Cambridge. Things we don't know we don't know.

[Sorenlorrenson]

My son is set on studying maths at Cambridge. We are working class and don't know anyone who went to Cambridge.
I have recently found out that Magdalene and Caius are not pronounced how they are spelt. There must be loads of stuff like this, stuff we don't know because we are poor and common.
If you know something you think we don't, please share.

The thing you need to know is practise STEP papers a helluva, helluva lot!
Cambridge make twice as many maths offers as they have places fir, STEP is the thing that thins them out

I have a DD who is a Mathmos (Maths Student) at Cambridge. She has just finished their second year and is currently working as an intern. We are a very average family and didn't have any knowledge about Cambridge until they started. Cambridge has its quirks and we love visiting but the common theme seems to be lots of very clever hardworking students with an incredible passion about their subject. Having autistic traits seem to help too. My DD is at a hill college and it is very inclusive and down to earth. What I didn't know about Cambridge is how relatively inexpensive it is to live as a student. Accommodation is much less than other universities and most colleges provide for all years so no hassle to source or paying bills etc. There are bursaries available for even middle income parents. Maths is an incredibly hard subject STEP is a massive hurdle and when you get to Cambridge you have lectures 6 days per week (but short terms) and the workload is huge but you can still find time to have fun.

Gowns = academic gowns. My college used to bulk buy them at a discounted rate and sell them on to undergraduates. They would have funded it if you couldn't afford it, I think, but you would have had to ask.

Edited to add: the university has a massive bursary system so huge numbers of students get additional funding on top of their student loans with a very minimal application process and the expectation that anyone who is eligible takes them up on it. Colleges then all also have hardship funds to fund anyone who has difficulties during their degree.

Women could wear either a suit or a dress under an academic gown for dinner, no one polices that. For graduating you can pick either a "with tie" or "without tie" option and have to follow the dress code for the option you have chosen (if I remember correctly), but i don't think they specify which sex you have to be to wear which option.

STEP is just maths I think, occasionally colleges ask for a step paper for physics as well I think but it varies by college and you could definitely avoid it for anything other than maths. It's also only Cambridge, not Oxford. Oxford has other exams and I don't know what they are. For most Cambridge subjects your a levels are all you need.

I think you need to start thinking about Oxbridge at the start of A levels and I agree it means schools that aren't clued up make life a lot harder.

I can't answer many of the other questions, but A level requirements are usually pretty similar across colleges (you can only apply to one college) with minor variations, whereas additional entrance requirements do tend to vary more across the colleges. (Only speaking for Cambridge, don't know about Oxford.)

The only people who would notice if someone wore the same dress at more than one May Ball would be people they know, unless it was very distinctive, in my opinion. I have a rather niche hobby of working at Cambridge May Balls, partly because I like looking at the frocks, and I’ve never noticed someone in the same dress on different days.

There can be ? 3000 guests at the larger May Balls, eg Trinity and St John’s, so a dress can be lost in the crowd.

This year, particularly at St John’s, a significant percentage of the women were wearing satin slip dresses, which need not be expensive.

Not all colleges have May Balls, some have smaller, cheaper events instead, see here for some. I think few people would go to more than one May Ball in a year.

I think most colleges do allow their students to marry in their college chapel. I can’t find the reference now, but I think there’s a time limit in some, eg up to 3 years after graduating. I have been to weddings in King’s and Queens’ College Chapels: for the Queens’ one the groom had graduated quite a few years earlier.

Something the OP may not know: in Cambridge colleges the religious buildings are called chapels even if they are much bigger than many parish churches - as in King’s College Chapel, for example. Not all colleges have chapels.

May Week is neither in May (but in June) nor is it only a week long (it’s slightly longer.)

We recently went to my DD's graduation in Cambridge.

Their degrees were bestowed upon them in Latin. I didn't know that would happen.

Like a French biscuit

To follow on from @MayBall; we got married in an Oxbridge chapel. We needed a special letter of permission from the Archbishop's office to do so, because a chapel isn't a parish church (open to all the people who live in the parish for all services) even if the chapel is twice the size. There's a legal distinction.

Biscuit? ( bis - kwee as twice cooked)? Mad - e- laine?

😁

I'm glad someone said this - I think a lot of state schoolers and parents who were state schoolers feel a degree of imposter syndrome when they achieve and are placed in a different environment. Everyone should try different experiences - if you try it and it's not for you, then move on. If you enjoy it - have fun.

I think I remember that! Wasn't there something to do with St Catherine's being known as Catz , or Emmanuel being Emma, catching someone out?
I was at Cambridge when it showed, if it is the one I was thinking of, so watched it with friends going "you don't get there if you walk down that street!"
Would never have remembered it was called Eskimo Day though, if it was that one.

Ironically, as the terms are short and they use the college rooms for conferences during the vacs once the students have gone down, accommodation is actually cheaper than most universities, where you have to pay for 44 or 51 weeks and clean /feed yourself.

There is a lot of individual study. There will be a lecture and then a tutorial on the material, and by the tutorial the student is expected to have researched the subject of the lecture and be able to participate in a thorough discussion of the topic before going off and writing it up: at least that is how I ran my subjects. It is hard to fail if you work and do the reading, but it is easy to fail if you don't. Nothing is above the abilities of the students because they are preselected. It's all about the work.

I've done 3 degrees in Scotland and all of them were also in Latin. It's a British old tradition I gather.. My actual degree certificates are also written in Latin! Luckily I speak it.

Thank you so much Ineffable for taking on that huge barrage of questions. Very much appreciated.

this though:
*A level requirements are usually pretty similar across colleges (you can only apply to one college) with minor variations, whereas additional entrance requirements do tend to vary more across the colleges. (Only speaking for Cambridge, don't know about Oxford.)

<screaming emoji> so in theory you could miss a Cambridge place to do a subject because you unknowingly picked a college to apply to that had harder entry requirements than another college had?
And.. additional entry requirements?! So not just needing A levels to get in, and additional requirements are set per college?

It is very off putting I think because getting in feels a bit arbitrary and not transparent to the outside. You can see why some people think it must be all down to a private school advantage (which I know isn’t really true so much now..) or parents just think it’s not for the likes of their kids because it requires so much prior knowledge.

One of ds teachers was rusticated for a term for getting into a fight on college grounds. You can also rusticate yourself for a year usually if you’ve partied too hard, haven’t studied for your exams and in danger of failing them.

Students that come usually in the top 10 of their subject year group in exams are known as scholars and often prioritised for the best accommodation and given money as prizes

At Cambridge you used to kneel in rows of 4, each holding a finger of the Principal's hand ( women's college, so Principal not Master). I was in the first row, being at the beginning of the alphabet. That row gets the whole speech, other rows are then 'and you too' sort of thing. I did Classics and the Principal stumbled a bit on the Latin, so the official photo of our row, taken while kneeling, shows me with a rather unbecoming smirk. Its still on my parents' wall.

We had a practice beforehand so we could make sure we didn't get our gowns caught in our heels while getting up
Good thing too.

I could have written the same!

That’s Oxford.

I studied at Magdalene and was recently told it is pronounced Maudlin because it was founded by Thomas Audley, and it is a kind of pun. But that may well be a load of bollocks as the person who told me also informed me that Queens was set up as a sister college to Kings, and was set up to allow women to study (in the 1440s!). (Don't believe everything the punt tour people tell you).

Well it was things like I got an offer for Astar,A,A,E, whereas another friend got an offer of Astar,A,A,A so very random, and another again Astar,Astar,A with no requirement for their 4th A level. Very very few Cambridge candidates miss their offer on the basis of their A level results though - really miniscule numbers.

In terms of the other exams, they were ones the college asked you to do after applying (so not something extra you had to know about in advance). For me, one was a computerised "thinking skills" test which I did at the same time as my interview and it was pretty simple and didn't require much, if any, preparation.

I totally agree it's confusing though. All the information will be on the university and college websites so you just have to trawl through it. The pooling system also helps even things out.

Edited to deal with MN bolding all my *s

These are great questions. They are a good part of the reason Oxbridge is sometimes regarded as a closed shop IMO

The explicit ones to do with entry requirements and, to a large extent, admissions procedures, are answered on University and College websites, and I will come back to some of them. But I appreciate that it can be very daunting to be piecing all of this together for yourself, in a vacuum if your school and your friends aren’t interested. Also, some of the websites use insider language that isn’t the most helpful.

Caius is making a real push now, not just a formal one, and the stuff they have on SM at the handle I mentioned upthread is very user friendly. Someone there told me about it.

You can only apply to Oxford or Cambridge and they have a common early October deadline. Most subjects do require an additional exam, either in the autumn or with A levels. It’s all explained in the entry requirements. Each exam has its own website and these are pretty good. Many have bursaries for those in need. STEP is the hardest I know of, but I am in STEM so have limited knowledge.

At both unis you apply to a College (or say you don’t care). At Oxford applicants to a degree programme across all Colleges receive the same offer. At Cambridge it may vary, but not hugely. The additional exam tends to be a university wide requirement.

Rule of thumb, the older colleges are grander and richer.

I think ‘gowns’ prob meant academic gowns.

Both unis have good reputations for honouring protected characteristics. Some Colleges both places are known as being particularly good for mature students, particularly progressive, etc.

As a former admissions tutor I know that different unis pick up on different contextual flags. I am not sure what if any contextual offers Oxbridge make. I do know people both places who are very concerned to attract more top students from all schools.

Maths is one of the hardest courses to get in at Cambridge. Unless your son is at or close to Maths Olympiad level it will be an uphill battle.

Don't underestimate STEP Maths. I did Maths / Further Maths A Level and they were a breeze compared to STEP. Comprehensive school were poorly equipped to help support - I tried to do STEP maths with two hours a week with a maths teacher who was teaching himself the material as we went along. Also had coaching from a family member who was a maths teacher and did a lot^ of past papers^. With the benefit of hindsight I started preparing too late and didn't have the right level of support with STEP (or the ability!)

The alternative prospectus published by the Students Union is well worth a read: www.cambridgesu.co.uk/access/alternative-prospectus/

Honestly OP, probably 80% of people don’t know any if this before they apply. How would they? Anyway, nobody cares about that stuff.

it’s a steep learning curve for everyone (unless you are one of the few whose parents went back in the day or something like that).

Please don’t go into the application with an attitude of ‘not for for likes of us.’ Whether he gets in it not will have nothing to do with his background. It will have everything to do with how he performs in interviews and the STEP exams. It quite a brutal process in Maths as they over-offer following interviews, knowing that 50% will be deselected following STEP exams the following summer.

I wore the same, vintage 50s ballgown, for all three years!

@Sorenlorrenson

When is he hoping to go up to Cambridge? I'm assuming the autumn of 2025, but could be wrong.

It made me feel sad when I read your description of yourselves as 'poor and common'. Don't say that.

I agree that “typical” may be doing a bit of heavy lifting, but this page seems to be pretty clear about what A level offers for Maths would be.

There also a section about the free STEP support system.