Some subjects (medicine, natsci etc) are taught primarily through lectures attended by the whole year group, and I think college choice matters less to your overall academic experience (though obviously important socially and practically), whereas I studied English and all of my teaching was in college by the fellows at my college, with the other 8 English students in my year at my college. Lectures were very much an optional extra and I didn’t really have any contact with people studying English at other colleges. So for me the research interests of the fellows at my college had a massive impact.

The gates aren't all locked, you can still wander around a lot of the colleges.

I studied English and all of my teaching was in college by the fellows at my college, with the other 8 English students in my year at my college.

That's highly unusual, though. Very few colleges have enough diversity of fellows to provide teaching for every single student, right through to third year dissertations. Usually the teaching is swapped with other colleges too (though yes, you'd typically still be in your college group to do it).

I think it's very sensible to chose a college based on the fellows' interests. But if you were pooled elsewhere, it wouldn't be the end of the world to find the fellows at your college weren't those whose work you were most keen on, as you'd likely choose options that would take you closer to people and subjects you wanted.

Which college you apply to shouldn't affect whether you get a place somewhere, but it might make it more or less likely that you get a place at the college you apply to. So, if your DC likes the look of a couple equally then it might make sense to check the stats.

Presumably you and your DC have found the 'virtual tours' which I'm guessing most if not all colleges have now?

As Errol says, the pooling system is great for ensuring good applicants don’t miss out on a place because they applied to a popular college.
Some colleges, generally the hill colleges, women’s colleges, more distant ones etc. tend to take many of the of poolees so applying to the most popular central colleges can mean a place at one of these instead . All great of course!

Bare numbers of applicants won’t give you the whole story of course. The high numbers for e.g. King’s and Trinity include much higher proportions of overseas students than for other colleges which may mean a significantly lower number of UK applicants for such colleges than might be expected.

@SarahAndQuack

I studied English and all of my teaching was in college by the fellows at my college, with the other 8 English students in my year at my college.

That's highly unusual, though. Very few colleges have enough diversity of fellows to provide teaching for every single student, right through to third year dissertations. Usually the teaching is swapped with other colleges too (though yes, you'd typically still be in your college group to do it).

I think it's very sensible to chose a college based on the fellows' interests. But if you were pooled elsewhere, it wouldn't be the end of the world to find the fellows at your college weren't those whose work you were most keen on, as you'd likely choose options that would take you closer to people and subjects you wanted.

Actually you’re right - for 3rd year dissertations we did have supervisors across the university (though mine was in college). But I wouldn’t say my experience was “highly unusual” - when I was there (10 years ago) for English anyway that was the norm, as most colleges had a sizeable no of students and the way the course is structured means that you don’t specialise until 3rd year. Different scenario for philosophy if there are only 1 or 2 of you, and again natsci where there might be 50.

My point still stands - the subject studied could mean that college choice has a greater or lesser impact.

I remember seeing some stats somewhere that basically said you had more chance of getting into Murray Edwards if you had applied to trinity than if you had applied to ME. Can’t remember where tho - might have been student room?

Anyway don’t try to play statistical games - either choose a college you love (old/new, big/small, central/not), choose by price/flexibility/availability of rooms/meals or do what my nephew did and put in an open application- university will put your application into a college that is less over subscribed for your subject. He ended up at Robinson and is loving it!

@indecision2020, no, ten years ago you specialised in second-year dissertations/portfolios of essays, too.

It was then, and still is, much more usual for some teaching to be swapped out from college. There are only a few colleges with enough English Lit people to teach across the full range of papers.

I admit, ten years ago is a blank spot in my experience, but it's a couple of years after I graduated and a few years before I started teaching there, so I'm fairly confident about this.

From what the OP says about numbers, I'm guessing her child is applying for a fairly big subject, and IMO it is worth knowing that college choice doesn't automatically cut you off from being supervised out of college, so there's no need to be gutted if you end up in a college where no one seems to be doing the thing you were most excited about.

I remember seeing some stats somewhere that basically said you had more chance of getting into Murray Edwards if you had applied to trinity than if you had applied to ME. Can’t remember where tho - might have been student room?

I don't see how there could be any reliable data on whether that would pertain to equally matched candidates. (Anyway, one thing for certain - the chances of the OPs DS getting a place at ME is nil)

From what the OP says about numbers, I'm guessing her child is applying for a fairly big subject, and IMO it is worth knowing that college choice doesn't automatically cut you off from being supervised out of college, so there's no need to be gutted if you end up in a college where no one seems to be doing the thing you were most excited about.

There are far fewer doing DDs subject at the college she was pooled to versus the one she applied to to but she has lots of friends from other colleges and/or other subjects.