<p>Got in at Oriel, Oxford for Classics! 
:D</p>
<p>confused_vnese: yeah cambridge is really competitiveā¦well you got pooled/rejected? Anyway i hope youāre not too sad about it, since youāve already gotten into YALE, which is one of the top universities in the world! :D</p>
<p>oh and i havenāt received any mail/email yetā¦and i think i didnāt do that well for my interview either, i remembered receiving some prompts from the interviewer. Oh man ><</p>
<p>^ Well iām not sad, just a bit disappointed. I got pooled. But getting rejected from Trinity basically killed my chance at a scholarship, which in turn killed my chance at Cambridge because thereās no way my parents are gonna pay. Sigh
This year did NOT start well ):</p>
<p>But yep Yaleās pretty good haha and iām receiving 50k scholarship so iām not complaining. My Cambridge interview went rather smoothly but it doesnt mean anything i suppose, since it was not that subject-specific. The guy was a natsci professor and we basically had a chat about my family background and country. Then he threw in some ASEAN questions which werent difficult.</p>
<p>Cambridge or yale, both are great anyway.</p>
<p>Got my letter today, it was mailed out on dec 31st [to think that they were actually not partying on new yearās eve but mailing out decisions >_<], much earlier than I thought, actually.</p>
<p>Oh and to those people waiting for emailā¦they didnāt email me at all, neither did my UCAS status change. Soā¦I guess they want it all nice and traditional with a acceptance letter that you can clutch onto for joy? lol.</p>
<p>Just wondering, since many over here seem to be applying for both UK and US, when is the deadline for replying decisions for cambridge? I had the impression a while ago that it was end of march [though it might be proven to be otherwise when UCAS finally update my status], which isā¦terribly unfortunate, since most US decisions are released in the first week of APRILā¦ Iām RD-ing for Brown, in fact. Soā¦solutions?</p>
<p>I got pooled as well. Probably because I didnāt have an interview or do the TSA test. hmmm.</p>
<p>@ Reika: You can accept your offer in the uk, and then find out whether you got in the US. If you then prefer to go to the US, just do really badly in your externals and not achieve your offer from the UK. Then you can just go to the US.</p>
<p>I would definitely go for Cambridge than Yale.
Cambridge is just at prestigious as Yale but the campus and the people at Cambridge are nicer.</p>
<p>^ Yeah thatās what my parents thought. And not to mention definitely safer!</p>
<p>I thought if i donāt get called back for a third (and final) interview for this particular scholarship, itās because iāve bombed my Cambridge application. Turns out, i was right. Sigh. The Cambridge application was too academically-focused, too complicated (i must send in two essays, sat for a multiple choice TSA test and wrote a very crappy argumentative essay in 30 mins) and too competitive! About 30 people competed for 3 places for my course.</p>
<p>Iād say iām reasonably strong academically (predicted straight As, SAT >2300, but none of that international olympiads stuff) but my āhookā lies in my extracurriculars. And thereās no way you can sell that to cambridge.</p>
<p>They do mail your decisions, but you can also email and ask if you donāt wanna wait any longer. Internationals are entitled to receiving decisions via email.</p>
<p>How can you email if you were pooled and donāt know which college might be accepting you?</p>
<p>^ I was referring to the decision by your original college. But i think you can email them too for your final decision.</p>
<p>@Elvito: Thanks for the suggestion. Though I wonāt be able to use that 'cuz Iāve already taken my A levels Novā08 --yes I take nov. A levels.</p>
<p>@confused_vnese: 2 essays? I only submitted the main UCAS one actually. Or were you referring to the TSA essay?[which more or less everyone came out feeling like they messed it up] Iāve always thought that the US application is MUCH more complicated than the cambridge one, since thereās teacher evaluations, supplements, and many extra sections in the application itself. Not to mention the UK personal statement is much easier to write. And yes you have really good SATs too! Mine was only 2100, at the time I applied</p>
<p>Would it be wise to ask cambridge to wait for my US application results to be released? Or would it be better to ask the US unis to tell me my results earlier?</p>
<p>^ I donāt think US uni will release your results any earlier than April 1st.
Actually it really depends on the competitiveness of your course and your college. I applied for a social science course - politics, psychology and sociology - at Trinity College and was asked to send in two marked essays.
I personally prefer the SAT to TSA. I hate the TSA type of questionsā¦ Oh the social sciences people have a different TSA test, too. All the math & science questions were replaced with the critical thinking/logic kind. For me, the US essays are difficult to write but so much more enjoyable. In contrast, the UK essay was rigid and boring. But it did get me into LSE, Bristol, Durham and Birminghamā¦ /:</p>
<p>if we got in after being pooled, how would they normally contact us?</p>
<p>I believe the TSA multiple choice questions are better than the SAT and ACT at assessing intelligence and predicting success (although I have not data to back that statement up), but the SAT and ACT are much easier, especially concerning writing sections. Iām glad to know that I wasnāt the only person who did not feel too well about their essay. </p>
<p>Does anyone know about the difference between conditional and unconditional acceptances? Is one more commonly given out than the other? Does unconditional truly mean unconditional?</p>
<p>unconditional offers are much rarerā¦much much rarer.</p>
<p>unconditional means if you pass your externals, then you are in. Eg. EEE for A levels and 24 for IB.</p>
<p>I have always thought that unconditional offers exist in the realm of unicorns and elves. lol.</p>
<p>unconditionals are almost always for post-A level candidates, since they already have their results. Iāve heard of some EE offers for cambridge but i cannot fathom how they can be given outā¦ Maybe if you apply for non-competitive courses (think 6 applicants for 4 places - yes there is such a course) and you appear to be super interested and committed to it?</p>
<p>Some US applicants can be given unconditionals based on their AP and SAT results (since APs are seen as equivalent to A levels)</p>
<p>apparently nearly a third of Christās Collegeās offers are unconditional. They donāt want to give stress or pressure to the applicants when they take their A levels. They will probably only give the offers to applicants who are bound to get all As anyways. A girl last year from my school got an unconditional offer from Oxford, because she was predicted a perfect score in IB and even if she mucked up the exams, sheād still get higher than the entry requirement for Oxford anyways. (She ended up getting a perfect scoreā¦lol)</p>
<p>Ok. I got an unconditional from St. Edmmund Hall, and I wasnāt sure if there was still some AP score requirement. (I have already gotten several 5s, and I donāt plan on failing any this year. lol)</p>
<p>soccerrunner, what were your SAT and AP scores? Sorry to ask, just wanna get an idea of the average stats, plus Iām also interested in PPE</p>