Cambridge interview high numbers - higher than Oxford.
Back in the day if real life interviews, I think people received offers or rejections and were told they were pooled at that point. Then there was a shirt delay whilst other colleges considered them. Then most were told they hadn’t got an offer and some were offered from the pool.
Maybe now they just go through the full process before telling people. So in a way, being told you were pooled doesn’t serve a purpose, as it’s past tense, whilst being told you are in the pool, made sense in the past. It’s probably also the case that it’s necessary for those picked up from the pool as their offer comes from a different college to the one they applied to. Perhaps those pooled and then rejected are told because the rejection comes through a slightly different process and not directly via the college applied to.
For some people, knowing they were pooled is a bit of a comfort. They were the standard but there simply weren’t enough places. For others it’s more upsetting to know they were so close and didn’t get it. It sounds like a lot are pooled though.
Maybe someone else will be along with more info about why people are told this after the pool has closed, when it was previously information given when the pool was open and seemed to make more sense.