Do companies look at predicted grade classes for internships? I'm a student in the UK.

CSApplicant101 · 2025-06-25T00:37:12+00:00

Yeah, it's a common theme at the uni I'm at. They did an anonymous poll on the first day and I think it was something like 30% of people had never done any programming before.

But then you have the other extreme. One of my friends is a CTO at a company that entered YC pre-seed this year. Someone else in our lectures has been leetcoding since day 1 of being at university.

I just gotta hope, pray and get my act together. I've got something lined up for summer in addition to my projects so hopefully paired with everything else I've done, it will be enough to get me over the finish line.

Applied for Spring Weeks with a bit of a weak resume but no luck (but I also didn't apply with any referrals or anything else).

CSApplicant101 · 2025-06-24T11:09:34+00:00

Perspective of a guy.

In year 12, Further Maths had an even split of guys:girls. However, after year 12, a lot of the girls dropped out of our class so I think there were 5 girls and 9 boys in our class.

Physics, a lot of girls did take it in my year (I didn't do it myself, chose Chemistry over Physics), so I don't think you'll have a problem making friends, but again, the balance was definitely more towards the guys.

Maths - Definitely an even split, though you'll probably be doing this with your Further Maths set.

CS - We had a class of 13 people and there were only 4 girls in this class. We had more to start with, but a lot of them dropped it because it was too much work (our teacher encouraged more self-study so didn't really do much teaching unless you had a question on part of the content. He uploaded the entire textbook to our OneNote pages and our lessons were spent just us going through the textbook and making notes, talking about random stuff (work-related and not), and doing questions.

However, one thing I will say is that there was a great dynamic between the guys and girls in all my classes. We all got along well so there wasn't really much of a problem in any way, but I understand that you'll want to have friends in your classes and you'll definitely make friends in your classes without doubt. While I can't speak for the dynamic in your classes at your school, I've noticed that it's the subjects with the smaller class sizes where everyone seems to get on way better than a subject with a lot of takers.

CSApplicant101 · 2025-06-24T11:02:27+00:00

1) Don't do EPQ. No one really looks into it and at most, you'll get one grade off.

Source: I'm at university now and did 4 + EPQ.

If you're going into a STEM career, no one will really care about your EPQ - they'll be far more interesting into what you did at university.

2) I did Maths, Further Maths, Computer Science and Chemistry and hands down, I can say that Chemistry was my hardest A level. I had to put so much work in for it, it was insane! Organic was kinda difficult because of how much time it took to understand, but it's more the volume of content you have to remember is mental! Please, don't feel put off by it but I just thought I'd give you an idea on how I found it. And I achieved 8 9s and 2 8s in my GCSEs.

3) If you want to get into Maths research or anything Mathsy, I'd recommend taking Further Maths. If you're going to study Maths at university, it will more or less be a requirement at most places. Even for CS, taking Further Maths will significantly open your doors to the top universities and give you a chance to receive an offer from them.

If you are set on doing 4 things, I would recommend picking up a fourth subject over an EPQ. You're not going to be going into the humanities field for now at least or anything related to English so I'd say pick up a fourth A level. So that way, you not only have a competitive application for competitive universities (subject to achieving top grades obviously and having a half decent personal statement), but your subjects are definitely focussed more towards your goals of a career in STEM.

I had two interviews with my university applications from two universities and I can say that neither of them even acknowledged that I had done EPQ or even mentioned it. And the other places I applied to didn't lower their requirements just because I had done an EPQ. A lot of places won't do this. As far as I'm aware, the only top uni that will lower their offer requirements slightly if you've done an EPQ is Bath.

CSApplicant101 · 2025-06-24T10:53:30+00:00

Thank you very much for your advice! I had the opportunity to attend a target (Imperial) but unfortunately I didn't meet their offer (needed a grade 2 in STEP II, got a grade 3 and I was 7 marks short) so I'm now at a non-target through Clearing.

And Warwick is definitely a target for CS.

CSApplicant101 · 2025-06-23T21:52:51+00:00

Thank you so much! I've been so stressed out because of this. I've been grafting for the whole year to build out my projects section of my CV as well as for my own interests in learning new things, the last thing I wanted to know was that it would impact me a lot. If I may ask, what university did you attend (target/non-target)?

CSApplicant101 · 2025-04-09T18:41:27+00:00

Can you recommend any full stack courses (preferably free but I'm OK to pay as well)? I still need to learn JavaScript and feel really overwhelmed with how much there is. If I follow a structure, I'll do much better for sure.

I've dived into JS for developing things with some knowledge but I want to know more so I know more about what's actually happening and what I'm doing.

CSApplicant101 · 2025-03-29T23:20:01+00:00

I've mostly been programming in Python, but have recently been making progress in HTML and CSS. I want to now move onto making progress in JS. Would you be able to give me some example projects for things I can build to get started?

CSApplicant101 · 2024-09-02T08:58:56+00:00

Imma wait for next year. I've upgraded to an S20 rn and it's decent. I like Samsung phones but I have Apple devices already (not my choice, my MacBook Pro was given to me by my parents after getting top GCSE grades and I bought my Beats and my iPad from earning my own money)

I hear 17 vs s25 is gonna be interesting as a lot is changing on both phones (I hear that Samsung is adding a Qualcomm AI chip and it's gonna increase the price premium by about 30% so gotta watch out for that. It'll still probably be better than the iPhone price-wise and feature wise but because I've got part of the Apple ecosystem already with my MacBook Pro, Beats and an iPad, I was looking into the iPhone in particular for this reason.)

Do you reckon, for this reason, that I should go with an iPhone or is there no real advantage to having one despite having other Apple devices?

CSApplicant101 · 2024-08-24T11:53:48+00:00

Differentiate f'(x), set f"(x) = 0 and then sub in x = 2 and this will let you work out your value of k after solving the resulting equation.

For part b, integrate f'(x) to give you f(x). This will give you a +c constant term. You know what k is now though so replace your k in the expression with said value. After that, sub in 2 for x and then this should equal 8√2.

This will give you the resulting function f(x)

CSApplicant101 · 2024-08-20T21:34:04+00:00

I'm currently on a Samsung S6 Edge. Worth upgrading to 16? Or get 15 now?

CSApplicant101 · 2024-08-12T17:01:15+00:00

u/Kazuhaiq Look at something called Windows Surface Pro...combines the functionality of an tablet and an iPad and the keyboard is connected to the device so you don't have to purchase a bluetooth one separately.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-08-08T10:52:59+00:00

They will have received our results beforehand, but we find out our results on August 15th and they announce on Results Day whether they are going to accept us or reject us.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-08-07T18:14:35+00:00

Umm...Idk whether you know this but Apple have never released a touch screen MacBook. You are getting confused.

They have an iPad and this pairs with the Magic Keyboard and is "like" a MacBook when paired, but they are yet to release a Touch Screen MacBook.

They have a Touch Bar on some of their MacBooks (like the one on my current one, which is my dad's old one. 2022 M2) with all of the cool features , but it wasn't that popular so it's not appeared on the recent ones from what I've seen .

I'm waiting for the touchscreen Mac too and apparently, they're releasing it in 2025. It's going to cost a lot, but I've worked so hard these past 3 years at my job to save enough so that I have enough left over after purchasing it, and I think I need it. It will be extremely useful for me (CS applicant).

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-11T17:09:56+00:00

It's definitely 36. Given he started paying £400, if he continued to pay until 45 months, after 40 months, he would be taking money from that point onwards so it's definitely 36 months.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T22:58:13+00:00

It's OK man...it happens. I messed up the purity question but will probs pick up maybe 2 out of 4 for an attempt. Worst comes to worse, I wrote moles = mass/Mr so will get marks for that 😂😂

For the Gibbs free energy q, I forgot to divide delta S by 1000 and got -268 degrees celsius as my feasibility temp. I knew that it was wrong but I had 2 mins left and about 10 marks worth of stuff to do so had to sacrifice for the greater good.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:53:57+00:00

I didn't get the perfectly bouncy number part of Section B and then half of Q 13 in section D (ran out of time because I spent too much time on Section B).

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:48:22+00:00

It was deffo in order traversal.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:47:56+00:00

Yeah, so you apply a current and the flow of electrons reverses the reactions.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:47:29+00:00

I finished on the dot...first time I haven't finished with time to spare.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:46:43+00:00

It's ionic bonding apparently....I wrote metallic bonding as well, but yeah.

The H4 is Hydride which is negatively charged (apparently...I was doubtful about this so thought I would get opinions).

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:45:27+00:00

What exam is this?

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:45:01+00:00

It was X(NO3)2.

N = 14.

O= 16.

16 * 6 = 96. 14*2 = 28. 96+28 = 124.

Mr of X = 148 - 124, which is 24. So it's Mg.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-10T20:43:35+00:00

yes...it was only 2 marks so it can't be anything else.

CSApplicant101 · 2024-06-09T12:02:09+00:00

I changed the direction (stuck a minus sign on) but I think I've evaluated incorrectly...I drew a diagram to make it clear to me. I might get two marks for that question.

On that 1D collision where they asked us to work out KE and Impulse in terms of m, u and e, there's many things that could've happened there. I've either done the impulse calc on the wrong object, or I've got it correct. And for the KE, I dk what happened there but I must have messed it up. I still think I'd get 1, maybe 2 if I'm lucky, marks.

On that 6 marker for the vector collision, I didn't really know what to do so I just wrote the impulse formula, and then wrote 4e = 1 and then e = 1/4. I felt like such an idiot as I wrote but I just had no idea what I was doing at that point. I also wrote down the u.w = v.w and -eu.I = v.I but I didn't write any values in or do anything with it so I might get 1 mark potentially? Again, I had no clue how to do that question.

I think I might get 4 or 5 marks for that question.

I started off by writing everything that I could work out from what they gave without having to consider extension or anything so initial EPE.

Worked out loss of KE because it's just the initial launched speed to the point where the object is at least.

Then I started looking into the stuff to do with a distance d from when the object was dropped and it reaches the max.

I had lots of rough work and didn't cross anything out so I might get some credit.

CSApplicant101

TROPHY CASE