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.

OhTediosity great I will look at York. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s the lack of understanding of the process, if it’s on Google DC can read it.

It’s hard to describe, lack of exec function here is not having dogged tenacity and self organisation. Poor at sticking to deadlines, Poor at ignoring the anxiety voice that says this is crazy for you. Not being good at seeing the bigger picture. Used to being excluded socially and not questioning that. Exceptional at the detail, which can waste time when detail is not called for. Just wanting to think about the beloved subject all the time. Being naive about all the practical stuff that has to go on around all of that focused attention.

I’d imagine once actually at a university the opportunity to focus will be the reward and incentive for doing the less attractive practical things.

@HassledSENmum DS has a dual diagnosis of autism and ADHD, with the impact on life skills / independence that sometimes accompany these. He has been fine academically (got a 1st in both Part II and Part III) but has needed our support with some of the non-academic aspects. He has been happy at Cambridge and is staying on to to a PhD.

Ironoaks congratulations to you all for that- a happy educational experience sounds wonderful for your DS.

How did you or DS school help him with the university application process? Was he usually able to manage school OK? What areas are you helping with now?

I hope he will, OP. Sutton Trust is a great call. So are many of the tips on this page.

And I am not worried about your socioeconomic class or whether he knows which fork to use. But there is still an element of randomness. He wouldn’t be the first genius they missed. He needs resilience.

I think learning to talk maths fluently is a very important thing for him now. Do you live near a city? Could he get to outreach events sponsored by universities? Free lectures etc

Also many of the big uni Schools of Maths have online outreach sections. He should definitely investigate the ones closest to you.

The Cambridge STEM students usually make their A level offers, That’s a large part of the reason for STEP and its predecessors: A levels are not selective enough. However I have never heard of Cambridge STEM dropping a grade, absent Mitigating Circumstances. Although my bet is that if you aced STEP and FM they wouldn’t care about your Maths grade.

As a former admissions tutor I am completely with you on the superior efficacy of a post qualifications admissions system. We know it can be done; it’s been widely if quietly discussed. The problem is that every stakeholder - universities, exam boards, schools and families who like summer holidays - would have to make some changes in order to do it right. Everyone is on board until they realise that they would be affected. Then suddenly they are full of reasons why it is impossible.

How did you or DS school help him with the university application process?
We helped him to make a to-do list with deadlines. One of his teachers did a practice interview with him. The thing he found most useful in preparing for both the aptitude test and the interview questions was Isaac Physics (online, free of charge, open to anyone).

Was he usually able to manage at school OK?
By Y12 / Y13 he needed little to no support.

What areas are you helping with now?
Not much these days, he occasionally asks for practical support or advice with navigating new situations he hasn't experienced before.

@Kucinghitam you beat me to the "pass the port" comment. My DD1 is now in her 7th year of study at Cambridge. After her 1st term when she came home for Christmas, she told us that she finally appreciated us drilling into her about starting from the outside set of cutlery in a dinner with several courses but she was most annoyed that we hadn't explained the port rule. That's because we didn't know it.

To the OP, I think most people have covered most things. DD's college has been amazing in many ways. The Master is kind and approachable and keen to ensure that parents feel part of the college "family". However, the college chose DD as unbeknown to any of us, she was put in the pool after interview and picked out by an Admissions Tutor. We met this tutor informally on graduation day and he described DD as "one of his better decisions"!

We went to Cambridge in the summer of year 11 just to get a feel for the place. We used the park & ride bus, got a college map from Tourist Information which is in the street behind Kings Parade, and went to look at as many as possible. The famous colleges right in the centre attract a lot of tourists. Parking near them doesn't really exist whereas at DD's college there was some on-site parking which made dropping off and collecting a lot easier. Before I get flamed, we live in a rural area with atrocious public transport, so going by car was pretty much the only option. It gave us a good feel for the place.

We only went to a proper graduation ceremony in April when DD's BA upgraded to an MA (she also has an MSci) due to Covid restrictions in 2021 when guests were not allowed in the Senate House. Yes, it's all in Latin. Yes, in groups of 4 they had to hold a finger of their Director of Studies, apparently this confers knowledge, then kneel in front of the Master & bow or curtsy afterwards. DD chose to wear a blouse and skirt; but at the gathering of friends & families at DD's house prior to the ceremony, there was the whole array of attire and nobody seemed to mind who wore a dress, trousers or white tie.

@LastMinuteSubstitution -

What subject is your DC interested in as people on here might be able to make some college suggestions?

Thank you that’s kind of you Publicfinances it would be Natural Sciences, the biological side. I can see that it’s an ‘all colleges’ subject.

@LastMinuteSubstitution I started a thread about Natural Sciences a few months ago on here as both my DDs have studied it, one at Cambridge. There are several NatSci mums about, so please don't be shy.

Don’t overthink college choice. DD had no clue where to apply and felt a bit out of her comfort zone to choose a famous old college, so picked a large modern one that offered 7 places for her subject. By way of the (Oxford) open offer system she ended up at an ancient central college where she thrived academically and socially.
DS chose his Cambridge college from a shortlist of six on the basis of how friendly the porters were when he visited. He loved his college too and would choose it again with hindsight.

Are Nat Sci lectures on the Silver St / Mill Lane site? If so, Queens could be a good one - just looked and the applicant-places ratio looks quite good and the ratio is also fairly stable year to year. Queen’s has great accommodation for all years and the famous Mathematical Bridge. It’s medium-sized, good balance of STEM / Humsnities students. Also it looks like they don’t bother going to the pool much for Nat Sci and just offer from those who applied to them? That’s just from a brief glance at the admissions graphs though.

@IwillNOTplayfastandloosewithpublicfinances NatSci lectures are in various different locations depending on what pathway you are taking. In her 1st year, DD studied Chemistry, Materials and something else. Chemistry is in the centre of Cambridge, Materials is in West Cambridge. She had supervisions at her own college and others, depending on the subject and supervisor, so I wouldn't get too hung up on the location of a college in terms of proximity to labs or lectures.

Can I ask which admissions graphs these are? Thank you

Combine the port. Not pass 😂.

On post A level admission, my siblings applied at a time when it was fading out - "7th term Oxbridge" i t was called and it was the norm and private schools allowed you back for a term after A levels to do Oxbridge. One of my siblings was at a school that did that and the other not (both got in - one with a gap year and one no gap year as no 7th term at 6th form)). My suggestion above to treat Oxbridge as a 2 year process and apply twice if not get in first year I now remember is not good for maths because they don't like people having a year of getting rusty and not doing maths so may be that is not a good idea simply because of that subject.

Even the most selective of UK state grammar schools lots of children will not even try Oxbridge and plenty who are bright enough to get in fail and that's fine. The main thing is the boy here has a go. He seems very fixed on his path but it has certainly sometimes been done that people pick a subject akin to the one they like on the basis it is less popular and may be easier to get into - at least with not so much competition and certainly in the old days picking an unpopular college (in the old days a single sex one tended to fit that bill) and a subject no one wants to do did tend to help people get in a bit.

Pass the port to the left isn’t a Cambridge thing though. It’s a general thing. Obviously most people spend very little time in their lives passing port anywhere so probably only connect it with Cambridge if that’s where they did it!

(..indeed... I almost quipped " who doesn't know that...." but then thought it really summarises the point of the thread - that some people are just told things by their parents (eg me told by mine about port and indeed read about it in books as a teenager) and others not)

Whereas I did only come across it as an undergraduate (and found the idea that fellow 18 year olds knew about it, and that some of them even knew what port tasted like deeply intimidating) but my career has since meant I’ve gone to port passing events quite a few times. I have to say though that it’s normally just started off and round it goes and it would be entirely possible to never notice what direction it’s moving in, so I’m not sure it’s a hugely important bit of knowledge whatever you end up doing. Unless you are professionally involved in formal dining.

Fortunately these days nobody with any manners or good sense cares two hoots about non U stuff, probably especially not at Cambridge or Oxford. Which way the port passes is a total nothing. No prospective student needs prior knowledge about anything other than their subject tbh.

It's very, very hard work.

Lack of exec function here is not having dogged tenacity and self organisation. Poor at sticking to deadlines, Poor at ignoring the anxiety voice that says this is crazy for you. Not being good at seeing the bigger picture. Used to being excluded socially and not questioning that. Exceptional at the detail, which can waste time when detail is not called for. Just wanting to think about the beloved subject all the time. Being naive about all the practical stuff that has to go on around all of that focused attention.

Been thinking about this, and would be happy to see if others had similar or very different takes on a response to it.
Disclaimer - I'm neurodiverse and have very strange executive function too, but a strange memory (in a good way) that compensates for a lot.

1. Apart from the deadline bit, and the social element (within a defined academic community that balances self-promotion with 'bringing people in'), the above description fits quite a lot of very successful academics I know, to a tee, and is by no means unusual or a disadvantage either to student or professor.

2. However, my belief is that things can actually develop to feel like a less inclusive environment (due to competitiveness and the prevalence of something like imposter syndrome for many) once you have been there for some time, rather than at the beginning where you're concentrating on showing your potential and running the race. On the inside it is hard. It is rewarding. It is mostly amazing. But to me, it was clear to see the people who were 'favoured' as possible PHD prospects from a cohort they wanted to keep, from about year 2, and it was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. By comparison, with my schoolfriends who had applied to Oxbridge but not made it and gone to other universities (specifically, York, Lancaster, East Anglia, Birmingham), they got excellent first degrees and it felt as if they were much more supported to continue with further degrees (also very successfully indeed) on their own terms elsewhere.

@CurlewKate, actually my DD found it less hard work than school. She has always done a lot of extra curricular sport and she found it so much easier logistically to do this in Oxford where you live, work and train in one place. And focussing on just one subject that you love (she hated one of her A Levels).

Just to warn your DS, the interviews are brutal - I applied for physical natsci; and had 3 interviews, all of them technical. They deliberately push you out of your depth, and make you feel like you can't do it and don't understand. They remain the most unpleasant interviews of my life, much worse than my PhD viva (which took almost 3 hours, but was at least about something I was, in some sense, an expert in). And yes, I was offered a place.

I went to a comprehensive which typically got a couple of people in to Oxbridge each year, so they offered some prep (and could teach STEP, though I didn't need it). However my practice interview was, frankly, far too easy. If you can find some way to get a practice interview or two that's a genuine reflection of what he'll face 'for real, that would be great.

I have just skimmed through the thread and can't claim any particular expertise but a few thoughts, which may be helpful:

• Cambridge is changing, or rather Cambridge science. https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/west-cambridge-innovation-district-will-create-new-destination-quarter-and-put-the-science-on-show . This may not have that much impact on under graduates immediately, but presumably will in the future. They are also adding interesting new degrees https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/design-ba-hons-mdes
• As others have pointed out, the interview and STEP will be a lot of maths. My understanding is that these will be as much about how you tackle problems as whether you get the answer. There is a lot of support out there. Find it and use it. A friend's DS, from a school that virtually never sent pupils to Oxbridge, did not make the STEP grade but found that when he got to Warwick he already knew a fair number of his peers from various maths camps and competitions. And indeed had he got his place at Cambridge he would have started with some level of peer support. Such outreach is also used to talent spot the super gifted.
• The interview could be daunting for a number of reasons including being a strange place and unfamiliar people. Local schools, both state and private, will network over things like safety, so worth asking if a practice interview could be arranged at a school with more Oxbridge experience. Different place, different people. Even if the interview is soft it will be a start.
• Oxbridge is not the be-all and end-all. Though admissions will do their best to spot potential, a lot is down to performance on the day. Observational, based on peers of my DS who is at a post-doc stage, but it is not necessarily a disadvantage to go to other Universities, particularly within COWI (Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Imperial). If you are good and keen you will be a slightly bigger fish in the pond, and if you do well, there is nothing to stop you going to Cambridge at post grad. It may also be that the very different student experiences, including longer so less intense terms, offered by either Warwick or Imperial may suit some 18 year olds better.
• The admissions process for Oxford is easier emotionally. You sit MAT in advance so the offer is only conditional on grades. The horrid thing about Cambridge must be when the wider family get excited about the offer and then you are one of the 50% who don't make it.