h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My boss and I gave a sigh of relief as we waved goodbye to the last group of visitors leaving the College today - we've had a bit of an overdose in the last few days and she must be completely fed up with giving enthusiastic talks, even though she doesn't show it!

On Saturday we had a Year 10 Open Day - nearly 80 girls (aged 14-15) and 20+ teachers. All went very well and they seemed to like it.

Monday: group of about 25 girls from Year 12 (lower Sixth) in posh private school. Made a lot of noise in the corridors, even though they had been specifically asked not to, as undergrads are revising. When they left, we were collecting up abandoned prospectuses from under chairs etc and found that one of them had ripped out the central pages (course information) and left the College part.

Today: two Year 12 groups from the same town, 30 or so from Girls' High School, 12 from Sixth Form College. It had been a nightmare to organise: trying to get them to coordinate times of their visits, so that the Admissions Tutor didn't have to give her talk twice; getting undergrads to give College tours, then having to change the times.

Timing was rearranged at the specific request of the GHS who 'had' to arrive at 12.15. They then arrived 15 minutes early and made a big fuss about having to wait until the SFC group arrived!

Anyway, the SFC visitors were delightful, polite and interested. The GHS teachers were unfriendly and looked bored, and although the girls had brought packed lunches (the school didn't want to pay for lunch in the student cafeteria), the two teachers then announced that they hadn't brought any lunch themselves and made it clear that they expected to be invited by the College!

And of course we have to be really nice to all these people, even when we know that the school has a policy of only allowing one student to apply to a College in any given year ...

< even when we know that the school has a policy of only allowing one student to apply to a College in any given year ...>

That seems grossly unfair to me. Why shouldn't two girls apply to the same college if that's where they want to go? Goodness me!

Sounds like the GHS have an over-inflated sense of their own importance. Hope you don't get any more like that.

Bex
x

My feeling exactly - but a few schools apply this policy, I think because they have the (mistaken) idea that we would not make an offer to more than one student from the same school. Anyway my boss spoke to the teacher about it yesterday, and she at first denied it, but then said that it had been introduced because a few years ago they had sent seven applications to another College, and had been told this was not a good idea. In fact, I don't think we would even mind that, providing they were not all competing against each other in the same subject!

Isn't it interesting that in two diffferent ways we are going through the selection proces at the same time? Fascinating reading for me.
Like Bex, I think it's incredibly unfair not to let several students apply for the same college. I do'nt quite see the point, even if they sent 7 applications.

In our "classes préparatoires" system, which it of course of a different nature, all high school students have the right to apply to 6 different schools in 2 different preparations (for example busines school and biology or maths/physics), 12 applications in all.

Annie, two questions: do you have quotas for subjects and which are the favourite subjects at the moment?

The answer to that is quite complicated Martine - the only subject for which we have a strict quota is Medicine, and even then, the quota is not just for Newnham, but for a group of several Cambridge Colleges.

For all other subjects, we have a target total number of students we hope to admit (120 to 130) and a rough idea of how many in each subject and when we do our selection, we make a number of 'unconditional' offers to students who have already got their A-levels, but a far greater number of 'conditional' offers. We usually ask for three A grades at A-level, or in the International Baccalaureate a typical offer would be at least 39 points overall, with 7,7,6 in Higher Level subjects.

Then when the results come out, there is a bit of horse-trading between subjects, depending on how many prospective students achieve (or not) their grades, e.g. if the Engineers do exceptionally well, then we might not be able to be flexible with that Anglo-Saxon specialist who dropped a grade in one subject, however much the Director of Studies liked her at interview.

Most popular subjects - for Newnham at least - are Law, Medicine, SPS (Social and Political Sciences), and English.

Annie - is there any way that you could, albeit tactfully, indicate the town that the two schools came from? Eg, was it in a town with a well known ancient Roman heritage?

Rom

And the first part of the name sounds like 'coal'? Got it in one, I think Auntie Prue!

I think I guessed but hush.

Other half is International Bacchalaureat Coordinator at the SFC that came to visit - so good to know that the students behaved nicely.

All three of our daughters went to that particular Girls High School - then decamped to the SFC for their A levels - and as you know, one came to Newnham.

You do a good job, and I am sure that some seeds were sown.

This will be the first year of University entrance for his IB students, and am not sure who has applied where - but hopefully one will come your way eventually.

Take care. Newnham daughter and son in law, who live in Trumpington, coming for lunch tomorrow - then a family funeral in Worcestershire on Monday - so away for a couple of days.

Have a good restful Sunday

Rom

Aha! So you (or O/H) will know who I mean when I say that the member of staff who brought them has a daughter at the GHS.

The SFC group were a bit aghast at the level of our conditional offers on the IB, but I do hope one (or more) of them will apply.

We have current undergrads from the GHS who are lovely - and who helped with College tours for the visitors.

Another minor annoyance is when we get letters from schools saying things like "I brought X on a visit to your College last year, I'm so pleased that you have offered her a place", when X has been made an offer through the Pool! We feel like saying "So why didn't she apply here then?" - but of course we're too nice!