Can you be "too qualified" on your PS? (Comp Sci)

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Hi everyone,

My 17 y/o DS has been programming since he was 10 and it would be an understatement to say he is totally obsessed with it. He has a fairly substantial online presence / portfolio and as such has been approached by people the last couple of months to work on paid projects, so much so that he is working almost full time this summer building websites and web apps for various client - and getting paid great money (more than me at my actual job!). He's in his element.

He has an excellent academic profile - 10 x 9s at GCSE and 4 A Star predictions at A Level. He's looking at Camb / Imperial / Manchester for University. He's still working on his maths in his spare time for the entrance exams.

Obviously he still needs to go to uni as he wants a qualification. My question is - would the admissions academics at those unis think this experience is good and would it work to his advantage on his PS, or could it possibly work against him as they prefer someone with great potential that they can teach / mold in their ways from scratch, without the prior knowledge getting in the way? In other words, might his experience be a detriment to the teaching styles at these universities?

Would he be better off looking for an apprenticeship?

We live in the UK but I did not grow up here so this whole entrance process is new to me.

Thanks for your insight.

It's not unusual for Computer Science students to have a lot of practical experience and also to have monetised their skills. So I wouldn't say that your DC particularly stands out in that respect.

You (or he) should be aware that a Computer Science degree is more than coding and buildling web apps. There is a lot more (particularly at universities like Cambridge) on the theoretical/academic side to cover. If he wants to focus more on the practical side, he might be better off looking for an apprenticeship.

Computer science is not building web apps. It's the theory of computer algorithms. Great examples are how the founders of Google with their search algorithms or OpenAI and their large language models. I'm a developer and my experience with new grads are that you get about 75/25 of those who can and those who can't code. I did engineering, and I could code before I went to university and I'm in my late 40s. I think it must be more common now for those doing computer science to already know how to code. I don't believe the course actually teach programming. It's almost a side effect and that you will find it difficult if you can't code. They will do an introductory course but I don't think your son will be the odd one out. Maybe making money out of it is rarer. But knowing how to and doing side projects on it can't be.

@PandaPacer I don't think it will go against him at all. In fact it just shows his commitment to the subject. Ds has just finished year 2 of Computer Science within the top 5 universities for CS, they don't teach and mould they just direct and it is a lot of self learning with guidance. He could also code way before uni, attended local meet ups to see how it all fit together in real life applications. I think the vast majority of them can do some code before they apply to uni as lots take CS for A level. Ds is currently on a summer internship and they are impressed with his knowledge of how it all works and fits together as this is what he is taught at uni. They do projects from scratch at uni as a team working with actual companies and have to present their product.

There are a couple of students on his course who he knows of that were being paid for their work either in coding for apps or graphic design for websites. They all feel that they need a degree to progress in the CS field like your son. There are a lot with his grade profile too, Ds is very similar. The personal statement is the one thing that makes them stand out from the rest, his will show his abilities and interest. Good luck to him.

That's great, thank you all for your insight. It absolutely makes sense, so thank you.

These concerns were my own (I obvs have no idea) so I will just let him happily beaver away over the summer in his happy place :-)

I attended a CS mock interview in Oxford openday. They asked to solve a problem with nothing to do with programing. It is mainly a problem solving ability assessment. A level CS is not required for many CS course.

@User11010866 I would agree that problem solving is the most important skill, not writing code. If it's something straight foward, everyone can do it, even ChatGPT. And a lot of the problem solving aren't even in application coding. It could be database performance, network routing and cost analysis.

Thanks all, got it!

He has excellent academic profile - 10 x 9s at GCSE and 4 A Star predictions at A Level. I'm presuming his A-levels include Further Maths.

He most certainly should be looking at Cambridge, Imperial and Machester.
Apprenticeships are great for learning on the job but a lot of what the student learns may not be relevant in years to come as technology is changing so rapidly. A strong theoretical grounding in maths and computer science is far more important in the era of natural language programming, machine learning, computer vision and robotics.

Absolutely, include his programming background in his personal statement. If he wants to improve his application, he should be fully focused on preparing for STEP.

Former RG STEM admissions tutor here, dropping in to say you have a great set of replies here OP!

Your DS may wish to think about what kind of approach he wants to take to his studies: eg Cambridge CS is quite theoretical and Imperial more pragmatic (but still having much to teach him). He may know enough to be able to assess this at least to some extent

Just to correct what I said earlier -
your DS will NOT need to prepare for STEP for pure computer science.

I was confusing this with an application for Comp Sci with Maths.

Just had this conversation with DS, who does a lot of coding and also has quite a big portfolio of work. His view is that the CS degree teaches you the maths and theory that sits behind everything, and he did a lot of research into courses that had the best fit of modules for his interests.

Be aware that CS is highly competitive, and even stellar grades don’t necessarily guarantee you an offer.

Normal for CS students :)

Most admissions tutors don't read PSs anyway OP!

This is really not true, and I wish people wouldn't make such unprovable statement as if they were based on fact.

@frustratedacademic, you might be interested to see the recent HEPI survey (link below) which suggests most PS's are read, though often at speed. Obviously the survey respondents may not completely reflect the full universe of 'PS readers' but it is useful info I think.
https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/06/15/how-do-admissions-professionals-use-the-ucas-personal-statement-2/

I am a former STEM admissions tutor in an excellent RG university. We read the PS but we don’t tend to use it, primarily because of concerns around authorship. Also, as mentioned on another active HE thread there is the potential for exaggeration

An applicant discussing preference for a certain approach to the discipline in alignment with ours would definitely stand out. But even this would only be a marginal factor in an admissions decision

We do care about Mitigating Circumstances but ideally they should be discussed in the letter of recommendation

Yes, @poetryandwine, I can see that authorship concerns is an added dimension. PS's obviously have their drawbacks but one of the possibly overlooked benefits is that it encourages the applicant to consider and articulate to themselves why a uni education and why particular subject areas; in that sense PS exaggeration and/or contracting out to others would undermine the potential benefit of 'forced self-reflection'. The proposed reforms to the PS would still leave this aspect intact and perhaps even strengthen it.

I agree completely @PerpetualOptimist that a PS written by the applicant is beneficial all around. The self reflection is the most important part of that. Furthermore it is a great pleasure to read a clearly original and/or well written PS in a pupil’s own voice.

It is impossible to impose guidance around what ultimately amounts to gut feelings, no matter how grounded; furthermore, it is not possible to distinguish a percentage of PSs competently written by pupils from otherwise. And no one objects to a reasonable amount of adult feedback.

But where do you draw the line? We had an example of a thread I thought extreme recently, but many mums thought ‘of course you do this for your DC’. If I ever thought we should formalise attention to the PS , that thread killed the idea.

He might

Unless they've changed it in the last couple of years, Imperial wanted STEP for straight Comp Sci.

Good maths, ideally double maths, is vital

I’ll admit that I helped DS1 with his PS, but mostly because school was useless, they were so focussed on the medics they forgot anyone else applying early. With DS2 I didn’t see his PS until he was ready to press the button to apply - but he had way more support from school.

That's interesting @poetryandwine .

On the student room there was a thread where virtually all CS candidates at UCL who were on that thread had 4 A stars predictions for M, FM, CS, Ph and most of them had been rejected. I thought oh, the difference might be in the PS. Somebody who tears devices apart (but then if you are poor how do you have access to them?) or reads lots of free stuff on websites, does lots of programming, has read lots of advanced Maths and watched free lectures online etc.

So, if you hardly consider the PS, given that there are hundreds of candidates with identical A-Level predictions how do you differentiate candidates? Surely, not everyone has personal circumstances.

@PandaPacer

Is your son going to start Y12 in September?

Google the student room and CS PS. Read the ones for Oxford, Imperial etc. Some PS were by students with work experience, like your DS but for a bit lower universities. Others had taken personal circumstances into account (a student had mentioned having come from abroad a few years earlier) and for sure they are quite old. One of them who was accepted by Oxford had studied Maths, FM, ADDITIONAL FM (?) which does not exist anymore and it was clear that he wasn't studying CS but had learnt a little bit of programming which paled into insignificance compared to your DS. But you could see his interest in Maths, algorithm optimisation and logical thinking. THAT'S what top universities seem to want. They don't even care if you have studied CS at A-Levels. Of course, your DS can show that he's brilliant at programming which is a bonus!

Tell him to concentrate on his problem-solving (I guess he must be brilliant) for his PS and study lots of Maths. Find their book reading recommendations online. The more Maths and logic the better. If he mentions lots of really advanced Maths used on his algorithms and how he optimised them it will be excellent, I believe! Also, nowadays they don't care about grade 8 piano or other paying hobbies but more like holding a PT job which your son seems to be doing with his paid programming. He should show that he is self-driven and can learn by himself using free resources. Hobbies and work (unless related) must be kept to a minimum.

Hello,@chocorabbit

I wish we could rely on the CS. Between deliberate and inadvertent exaggeration on the one hand and what we may gently call overly enthusiastic parental contributions on the other, we simply cannot.

Interviewers read the PS to inform the interview, so at that stage supracurricular and extracurricular activities come into play. Exaggerations are caught out. But the quality of writing too often has everything to do with the parents’ educational and financial attainments. Such parents have nullified the value of the PS in many units of admissions across the UK.

I like the second of your two most recent posts very much. Many potential CS students love the subject and will want a CS A level, but high school level CS is somewhat boring. No one requires this AL.

A more sophisticated approach might be to learn CS independently and mention your accomplishments on the PS I’ve just said we don’t use, because this is obviously a matter of degree! Make the deep interest clear.

Then do Maths, FM, Physics and eg Philosophy. Learn about different types of knowledge and reasoning, learn something about how to write and stand out from the crowd

‘I wish we could rely on the PS’ is what I meant to open with above