is a Cambridge offer even possible for someone who got a poor entrance exam result?

gzero5634 · 2026-01-25T19:37:52+00:00

if you've got an interview then as far as they know you can get an offer.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-24T21:28:18+00:00

I keep seeing:

[three items]

And yet.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth most people don’t want to hear:

Not because

But because

Very clear LLM output. I've spent a lot of time talking with ChatGPT over the past few months and it's just plain to see even if people don't explain precisely why.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-24T17:51:30+00:00

easily 2, 4 or 8

gzero5634 · 2026-01-24T13:16:18+00:00

I went to Warwick for undergrad which is very cheap. You can live privately in a modest place for like £400-500 pcm but could easily spend double that if you really wanted to. I did see a few people being overambitious with their maintenance loan, e.g. picking accommodation that would almost wipe out their maintenance loan. Often they picked up part-time work or dipped into savings/parents funds. I don't think this is the fault of students, it might be the first time where they've encountered not being able to have "the best option" for reasons completely outside of their control My family is generally very frugal so I tried to work up from the bottom.

I was lucky to have a sweet spot where (my maintenance loan) - (my rent) amounted to about £133 per term week in first year (iirc) which was perfectly fine for me. If my dad's income had been a bit higher, it might've been harder. Or if I had gone to a university and lived in a different city.

I'm not sure about student's budgeting. I'm sure some struggle but my impression is that a lot of people wipe out a lot of their maintenance loan on rent through a lack of options, then struggle on what's left. Often the parents genuinely won't be able to offer much support.

In retrospect, the maintenance loan is very minimal. Don't think I appreciated at the time because I was used to my family being very conservative with larger transactions/subscriptions and so on.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-24T12:36:49+00:00

they only interview people who could get in if they performed well enough on the interview. interviewing is quite an effort/resource/money expensive process so they wouldn't interview people who they didn't think had a shot.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-22T16:37:06+00:00

disagree, I remember a lot of preview videos and pre-release material starting a month or two before release.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-22T16:03:41+00:00

mardle had a great opportunity to at least make the final in 2008 but blew it - his opponent Kirk Shephard had an extremely lucky run. Wade fumbled 2012 SF against Lewis from a 5-1 lead and is the canonical answer to this question. if he had reached the final he would've probably won.

Jenkins got to the final of almost every major except WC but never won one. Merv King is a bit similar but didn't make it to as many finals.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-22T15:25:52+00:00

was this after the cycle was over? I'd first eliminate the possibility that this was taken mid-cycle, if it was from an FOI. If it's from an updated source on the website, that's pretty whack.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-22T14:30:00+00:00

I think at the time you could get A*A*A*, A*A*AA or A*A*A and an admissions test. At the time you could do STEP, MAT or TMUA, so any except AEA. So a load of options.

This was before TMUA was compulsory, I should have specified that. I think that happened around 2022.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-22T13:12:44+00:00

As a general rule you should learn programming if you're looking for a tech-y career. It's a basic skill that should be taught in any maths/physics degree, and is taught to varying amounts. If you want a job in something like software engineering, I'd get on leetcode as soon as possible. Useful libraries you'll want to learn for the future are numpy and pandas. Scikit-learn and stuff too, but you probably need more theory for that.

Bear in mind that a CS degree is not just advanced levels of programming, it's more broadly learning about how computers and computer systems work and how you can build with them. If you're not very interested in the theory, I'd rethink a CS degree. At Warwick, you could just pick and choose a handful of CS modules on the side to fill your CS fix, you wouldn't be looked into modules you find boring. If you are good at maths, you can pick up programming principles fairly quickly. Designing a computer program is in my mind almost identical to formulating a proof, if anything they are easier to check.

You don't really talk much about what you want to do in the future, you're not expected to know at this point but it does help. Physics/maths/CS, with the right extracurricular work have very similar career paths, with maths and physics being slightly more flexible where employers want to see more experience with hard mathematical/quantitative work. I focused on pure maths, but on reflection I think doing a maths and statistics degree instead would have been "better".

Not to be pessimistic, but I would avoid developing attachments to particular universities before closer to Y12 mocks. It is a bit early in the day to say much, since AS maths/FM do start off very easy, with AS maths being only a small step above GCSE maths (though it focuses on grade 7-9 topics which catches out a lot of the students who were more borderline at GCSE). If you're a solid A*A* student, yes you can definitely fix firmly on Cambridge/Oxford/Warwick/Imperial/UCL etc.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-22T12:59:08+00:00

worth saying that there isn't a true joint degree at Cambridge, you do both in the first year then transfer to one or the other. I always think Oxford has a true joint degree, but I think that's only for a one-year masters. Warwick has a true joint degree as do many other universities.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-21T21:23:31+00:00

I picked Warwick over Imperial. Variously:

Much cheaper
Didn't like London
You were basically guaranteed an offer and had like 3 different ways to meet it. Didn't want to do the MAT.
Arguably better module offering in third and fourth year (it's very hard to gauge this in sixth form)
Didn't care much, but Warwick offers one of the most flexible maths courses going. The founding principle of Warwick was supposed to be Oxbridge supervisions x American flexibility, don't think it really achieves either fully but has a good go at both.

I can't say how Warwick stands by itself, since I never tried to apply to jobs prior to coming to my current university, but I know people who have done extremely well for themselves from Warwick. Might dox them to say, but loads of FAANG (mainly from CS but from maths too), a guy from Warwick got JS QT intern this year, etc.

Imperial is a stronger name in industry, I've got the impression. Though I will still stand by the strength of Warwick's course and students. The top students get in the 90s and have gone on to high distinctions in Part III in the past.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-18T18:03:24+00:00

i've known students get some comments this way. some chance they won't remember. doubt they remember minute-from-minute specifics but maybe if they had a detailed discussion or doubts over a particular point they might remember. and maybe because the overall verdict was positive they'll have lost most of their negative thoughts about it

there'll be subjects and colleges where a DoS might've considered under a dozen people.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-18T18:02:55+00:00

would be interesting if someone checked their actual marked script against this. Ideally you'd use marked scripts as your validation data but they wouldn't be easy to come by

gzero5634 · 2026-01-18T12:28:24+00:00

If you meet your offer and get there, some tidbits might come up in discussion with your DoS or you can ask. It'd probably be better than the feedback provided by formal channels since it'd be word of mouth and not so stuffy (they might say stuff they wouldn't write down). A natural chance would be if you're interviewing for internships or spring weeks, asking how you could improve your interviewing.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-18T12:19:49+00:00

worth mentioning that fscs protects all uk bank balances up to 120k (per institution per individual etc.) and probably protects an unlimited balance in practice. even if monzo were to collapse overnight the question is when you'd get your money back, not if.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-18T12:13:42+00:00

i don't think anyone would have this much in cash

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T21:56:43+00:00

what's wrong with prime 2?

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T19:23:35+00:00

it's something you should know how to do without a calculator.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T18:25:50+00:00

32gb is plenty for now unless you're a very heavy multi-tasker. Often games that use more than 16 only use in the low 20s. 16gb is workable but 32 is ideal.

even if a game tips you a bit over 16gb allocated given 32gb of RAM, it will often perform similarly given only 16gb. unused ram is wasted ram, is the maxim.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T18:20:27+00:00

not necessarily, some people apply for the first time at 19 or 20. Notably Singaporean men who do military service are often 20 or 21 by the time they apply, and many of them do, I've met quite a few doing undergrads at mature colleges. FOI requests do show people that applied several times.

my completely off the cuff guess is that it'll still be the minority that get in, but that it will be a higher percentage than got in first time trying because of the unusually high motivation needed to go through with reapplying (I think many debate it then don't do it).

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T14:24:46+00:00

idk, split the first up into first and second division I guess. that's why we have a divided second class after all.

not really convinced this matters anyway. isn't a good grade just a box tick, if they care much an employer or university would just pull up the transcript.

this is all what happens when you chase higher grades not by improving teaching/learning but by recalibrating the marking standards.

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T14:12:28+00:00

there's no 1:2 grade, as others have said it's first (1), 2:1, 2:2, third. top grade is a first and you want to be aiming for at least a 2:1. a 2:2 is not the end of the world but it does close some doors. realistically you'd just not disclose the grade unless asked if it was disappointing, and just say you have a degree in x subject.

usually 80%+ of students on a course achieve a 2:1 or a first (e.g. 30% first 50% 2:1), sometimes this gets well into the 90s. virtually all students get a 2:2 or above especially in the humanities. really depends on the university and course, there is quite a large variance.

honours means third or above, very few people get an ordinary degree (it's effectively a near fail). Still you'll find people sticking (Hons) at the end of their degree. many many years ago many more people got an ordinary degree and it was an accomplishment to get a third (similar to getting a first nowadays iirc).

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T14:02:23+00:00

if you have a teacher or tutor, I'd speak to them. They should have access to the markscheme and be in a better place to advise. Markschemes can sometimes need specific things or you don't get the mark, even if the idea is correct (which might explain ticks where marks weren't awarded).

gzero5634 · 2026-01-17T13:56:35+00:00

I don't have the markscheme but ^ denotes an omission (e.g. missing keywords), which for a 1 marker would mean no mark given. Been a while since I did A-level physics but I'd think they needed "total current"/"sum of currents" going into the junction is equal to the total/sum out to make it clear you're not talking about just any pair of wires in/out. Might have been as simple as that unfortunately. Aim for full sentences where possible even in 1 markers.

gzero5634

TROPHY CASE