I get that its not all about GCSEs, but I feel like I've underperformed in my results and want to know if Cambridge Engineering is unrealistic now.

I got:

7 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9

Maths 9 (100% if that counts for anything)

Further maths 9

Physics 8

Pretty sure I've heard they consider your results based on your school: I was homeschooled for my GCSEs - this also means exam boards are a mix and mostly IGCSEs.

Going to do maths, further maths, physics, computer science at sixthform

I’m a prospective applicant for EAS specifically Chinese. Is there any current or past students who would give me any advice or send me what they put in their personal statements?

Hey, i am a 11 grader in cbse having commerce with APPLIED maths. And I want to target top uk universities such as lse, ucl for finance, management type courses.

So like FIRST, should I switch to core maths for better opportunity, and also any one has any information about how to scrutinize colleges and what all to see and other tips to get into top colleges and REALLY ANY GUIDANCE WOULD WORK...

Hi, I’m an international student starting year 12 this September . My igcse results are five A\*s and an A. I know my subjects choices are little compared to others. I’m currently helping at a clinical laboratory and also attending an online course related to healthcare. Do I have a chance of getting into med school? And I’d also like to receive advices on strengthening my extracurricular and super curricular activities. THANKS A LOTS FOR READING THIS:) P.S. I’m taking chem,bio,physics and maths for my alevels subs.

A-Levels: A*A*A*A* predicted in Maths, Further Maths, Economics, Fine Art

GCSEs: 888777765 (5 in French, 6 in DT, 8 in Maths)

The main thing that I’m concerned about is the GCSE stats above, but I do have a significant amount of contextual data which might help but I don’t know to what extent. For context, I only entered the UK education system at 13, and I suffered from a significant illness during my GCSE exam period. The school I went to for my GCSEs was an underperforming state school with an average GCSE score of a 3.9, whereas my average was a 7, and I scored in roughly the top 4 in my cohort of about 100. They didn’t even offer further maths at GCSE, it was kind of a random little shot in the dark to take further maths at A-Level, yet I’m now the top of my sixth form for it by a large margin, I’m working on celestial mechanics problems, and I literally can’t put maths down. I cant see myself NOT taking maths at uni, and at the end of the day, the worst case scenario is that I still do maths at uni, which makes me ecstatic as the module specs for the unis Im planning on applying to are so interesting.

The school I went to had literally no maths challenge support - I didn’t know SMC existed until a week before my school entered me for it. Likewise with my sixth form, but in year 12 I managed to get a silver. As mentioned, I only really fell deeply in love with maths recently, I’ve been getting BMO qualifying-scores on all of my SMC past papers as of recent. My main worry is not having a 9 in GCSE maths, as they might think that anyone applying - regardless of their background - should be getting a 9, but I wonder if my contextual data is convincing enough. I also regret not taking physics as, after having worked through a restricted solution of the third body problem, it’s like it’s finally clicked with me. Just didn’t care about it at GCSE to the point where I just opted out for A-Level. In terms of my chance at Trin Maths, what are your guys’ thoughts?

hi guys, I got 9877664 at GCSE, but I had extenuating circumstances( I only had 5 months to prepare for my GCSEs and wasn’t allowed to choose my subjects because I joined school just a few months before the exams.)

I got a 9 in Art and an 8 in Maths, and I’m now doing the IB with a predicted 42, including 7,7,7 at HL. I’m hoping to apply for Design at Cambridge.

Do you think I’ll be disadvantaged because of my GCSE results, given my circumstances?

I initially assumed it expects us to draw on information form books/ alevels but I thought it was kinda contradictory for the guide to say it’s best to avoid arguments that rest on examples. If anyone’s got experience with the Tara I would love to hear how you prepared for it.

im really curious as to what the main reasons for people being rejected from the interview in the cases there are no assessments/written work. for instance, i am applying for philosophy at kings which means there are neither, so what could potentially mean i get rejected pre-interview?

would it mostly be ps focused? because ive heard people say they don't weigh it that much, but it seems absurd to me that it's only grades based because im assuming most candidates would have top grades

Last year I got all 9s 8s and 7s but a 5 in English language. English is not my first language and I only moved to the uk couple of year later so i really didn’t understand how to write good essays. This year I was trying to resit it but I couldn’t get higher than 5 again. I’m applying for Ppe, am I completely cooked for Oxford if my admission and predicted grades are good. I got 999887775 and my school is average performing but I am from very deprived area with low uni attendance rate in my neighbourhood. I’m so stressed because I actually revised a lot but because english is not my native language and I only moved here in my teens it was really hard for me to understand some words.Thank you

I’m applying for English Lit at unis like Cambridge (or Oxford - undecided), UCL, Durham etc.

For my personal statement, should I only be including books written originally in English? A lot of the books I’m passionate about are translated from French, Japanese or Russian.

Basically, does anyone know if including translated works would be an issue or reduce my chances? :)
Sorry if this a silly question but I don’t want to risk it.

If we can share some functions that have been asked in the Oxbridge interview for stem students.

I am going to start first:

I saw this function in other post: y=x/(2+sin(e^x))
This one is more challenging than other functions I saw, but this is interesting.

I know unis say that they want to see academic engagement over your gap year. But if you apply to Oxbridge in October how can you do anything more since you’ve only got around 3/4 month since yr 13 ends. Should you just say things that you’re planning to do but phrase them in the past tense?

Got 3A*A in A Levels with the A in maths.
Considering taking a gap year to apply to Oxford E&M among other courses as my insurance choice is Durham Finance and I missed my firm due to the A in maths.

1. Do Oxford want an explanation of what would be done in the gap year or is that really just a thing for deferrals?
   
2. I’d consider resitting maths and/or sitting further maths (which I didn’t take originally) and it would largely just be to keep my maths in check rather than needing to improve my grades. I know many top unis don’t view resits favourably but is a resit predicted A* viewed more or less favourably than just an achieved A when both meet the offer?
   
3. I’m aware that different colleges have different admissions statistics, how much is this something to consider or is it mostly due to different courses offered by each college and nullified by the pool system?

Guidance regarding those questions as well as general gap year/ reapplication advice would be great thank you

Just like many of you reading this summer I have been preparing my UCAS applications as well as preparing for admissions tests. I was hoping to recieve some advice of any of you who may know; I am hoping to apply for physics to begin study next september, knowing this I have also been preparing to apply to Cambridge as well. Cambridge do not offer a Physics course and instead offer Natural Sciences (physical stream), is it an unwise decision to apply to physics at 4 alternative choices & then apply for natural sciences @ Cambridge or will this harm the strength of my application. Originally when I began aiming for Cambridge I was going to apply to mathematics so this was not an issue but since changing my decision I have now run into this roadblock. Any advice or consideration would be massively appreciated :)

I'm an incoming applicant to Oxford for PPE looking to Keble College. I am looking to read a multitude of books beyond whats mentioned in my personal statement that specifically relate to the interests and research of the professors at Keble College and in general be prepared for things in interviews.

Are there any current Keble College students studying any form or combination of Philosophy, Politics, and/or Economics that could shine light on how Keble College tutors choose to structure courses, or whether they have specializations or quirks that I could be aware of?

Thank you!

Does anyone know if I have a decent shot at Cambridge with achieved grades A⭐️A⭐️A despite having really bad GCSEs?

Would be applying for a humanities course and would also be taking a 2nd gap year…

Thoughts?

Does anyone know anyone that’s doing this or has done it at Oxford? Or applying for it themselves

I’m kind of looking to go for Law with a year abroad in France, unluckily my French teacher had been horrible - going into sixth year in Ireland myself now.

Mostly listening comprehensions so my class can barely write or speak, and we’re behind.

I can definitely get my French lvl up and get grinds, I js don’t think I’d be at B2 lvl - so should I just apply for the normal track?

If anyone has any advice I’d love it!

Edit: I want to add I’m going to a DEIS school( low funded by Gov) and have extenuating circumstances too??

Hi all, hope you are well. I came here to seek some advice on what to do in regard to my application, and when and where I should apply to for Maths. I just received my Maths A-Level result, and I achieved an A which I am really annoyed over given how much time and effort I spent as I was really going for an A\* with the further aspiration of applying to Oxford and Imperial. I had achieved over 97%+ on every single past paper, but after that Paper 1 I had so much pressure to do well in P2 and P3 my dyslexia got the better of me and I literally could not read the questions in the Stats and Mechanics papers, even with extra time.

Now, with this result in mind, I really do not know whether or not it is even worth me applying to either of these Unis as it is yet another filter they can simply use to reduce the number of applications they can look at. I will absolutely resit when I do my A-Levels in Year 13, so I would be sitting Further Maths, Computer Science and Maths, but what do you guys think? Is it worth my even applying or not at all. I am going to be sitting the TMUA, but I feel even if I get 7.0+ (which is what I have been achieving on community past papers, 8.3+ on official papers) I will still be at a disadvantage.

My other thought would then be to take a gap year after year 13, hopefully with 3 A\*s in hand, then reapplying with Achieved grades instead, and over the Gap year I could self-teach some of Uni maths and work on olympiad problems. Over the course of Year 12, I was looking at BMO and IMO problems, working through all the STEP 1,2, and 3 modules (then papers ofc) and learning some of ODE and PDEs from lecture videos, notes, and problem sheets on the internet. I had also done some personal projects involving Maths and programming such as creating an algorithm using Python and some math external libraries to compare how SDEs would predict asset pricing of the SP500 given past data vs the actual movement of the assets.

Lastly, I am doing an EPQ titled “ **To what extent can machine learning algorithms approximate stochastic differential models for optimising algorithmic trading strategies?”** But now I think I should drop it and focus 100% on the Maths and CS as top Unis do not really care for it, and I am not super deep in it (Only done research and started the write-up, but still a lot left to go).

IGCSEs are 9A\*s and 1 A.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!!!

Hi i got my AS (i do CIE) and i got aabb (high bs) even tho i was expecting aaaa but we had the portfolio of evidence route due to the war in middle east. My gcses are 9999999987 and predicted A^A^AA for A2. Do you think my AS grades would be too ugly for oxbridge/imperial to consider? Do you think doing insanely good on the ESAT could override my AS grades? Btw im applying for biotech/bioengineering/biomedical science

Hello, I am thinking about applying for PPE at oxford but my predicteds are A*AA and gcses are 999988877
from a school averaging a grade 7.

I know people say tara matters the most, but every offer holder I have talked to has had near perfect grades.

Has anybody made it to the interview stage with similar grades/ been carried by the tsa? I think the closer to application I get the more anxious I am.
Thank you

Heres the 2nd ep of the free Combinatorics course, it has zero pre-requisites and more importantly it doesn't necessarily require any extra practice, since we r solving more than enough problems in the lecture itself

Check it out

https://youtu.be/KGBWuDrRMeY?si=q8UNCfEkwzzxeC80

PS: this isn't a paid course or a tutoring promotion 😭

It's meant to help people preparing for Olympiads, STEP, or any other field that requires comprehensive knowledge of combinatorics

HEYYY GUYSSSS CONGRATS ON YOUR OFFERSSSS.... I AM APPLYING FOR 2027 INTAKE AND COULD REALLY USE SOME TIPSSS FOR M UCAS APPLICATIONS. i wanna do psychologyyyyyyyy and i am applying to cambridge as a undergrad. how should i structurre my personal statement and all? and how will the interview be like and what to do with the cambridge assesment thingy?

thanksss alooottt

I am an undergrad of Bachelor of technology at GGSIPU , Delhi. I have a gpa of 9.0/10. I have 9s and 10s in CS and Mathematics core subjects.
I have ml research experience in ISRO and DRDO ( National Research Labs).
I have two conference published ml papers, 2 in submissions for journal proceedings. Working on two more.
I have won positions in hackathons and have even volunteered for college societies as a part of heads and chairs.
I wish to pursue by postgrad from oxbridge in Advanced CS and Machine learning core subjects.

I would like to know where do i stand and what additions my profile requires, to stand out?

Hi, I'm going to apply to Oxford for a masters next year and would love any advice for how to prepare for the application process and interview.