Student Finance England

We've just received this message from Student Finance: "We are pleased to announce the launch of the Student Finance England service for academic year 2011/2012 on 14 February 2011. From this date, all students applying for full-time courses in higher education can apply for student finance online at www.direct.gov.uk/student finance."
However I think this link is not working properly (!) but you can access the information at
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/Gettingstarted/index.htm
It's worth getting started on your application to Student Finance as soon as possible (after 14 Feb 2011), and you don't have to wait until you've received all your university offers first.

Interviews are winding down

The main bulk of our interviews took place last week; we still have some candidates coming for interviews this week but nowhere near as many as we had last week. Cambridge is still full of applicants (and anxious parents wandering around trying to concentrate on Christmas shopping instead of thinking about their offspring’s interviews!). We are entirely sympathetic; all of us in the admissions team have gone through the same experience, either as parents or as an applicant so we fully understand what a stressful time it can be.

Some people have been asking me about when the decisions will be notified. We will be posting letters to the mailing address you gave in your UCAS application towards the end of the first week of January. Please don’t phone the admissions office to ask the content of your letter; we are not able to give information by phone. If your letter has been significantly delayed, you are welcome to email admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk; for security reasons be sure to give your UCAS number and the subject for which you applied. I will make a pdf to send as an email attachment but, as each document will have to be produced individually, I may not be able to respond immediately if there are a large number of requests. I’m sorry about that but I would ask for your patience. Also at the same time (during the first week of January) all Colleges will be very busy getting pooled applicants assessed and decisions finalised. For more information about the Cambridge Colleges pool please see http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/apply/ourdecision.html

Check out the competition!

I wish you could see our candidates' waiting room today!

I've just been to check on the waiting room and it's almost like a party down there! It's full of interviews candidates waiting for their next interview, all happily chatting away to each other. Someone is playing the piano (rather well I thought!) and there's a great atmosphere.
There's tea and coffee and biscuits provided, magazines to browse. It almost made me wish I had an interview! Good luck everybody!

Lots of interview candidates arriving this week!

We're looking forward to meeting a good number of our applicants whose interviews have been scheduled for 6th to 10th December. There will be many hundreds of other Cambridge applicants in town so everywhere will be extremely busy. (And there will be local people doing Christmas shopping etc as well!).
The snow has completely gone now and it's much warmer than it was last week. However, it's still pretty cold and the forecast is for cold weather next week. So don't hesitate to make use of our waiting room between your interviews. Once you've discovered where your interviewers' rooms are located, go and stay warm inside in the waiting room. Some rooms, particularly those in First and Second Courts (the oldest parts of the College dating from the 16th and 17th centuries) have no convenient places to wait outside for very long so don't turn up too early and freeze while you wait!

So far, so good

Well, we got through another full day of interviews yesterday; everyone was able to get here with no significant delays. This is really remarkable and I'm sure reflects the determination and courage of our candidates (and their parents in some cases!). Many people are leaving HOURS before their interview time and getting here in good time. Let me say a huge thank you to everyone involved in making tremendous efforts to attend interviews - very well done.
Just to update you on the conditions here, we have very little snow in Cambridge but it IS very cold. The College is always open because the Porters' Lodge is staffed 24/7 and there are people who live here on site. The admissions admin staff live locally and Mrs Stirling (our Director of Admissions) lives right in the centre of Cambridge. So don't worry, there will always be someone here.
We look forward to meeting lots more of you next week!

We do understand

We realise that many of you are having difficulties travelling. We have about 600 candidates to interview and the interviews involve about 65 different interviewers so you will appreciate that re-scheduling is not an easy task. As long as it is safe to do so, and given that you take all reasonable steps to prepare for your journey, we hope you will be able to get here. Once you are on the move please do keep in touch with us and let us know if you are having problems getting through. If you find it absolutely impossible to travel to Cambridge for your interviews we will try very hard to re-schedule but it will, of course, depend on the availability of those interviewing.  If all else fails there might be the possibility that interview MAY be carried out remotely.