Katashift - Universities

Comparative Thoughts on University Admissions

2023-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

As of writing (the 16th of December), I’ve just got back my MIT results - a deferral (which in this case means waiting until Pi Day for a more concrete result^{1</a>). I’m now pretty confident in my thoughts on both systems of admissions, so to wait out the time I’ll be writing out my thoughts on their pros and cons. I might’ve briefly mentioned these in my other</a> two</a> blogs on University admissions, but this’ll be one place for what I wrote there in comparison & much more. If you haven’t read the other two and aren’t familiar with the admissions systems I’d recommend doing so - there’ll be things that I’ll be referencing without explaining.}

As per usual, I’ll also mention that this post has my usual biases - I’ve been applying to a small number of highly selective universities from a position of relative privilege, so you’re experiences might have been different. I’ll try and vaguely organise it on the different stages of the admissions processes, but prepare for tangents 😉. I’ll also add that I probably didn’t perform as well on my admissions tests as I would’ve wanted to, which probably somewhat sours my opinion.

Essays</h2>
For MIT & Caltech, I’ve had to write a number of different essays that are all relatively short 2</a> which have been from a variety of prompts ranging from how I feel about their values to how I’ve helped and been helped by my community to why I want to study Computer Science. The main result of this is that students end up having to write a lot of essays, which I’ve heard can be incredibly draining. I’ve been somewhat insulated from this by limiting my US Admissions to only 2 universities, but I don’t really want to imagine what it must be like for the people applying to 20+ universities3</a>.
Whereas in the UK System, you only write 1 essay (known as the Personal Statement) about yourself. 4000 characters over 47 lines4</a> with no prompt. UCAS & The Universities expect you to write about why you want to go for the course you’ve applied for, why you’d be good at that, why you’d be good for them and anything else interesting about you.
So here I’m pretty split. The US Essays seemed to care more about me as a person (which fits as you seem to mostly apply for a University rather than a Course) whereas my Personal Statement ended up being full of academics and waffle about how the I enjoyed the subjects I’m doing and how well they would transfer. That having been said, I got across most of what I wanted in my Personal Statement, and more of the struggle was getting it inside the character limit, rather than trying to examine my life with a microscope. I’ll also say that I think my Personal Statement came out better, purely because I could invest more time into it - it went through 11 drafts if I recall correctly because it was going to all of my UK Universities, whereas my MIT essays got far fewer drafts and so will my Caltech essays because there are more of them that go to fewer places.

Admissions Tests & Grade Requirements</h2> MIT & Caltech both take very different approaches here - MIT is test-mandatory, which means that as well as your recommendations, essays & general performance you need to complete either the ACT</a> or the SAT</a>. The idea here seems to be that they can get a standardised test performance metric for all students applying 5</a>. One interesting difference is that you can take more than one SAT or ACT and ‘superscore’ them which means to take your best scores from each portion of the tests you’ve completed (eg. I can take a 36 in Science from my September sitting and a 35 in Maths from my November sitting), which I guess allows for if students have bad days? There are two ways of discouraging students from taking endless tests - the fact that they’re insanely expensive (my last ACT test was $171.50)6</a> & the fact that the universities see all the tests that you submit, which makes it rather obvious. I ended up having the luxury to take two. Caltech is test-blind, which just means that they won’t even look at tests if you have submitted them.
Whereas, in the UK you get predicted grades from your teachers based on what they think your performance in your final exam will be. Those then go to all the universities, which makes it simple. Different schools work differently for how lenient they are with students requesting to go for higher grades. The way that schools are discouraged from giving everyone higher grades is that that tactic will only work for one year, as the universities supposedly keep records of how accurate the different schools are. You also must apply through your school so you can’t really get around it.
Similarly enough, there are parts I do like and don’t about both systems - here are the UK Advantages:
All courses at all universities post minimum grade requirements 7</a>, so there isn’t much faffing around with applying to universities you know you can’t get into. This is in opposition to the US system, where at best I have the middle 50% from MIT and have to guess if I’m good enough.</li>
In my humble opinion there’s less possibility for rich people just taking more and more tests to get the grades they want (ignoring the possibility of bribery 8</a>).</li>
Here, you’re also being evaluated on more long-term performance - it might just be a problem for me applying to both systems at the same time (and slightly prioritising the UK due to higher acceptance chances at my choices as well as the other advantages that come with going to university domestically 9</a>) I haven’t had as much time to revise for my ACTs but I feel that my Predicteds are more accurate.</li> </ul>
And then the US:

The idea of evaluating student performance and potential for application to a pretty big university without any test scores (except for transcript related 10</a>) is pretty nice sounding to me.</li>
A-Level & IB Exam Seasons are generally known to be a pretty hellish time of year for all involved - at my school the entire time between maybe mid-late February and July is all spent either revising, taking practice tests or taking actual papers. Its mixed as to whether it’s in school or out of school, but normally A-Level out-of-school revision & taking the exams is about a month and a half. As far as I can see, during this time at US High Schools you don’t do all that much?</li>
Whilst I’m not 100% sure about the entrance tests, I can definitely see that they are standardised which I most definitely can’t say about teachers who might be deciding your grades.</li> </ul>
Interesting systems across both sides of the pond there, and I’m really not sure which I prefer. Any preference I show for the UK is probably tinted by me just going with the devil I know over the devil I don’t.
Interviews</h2>
I’ve spoken extensively about interviews on both sides, so my opinion will be far shorter and simpler.
US wins, flat-out. I get that the competitive UK Universities want an idea of aptitude rather than just accomplishment for their courses due to rampant grade inflation11</a>, but I feel that the US one went better because it wasn’t as stressed. In the Cambridge interview I had, I could see that the interviewers had far more candidates than time and needed to get going. Part of that is also influenced by the setting - my US one was in a nice coffee shop (Gails 12</a> vibes at a lower cost) and my UK one was over a zoom 13</a> which stressed me out because of the eternally-present technical issues which even a Computer Science applicant can’t overcome.
Application Structure</h2>
Here, the UK wins although it is a smaller country which probably makes it easier.
All applications here are handled through UCAS</a> - you can’t apply without using it. That only means one essay, one place to dump scores, one place to add admin details, one place to look for offers which reduces lots of the overhead from US 14</a>, and one place to pay a relatively small cost (£20 for one university, or £25 for multiple) for applications. This is less cognitive load, and only one email address to have a heart attack about when you see it (`track@ucas.ac.uk</code> if you’re interested, and as far as I can tell this is used exclusively for offers which is convenient).`
`As opposed to the US where there are lots of different systems which means inputting my personal details in lots of times which isn’t too bad for 2 universities but I could imagine this getting pretty annoying. The fees are also way higher - to apply to > 13 US Universities (which doesn’t seem too high as far as I can tell), you’re looking at $1000 (going off a cost of $75, which is the MIT cost).`
Receiving Results</h2> US Universities have specific timestamps for applications decisions (eg. MIT Early Action this year was the 16th of December at 12:16PM Boston time), and I think all the Oxford and Cambridge colleges follow this with their own timings. The rest of the UK Universities (for the most part), just release their results to you whenever they decide. There isn’t really even a proper deadline - if they don’t respond before the first of May then it just counts as a rejection 🤷.There’s advantages and disadvantages either side, but I think the UK wins out. I was pretty stressed about my MIT decision from when I could become stressed about it although it turns out there is a limit to the number of things I can simultaneous stress out about15</a>! This ended up being after my Cambridge Interview. I had a look at their history and made a little spreadsheet and managed to successfully predict the date16</a>. That having been said, at least after that date I could theoretically know for final17</a>? On the other hand, since you have no idea when your UK decisions are coming in, you can theoretically convince your brain to forget and focus on revision, but this does mean that you can’t plan for a nice place to possibly receive a rejection - you just have to politely excuse yourself and hope for the best. Closing Thoughts</h2> Since this whole post was just an extended set of closing thoughts for the other university posts, you aren’t going to get much more out of me here. Both systems seem to have their advantages and disadvantages but I’ve been talking about this wrong. I kinda don’t really get any choice in this matter and just have to go with whatever university I want to apply to says. Regardless, in the off chance that any admissions officers read this18</a> (in which case, thanks for getting to the end!), feel free to take anything or nothing. I think I’ve been speaking about this enough in person, and this was a lovely chance to get to just dump the contents of my brain and get focused on revision for my A-Level Mocks. The odds aren’t great though - I think last year it was 146 admitted out of 7892 deferred, which is < 2%. ↩</a> </li> Mostly maxing out at around 250 words, except for the Common App longer essay question. ↩</a> </li> This is one small benefit of UCAS imho - you are limited to 5 which somewhat reduces the admin work required to keep up with admissions. ↩</a> </li> Why 47? What is a line? idk ask UCAS it just happened to all work out for me. ↩</a> </li> How do they score ACT vs SAT? Not a clue, but I’d be interested to know. ↩</a> </li> University applications favouring the wealthy? Never! ↩</a> </li> As well as information on how those get reduced for Circumstantial Offers. ↩</a> </li> If we allow bribery, then both systems get messed up so I’m ignoring that possibility - this is my blog post I can do what I want ^_^. ↩</a> </li> And I’ll be honest, there are plenty of advantages ranging from being able to see my friends & family more often, not having to worry about visas as well as the fact that going to university in the US will probably be around 5-6x more expensive. ↩</a> </li> Which in my case, is just predicted grades + GCSE scores. ↩</a> </li> One of the few areas I disagree with the grade requirements - frankly for the top universities they aren’t realistic. Technically, I’ve applied to universities that are below by multiple grades what I had predicted, but realistically I’ll be lucky to get 3 or 4 offers including my insurance. Again though, I’m applying to highly competitive universities which might mean that my experience is different. ↩</a> </li> Relatively posh british bakery/coffee shop chain - the food is expensive but I’ve never had any other cinnamon rolls that come even close. ↩</a> </li> I 100% get the reason they do this (make it easier for people who can’t get to Cambridge), but I still would have loved to visit in person. ↩</a> </li> Yes, I’m aware of the Common App</a>, and other such coalitions but they don’t cover every university. ↩</a> </li> at least consciously stress about, I fear for my heart. ↩</a> </li> The pattern for EA seems to be the saturday of the second full week (beginning Monday). ↩</a> </li> unless you get waitlisted, in which case it’s another three months yay!11!!!11!! (although I did bring this upon myself by applying earlier, and this is also definitely better than a straight rejection) ↩</a> </li> This is all going on my MIT FUN Form</a>, so the chances are non-zero I guess? ↩</a> </li> </ol> </section>

The British Uni Admissions Experience 2023-12-07T00:00:00+00:00 I’ve recently finished my Cambridge interview and I’ll now make a vague attempt to document my experience, trials and tribulations. For reference, I applied for Computer Science</a> to Churchill College</a>. This’ll probably end up following a similar structure to my MIT Post</a>. This is also specifically for the 2023-2024 admissions cycle, as apparently a few things are changing next year for the Personal Statement as well as the Admissions Tests. The UK System</h2> The UK System is so very different to the US System, so I’ll begin by giving a not-so-brief explanation of how our admissions processes work. I’ll begin by explaining school years, to eventually get to the important years for this discussion. GCSEs and Below</h3> In the UK, most people class schools into independent schools and state schools. Independent schools are typically selective and fee-paying, and state schools are paid for by the government and have free enrolment. Then, within state schools there’s the normal ones as well as Grammar Schools</a>, which are more selective but hard to get into due to the high demand. Then, independent schools can be classed in a number of ways - day schools vs boarding schools (all boarding schools are independent as far as I know), public vs private, or even by how expensive the fees are. Quick fun fact - a Public School in the UK is very different to a Public School internationally. Public Schools (as a group noun) refer to a set of schools that were originally open to students regardless of their parents’ jobs. Nowadays, this refers to a set of elite independent schools (like Eton or Harrow) that typically take children very young and continue on until they reach university age. See Wikipedia</a>. Most children start in reception aged 4 for a single year. Then mandatory school starts for everyone at a primary school for Years 1 through 6 where students are aged 5 through 11. They then go to secondary school for Years 7 through 11 aged 11 through 16. That having been said, the private school system can be different and they often take in children at a variety of ages - I’ve been at my current school since Year 3 and I’ll be leaving at the end of this year at the end of Year 13. Usually for Year 9 and below, most end-of-year exams don’t contribute to much other than academic streaming for the next year or reports (with the exception of standardised tests at state schools, but I don’t know much about them). Once you get past Year 9, you typically then start directly working on your GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) courses. There are 3 compulsory subjects - Maths, English & Science. Maths is worth 1 GCSE, Science 2 (double award of 3 sciences), and English 2 (separate qualifications for Language and Literature). Typically though, students take more than just 5 GCSEs and will often take more subjects like languages, more complicated Maths or Science courses and different humanities/creatives1</a>. These are rated 9-1 and theoretically a 9 is supposed to be the equivalent of an A** (with the below grades following like the traditional letters - 8 = A*, 7 = A, 6 = B etc), but grade inflation has impacted that to the point where you’ll hear about independent school students achieving 12 or even more 9s. Sixth Form</h3> After your GCSEs, there’s no requirement from the government for you to take any further education. You can’t just be unemployed at 17 if you’re filthy rich - you have to work a job, or get an apprenticeship but you don’t need to stay in school. However just over half2</a> of students go to a Sixth Form3</a> college (Called either Year 12 & Year 13 or Lower Sixth & Upper Sixth, but always Sixth Form as a collective for ages 16-18). Most students in the Sixth Form study either A-Levels or IB Exams4</a>. A-Levels are separate examinations by separate boards and typically take around 2 years to complete. Most students take 3 or 4, but in some rare cases at top schools people take 5. There are zero requirements on variety of which exams you have to and don’t have to take, which means that there’s a huge variety so schools will likely offer a subset of the possible exams in common subjects. IB Exams are all set and managed by the International Baccalaureate Organisation, and they set strict requirements on subjects - you have to take at least 1 Science, 1 Mathematical Subject, 1 English Subject, 1 Language & 1 other Humanity. The IB Diploma also has a large emphasis on coursework (internal assessments in every subject, an extended essay, and a Theory of Knowledge exhibition) When you leave Sixth Form, the only things that stay on your record are the grades you achieved - the individual tests you took don’t matter beyond a desire for personal excellence and there’s no concept of a GPA</a>. When I’ve been doing US Applications and been learning more about their admissions system, the concept of a GPA terrifies me - every single test and assignment I do going to a number that goes to university? The stress must be unreal. Applications/Offers</h2> Most UK universities have a very similar process for admissions for most subjects. Here I’ll be going over a general overview with a few exceptions that I’ve become familiar with, but for example I won’t be touching Medicine with a 10-foot pole. All of the UK Universities work through one system for undergraduate applications - the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, commonly known as UCAS</a>. To submit an application through UCAS, you need to register through your school where the following items go onto your application (because they need to submit certain things, which I’ll get onto). Then, you need to submit the following: Admin Details - these are simple details like where you live, your residency status and any widening access points.</li> Banking Details - the UCAS application costs £20 for one choice, or £25 for multiple. I just selected to have my centre pay, which means that it’ll end up on my school bill.</li> Personal Statement (this is one 4000 character essay about why you want to study that subject. You can take this any way you want, and I’m not going to provide advice because there are far better people to do that.)</li> Your 5 Choices. You get to choose up to 5 courses to go to - you could pick 5 courses at one university, 5 courses at 5 universities or any combination. There aren’t too many restrictions beyond the fact that you’re not allowed to simultaneously apply to Oxford & Cambridge (collectively known as Oxbridge), and you’re not allowed to apply to more than 4 medicine courses.</li> Your reference - typically your teachers write & submit this. Typically there’s a small level of collaboration between the reference writer and the student to make sure you the reference doesn’t overlap with the personal statement, although this is strictly at the start and should not influence the writer.</li> Your Predicteds or Achieved Grades. If you’ve already done your exams, then you just submit the actual grades, and if not then you submit your predicted grades.</li> </ul> Choosing Universities</h3> There’s a huge variety of different ways to choose a university. First, you might look at the course you want to do (Computer Science for me) and check which universities offer it. There’s a huge number of different league tables which all prioritise different things. All universities are also required to post their minimum grade offers for all their different courses which can help to see if a university is above or below your standards if you compare that to your predicteds. However, sometimes there are other factors to consider (like the prestige of a university - Edinburgh lists A*A*A* for Computer Science, but is easier to get into than Cambridge which lists A*A*A). Most also offer contextual offers, which are for if you’re disadvantaged in some ways compared to your peers - this could be anything from grief affecting your performance to being underprivileged. Then, when you’ve narrowed it down to a shortlist you’ll typically go to an Open Day. These are a few days a year that each university offers, where they’ll have lots of talks on about everything from the Student Union5</a> to your course to accommodation. Most universities also offer individual tours around the year, but the open days typically offer more things as well as conveniences like more bus services between the local rail station and the university. If you know you’d want to visit a specific university, make sure to book their open day early - I think lots of the nicer slots for the St Andrews one were booked out only a few hours after it opened to booking. Predicted Grades</h3> Some people from outside the UK might’ve been reading this so far somewhat confused - you just apply with one essay and one reference? How do they know about your academic skills apart from GCSEs? What happens in most schools is that at the end of your Lower Sixth, you take a set of internal exams (as in, not set by any exam board) which your teachers then use (in addition to your performance from the rest of the year, or things like coursework) to provide an estimate of what you’ll get in your final exams. Some schools use AS Levels for this purpose, which are designed to be taken at this point. If you disagree then you can usually ask your teachers to change your grades, but the school has a vested interest in making sure that your grades are accurate. This is because the universities can see which school you applied from, and if schools consistently overpredict then the universities (theoretically) should remember and then discount those school’s opinions. The problem then occurs when somebody actually deserves the high prediction, but might not get the offer they want because of the traditional overestimations from that school. Offers</h3> Then, you submit your UCAS Application - the deadline6</a> is the 31st of January, but my school set a far earlier internal deadline. The idea of that was that you’re stressing out about making a deadline that’s months before the actually important one so if you can’t make the deadline an extension isn’t an issue. Then, the universities must reply to you by the 1st of May. They have 2 options - rejection or offer. If you’re rejected, then you won’t be going to that university. Typically, you can’t ask for feedback. Offers are slightly more complicated - if you’ve applied the year after you did your A-Levels, they’ll give an unconditional offer. If you’ve applied before finishing you’re A-Levels using your predicted grades, then they’ll give a conditional offer which will almost always be at or below your predicted grades and often similar to the minimum grades that they post. Then, you’ve got 2 weeks to decide on your firm and insurance offers. You’ve got to pick 2 universities from the ones that replied to you - if you meet the grade requirements from your firm and want to go to university that year, then you can only go to that university. If you don’t meet those ones, but do meet the requirements for your insurance then you can only go there. If you meet neither, then you can either give up to apply the next year, or you can enter clearing. I don’t know much about clearing, but it seems to be where all students who want to can enter Clearing as a process, and then universities pick the students they want. Typically, the top universities don’t consider any applicants from clearing. A brief aside on Accommodation</h3> Almost all UK universities offer some form of accommodation in the first year - often in Halls of Residence, which can be self-catered, catered, co-ed, sharing, single and prices will change accordingly. Most of the time there’ll be a selection of Halls which have different features like what I mentioned above. THe notable exception is Durham with the colleges system (which I’ll elaborate more on later with the Cambridge stuff). Some universities restrict this to only be guaranteed accommodation if you apply with them as your firm choice. Beyond the first year, you either have to submit an application to the few spaces not taken by first-years7</a> or take a chance with the rental market which is pretty bad at lots of universities (London is especially bad at this - one of the main reasons I didn’t apply to Imperial8</a>). The notable exception is Oxbridge, where almost all colleges offer accommodation to all undergraduates on-site although there’s nothing stopping you from renting if you see a lovely place or already have property in Cambridge/Oxford. Cambridge-Specific</h2> Here, we get into the incredibly specific. So far, I’ve tried to make sure that this is pretty widely applicable, but here we’re going into detail on my specific application. I’ll go more and more specific as it goes on. The Colleges</h3> Unlike every other university, you don’t just apply to Oxford or Cambridge - you apply to a specific college in your application. As far as I can tell, your supervisors and some of your professors will be from the college you applied to. There’s sports teams and societies which are college specific and for the whole university. One joked about bonus about going to Oxbridge is that you’ve got a higher chance of getting on University Challenge</a> (a quiz show for British university students), as you’re only competing against the other people in your college rather than against everyone in your whole university 9</a>. The Application</h3> Firstly, Oxbridge have a way earlier admissions deadline (the 22nd of October this year), and gives you decisions way earlier as well (mid-late January) although the acceptance date is the same. There’s the first difficulty. The next difficulty comes from the admissions assessments. Since most people applying will have incredibly high grades and impressive personal statements, they need more ways to differentiate candidates. The TMUA</h3> This takes place in different ways for different courses, but for Computer Science this involves taking the Test of Mathematics for University Admission - the TMUA</a>. This is a really difficult maths paper - 2 papers taken back-to-back, which each have 20 multiple choice questions to be done over 75 minutes. It’s all Maths based, but Paper 1 seems to be more about the foundations, and Paper 2 seems to be more about reasoning & logic. My school ran preparation sessions, so I slowly worked my way through all of the old past papers (of which there are only 10, because it hasn’t been around for very long10</a>), and prepared thoroughly for the exam. I had my half-term holiday start at the end of the week before the test so I got about 4 or 5 days to do nothing but TMUA preparation. That having been said, I was pretty sick for most of that period so I didn’t get all that much productive work done. Then, when the day came around I took the exam at my school and then went for Kokoro with my friends11</a>, my lungs doing a seal impression the whole time 😔. The Interview</h3> From the outside, the cambridge admissions seem to work off a series of successive filters, and I’d just managed to pass the TMUA ones. A few days before I would get my TMUA result back I got an email from my college with my interview time and details. I signed a very thorough non-disclosure (not sure if a solicitor12</a> would call it that, but it’s probably close enough), so I’ll be pretty shy about any specific details to avoid invalidating my current application. My interview ended up being about 30-40 minutes, and I had it over Zoom - this part gets interesting. So, historically most colleges have done in-person interviews at the Cambridge College, and I’ve had friends who’ve been to up to Cambridge recently for in-person interviews. However, over Covid most colleges switched to Zoom, and quite a few have stayed. It make sense when you think about it - I can pretty easily get to Cambridge from London, but someone living in North Scotland might have more troubles. This way, they can get the most skilled applicants regardless of geography getting in the way. Closing Thoughts</h2> Having now gone through some pretty competitive admissions processes in multiple countries (all I’ve got to do now is wait for results 😬), I’m pretty happy to give my thoughts. Doing both at the same time has been pretty stressful - I started off the term worrying about my Personal Statement, then I worried about the TMUA, then it was straight into MIT Essays then my MIT Interview then my Cambridge Interview and that was a challenge. During all that I still had lots of commitments to manage, ranging from being Vice-Captain of my school house to writing these blog posts (although this has been a vibey de-stresser) to a musical production where I took the pretty senior role of Stage Manager</a>. That having been said, I wouldn’t change it for the world because of all the knowledge I’ve gained. I think that the US approach is a lot more work (because of the essays, as well as having to do their admissions test last year), but I kinda feel like MIT’ve got a far better idea of the nebulous concept of Jack Maguire™️ than Cambridge. That having been said, I think Cambridge have a far better idea of my skills and capabilities - the interview was less casual and was with a professor and a supervisor, which was more stressful on my end but I almost feel more like if I get a rejection there wasn’t much more I could do (apart from being less stressed - that was far better in the MIT Interview, but you can’t really replicate coffee shop vibes in a zoom). I guess I’ll see what happens 😉. I took English (Literature + Language), Maths, Further Maths, the 3 Sciences separately, Design & Engineering, Geography, Latin, French & Russian. ↩</a> </li> This is a holdover from more old fashioned naming systems still kept in place at some schools, where you progress through different forms, but these vary wildly from school to school. ↩</a> </li> At time of writing, see source</a>. ↩</a> </li> There’s also BTECs</a>, but I’ve not the foggiest on how they work. ↩</a> </li> Most UK Universities have a Students Union. The level of involvement and importance varies, but these typically deal with everything from getting student conditions improved (eg. mental health as a valid excuse for missing an exam) to clubs & societies. Unlike (as far as I’ve seen), lots of US Universities, the senior student union positions cover the entire university and are taken as a sabbatical rather than concurrently with studies. ↩</a> </li> Technically, this is the equal consideration deadline. This means that all universities should consider all applications submitted before here equally and by consequence that they’re allowed to discriminate against late applications. ↩</a> </li> Unlike the US there isn’t a system of Freshman -> Sophomore -> Junior -> Senior, it’s just first-years to second-years etc. ↩</a> </li> Imperial is supposed to be insanely good for Computer Science (and their open day was impressive), and they’re in a lovely part of London in South Kensington, but it’s London. I’ve heard awful things about everyone being spread all over London in accommodation over an hour away from the main campus which then screws with lots of social stuff. ↩</a> </li> I’m just going to politely pretend that I haven’t heard any stories about colleges which only submit postgraduates, or ones where the teams might have median ages of 45 😱. ↩</a> </li> And looks like it won’t be around for much longer</a>. ↩</a> </li> Those portions are huge ↩</a> </li> British term for a non-court-based lawyer. Court lawyers are called Barristers - Saul Goodman</a> would be a Barrister, but the blood-sucking lawyer from Jurassic Park</a> would probably be a solicitor. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </section> MIT Interview 2023-11-12T00:00:00+00:00 Recently, I’ve been going through the joy that is university admissions in 2023 applying simultaneously to US & UK systems. Trying to get in a halfway decent application for them both without sacrificing my studies and the theatre productions I’m involved in has been, to put it lightly, a little bit of a huge pain. Here I’ll be writing about my experience applying to US universities, specifically MIT (and if plans hold, then a caltech post later this year) from the perspective of a Brit. Long-Term Prep</h2> One thing that both systems seem to have in common is that you need to be an interesting person who can show passion for their subject. From a Computer Science view this means that I’ve spent the last few years making more projects than I can shake a stick at. I’ve tried to make a variety of projects, but the main focus has been on making sure that the project was fun to code over making it actually useful. I found this insanely helpful to make sure I actually ended up finishing these projects to an acceptable degree, rather than just having a halfway finished physics engine that I wasn’t really all that interested in. If you want to see what I’ve been cooking, I’ve got a few writeups on this site, with more coming. I’ve also kept up with computer science and general tech news, like making sure to flick through TWIR</a> every week or listening to WAN show on my runs. Admissions Tests</h2> This is the main difference between UK & US admissions as far as I can tell. I’ll take a bit here to explain both systems so everyone understands. In the UK, at the end of the second-last year of school you take an internal set of exams and your school gives you a set of predicted grades - you send these to the universities with a personal statement and then universities hand out conditional offers. These are conditional in that the offer will have a set of requirements for grades which will normally be at or below the predicteds you submitted. Whereas in the US (as far as I can tell), you take exams (like SAT or ACT exams) which get sent to the universities with a metric ton of uni-specific essays (apart from if they’re part of a coalition like Common App where there’s one common essay). Then, they send back unconditional offers. There appear to be loads of exceptions and weird bits though - like applications which are binding if they accept you, or some universities which are test-optional or test-blind. So, I’ve got all my predicteds sorted because I go to a UK school, and then I took a few ACTs last year after doing a prep course. Observations from a Brit</h3> It’s really interesting what the different systems prioritise. A-Level Physics is about a fundamental understanding of the subject with equations and some bits you’ve got to memorise whereas ACT Science is more about reading, understanding and then answering questions about those experiments. A-Level Further Maths is about long questions with problem solving elements, but ACT Maths is simpler and seems more solve this matrix than prove by induction that this matrix does that. Part of that difference might be that the American Universities also ask about which courses you’ve done, and what your GPA is. I can’t answer them though because I don’t have a GPA. I also don’t have any AP classes because that isn’t really a concept in the UK. In some ways I don’t have to stress as much through the year because I don’t need to worry about every individual test affecting anything that goes on my record or to the universities, but equally if I mess up that one big test at the end of the year then I’m properly screwed. Recent Stuff</h2> So I filled out my applications and wrote my essays, and ended up submitting early action - very slightly better odds and earlier knowledge of success or failure in return for earlier deadlines. I then waited for a few anxious days and got a text & email from my EC (Education Counsellor - if I’ve seen worked out one thing about MIT so far, it’s that I’ll need to make a pretty big spreadsheet for acronyms). We had a chat, and eventually she sent me a calendar invite for about a week later on a Friday afternoon in a coffee shop. This is another interesting difference - most UK universities seem to work off a series of successive filters, like grade requirements, or personal statement and then interviews. They are themselves a filter, but you’ve got to have passed through a fair few beforehand to make it to that stage so people consider it an achievement. Whereas in the US, every attempt is made to give everyone an interview which is just an interesting change. This was when my MIT interview prep properly started (probably a bit late). If I were doing this again, I probably would’ve started reading the MIT blogs earlier because they’ve been insanely helpful, and you can find them over here</a>. Over the last week and a half I’ve read more blogs than I can count, on everything from the best spots to cry or study to organising Splash to struggles with burnout. There are YouTube videos, but I haven’t really found many of them as useful. I also can’t lie - the student bloggers over there are definitely part of my inspiration for this. I also started preparing answers to all kinds of questions from ‘Why MIT?’ to ‘where do you see yourself in 5 years’ to ‘How do you spend your free time’, and, especially relevant this year</a>, The Community Question. I’ll happily say that some of these questions were asked and some weren’t and that I also had a fair few questions I hadn’t prepared. What to prepare is kind of up to you - it’s not my place to tell you what questions because every interview will be different. I will say that if you’ve got topics that you’re planning on getting to, then make sure to be ready for them to ask follow up questions. The Day Itself</h2> Since my interview wasn’t until 3PM, I did my usual friday morning classes rather than sleeping in. I do regret this - I wasn’t really able to focus for lots of that morning and I just felt stressed about when I was planning on leaving. One part that was quite funny was walking into one of my lessons knowing well that I could walk out whenever I damn pleased because I’d have a pretty decent excuse. That teacher had done one of my references so he was happy to just let me go without complaint. I sprinted over and made good use of TfL to get to a Pret near my interview location about an hour and a quarter early. I was lucky that it had a decently sized bathroom which I made use of to get changed, before buying a sandwich and some food. I then realised - the Pret was full of people trying to do exactly what I wanted to do (using the Pret as a warm place to work that had food & sockets). Eventually a table opened up and I sprinted over to get my phone & laptop charging for later use. Then, about 30 minutes before the scheduled start I went outside for a 10 minute talk to the interview place which was a way nicer café than the Pret I’d gone to - nice staff, better vibe & much better Hot Chocolate (I’d rate it as best I’ve ever bought). Then, at about 15:00 on the dot, I instantly heard when my interviewer come in - a US West Coast accent stands out in a sea of Brits. I’d lucked out in this case and got an interviewer who was attended the same ‘School’ at MIT which I wanted to attend, which was the School of Engineering. She’d done Course 2 (Mechanical Engineering), and I want to do something in the Course 6 area (Computer Science). I luckily got a chance to speak about pretty much everything I wanted, and I came up with some pretty decent answers to the questions I hadn’t prepared for. From what I’ve heard, my Cambridge (UK) interview will just be lots of Maths questions so I loved the opportunity to speak about things I’m really passionate about. It had definitely helped that I’d done practice questions in a vaguely interview-like format and from my end it seemed like she made an effort to just let me speak about anything & everything I wanted to which was really lovely. As for the questions I asked her - I think I asked her about things like what she did for accommodation and the things she’d done for her extra requirements but the most interesting answer I got was definitely not from the question I expected. That would have been when I asked if the vibe I’d gotten from the blogs was accurate - work hard, play hard. One of the main social activities for her was doing homework with friends which is certainly a contrast to what I’ve heard about other universities in the UK. My interview ended up lasting a hair over 40 minutes, which went by at a speed you wouldn’t believe. I felt it lasted a good amount of time. I did have more to talk about but I wasn’t 100% sure how to fit it all in. All done</h2> I’ve got a few things I probably would’ve done differently if I could do it over, like mentioning a few of my outside of school hobbies that didn’t make it into my application but all the moping in the world isn’t going to change anything. All I can do is nervously wait for mid-December. I had a peek at the stats last night, and I’ll share my interpretation - there’s about a 20-30% chance I’ll get outright rejected, which sounds incredible until you factor in that there’s still only a 6-7% chance of acceptance. The rest get waitlisted, and just dumped into the regular application pool. Of those waitlisted, it’s about a 2-3% chance of acceptance which is pretty slim, so a waitlisting isn’t all that far from a rejection 😭. Out of all the international applicants, regardless of admissions stage, the chances are just 2% which is pretty small. That having been said, the UK seems to punch above its weight in terms of students in relation to the population and I can see that about 2 get admitted every year. It’s a shame that they don’t do applicants per country and not just current undergrads because then I could actually work out more stats. Then again, it’s probably not healthy to obsess over those stats so we’ll see what happens 🤷.

Katashift - Universities

Comparative Thoughts on University Admissions

Interviews</h2> I’ve spoken extensively</em> about interviews on both sides, so my opinion will be far shorter and simpler.</p>

The British Uni Admissions Experience

MIT Interview