Happy Christmas to everyone

Many of you have been emailing to thank us for the day you spent here in Cambridge and I'm really glad to hear that you enjoyed coming to interviews! Do make sure you tell everyone that it wasn't as bad as you expected and that you had a great time. We don't want people to be scared of making an application to Cambridge.
The Admissions Office will be closed now until 5th January 2012 so it only remains for me to wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year. All best wishes for 2012 whatever it holds for you.

Some people have been asking me an important question

"When do we hear of the outcome of our application, and will it be by email or letter?"

Yes, a good point! We send our decisions by letter to the mailing address you provided in your UCAS application. You should expect to hear towards the end of the first week of January. If you are a UK applicants and have not heard by Monday 9th January 2012, you are welcome to email admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk although you must be patient because if loads of people email all at once I'll only be able to deal with one at a time; obviously each one has to be dealt with individually.

Decisions will also be communicated to UCAS during the first week of January but don't panic if you don't see your status changed for a day or two. There will be huge pressure on the UCAS website so you might need to give it a bit of time before you can get logged in or for your status to be updated.

Information about the outcome of your application can be found here http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/apply/ourdecision.html

All going well here!

Well, here we are into the third day of our very busy week. There's nearly a hundred of you coming each day this week and everything is going smoothly. I had this comment from one of our applicants; I hope those of you who are still to be interviewed will find it encouraging "I would also like to thank you for a lovely stay I had in college. My room was very nice and people I met were very supportive. It was definitely a pleasant experience. So, thank you for that!"

I hope everyone has a great time, whether or not they stay in college. Don't forget you can book lunch for the day of your interviews if you wish. This only applies to you, I'm sorry we can't provide lunch for parents because they are not supposed to be in College with you!

We seem to be missing some fee status forms, it may be that we have overlooked to record receipt on our database so if you know you have not completed the fee status form at http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate-applications/applinfo/ please do so and return it to me as soon as you can.

If you are going to post the form the address is The Admissions Office, Christ’s College, St Andrew’s Street, Cambridge CB2 3BU

If you need some guidance filling in the form, the following advice might help:

Section B “when did your residence begin” you can put your birthdate if you have always lived in the country of birth.

“Main reason for residence” is usually living with family, although it could be study

Section C “Details of external funding” UK students intending to take a student loan should put Student Finance.

Section D “Details of ELQ status” does not apply unless you already hold an undergraduate degree and are therefore applying as an affiliated student.

Please let me know if you have any problems.

A few more things . . .

Just to let you know (if you have not already discovered it) that Cambridge railway station will be closed all day on Sunday 4th December. I don't think this will affect many of you but if you plan to travel by train on Monday 5th, please try to allow extra time for your journey because station closures inevitably mean disruption the following day.
If you have taken AS levels please bring along to interviews your statement of results showing your UMS scores. Some of you may have had remark enquiries, if so please bring the letter showing the outcome of the enquiry.
Please don't worry about your Fee Status form, we haven't had time to acknowledge them all because we have been concentrating on getting the interviews arranged. We have a huge pile of nearly 700 waiting to be processed and filed so we can't easily check whether we have recieved yours! We have nearly finished logging them on our system so if we don't have yours we'll let you know.

Next week is a big week in admissions

Finally all the admin is done and everything is ready. There will be nearly 400 of you coming for interviews next week, that's more than  half of the total number of people we are interviewing in Cambridge this year. If you are coming for your interview next week, make sure you've had a good look at all the information available on both admissions web pages and try to leave plenty of time for your journey.
I hardly like to mention it but this time last year there was REALLY heavy snow in the north - let's hope this doesn't happen again until after the 15th December (when our interviews finish!)
We're really looking forward to meeting you all. If your first interview is NOT at Christ's, you don't need to come to Christ's first unless you want to. You can just go straight to wherever your first interview is located and then make your way to Christ's. There are good maps on the websites and Cambridge is very compact so nothing is very far away.
When you get to Christ's, call in at the Porters' Lodge; they will give you a College map and show you how to find your way around. They'll also give you information about our interviewees waiting room.
Wishing everybody all the best in your interviews!

It's been so long since I last wrote!

Sorry to everyone following this. At last I've finished the interview timetables and everyone who is being invited to attend interviews should have heard by now. The few people who have not been invited to come to interviews should also have heard so if you are still waiting to hear please get in touch at admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk.
The interviews have started and we have a steady stream of applicants in various subjects going through the college each day. The interviewees waiting room seems to be a great help in that it's a place to wind down and meet other applicants. Some of our students are popping in from time to time to have a chat to the interviewees - thanks very much to them for doing that.
Don't forget to read ALL the information at 
http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate-applications/applinfo/interview_admin/
including the linked documents. I think everything you need to know is there, if not do let me know and I will answer your queries and update the website if the query is relevant to everyone.

Still working away at timetables!

Sorry I went a bit quiet on you recently. I've been working very hard trying to schedule interviews, not an easy task!

What I really need from you (those of you who have applied for certain Arts subjects) are your essays! Please send them to me as soon as you can. The instructions are

are available at http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/your_application/ just click on the link entitled FOR YOUR SUBJECT

You'll find everything you need there, including the cover sheet and a reminder of the deadline which is next Tuesday 15th November.

If you decide to send them by recorded or delivery, it's unlikely that the Royal Mail track and trace facility will work so I recommend that you include a stamped addressed postcard or sealed down envelope which we will return to you as your receipt.

More invitations to attend interviews

Just to let you know that we sent out a few more invitations to attend interviews today.
Please be aware that, if our Director of Studies for your subject is based in another College, you will be asked to go to their College room for one of your interviews. If this interview in another College is scheduled first, please don't come to Christ's College before that interview - there's no need. Just go straight to wherever your first interview is located and come to Christ's afterwards.
There are maps available at http://www.cam.ac.uk/map/ and http://www.visitcambridge.org/VisitCambridge/Maps/Map3.pdf
Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions which are not answered by looking at our "hidden" webpages and this blog. Use the email address admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk

The first invitations to attend interviews

Well, today we sent out a few invitations to attend interviews! This is for those subjects where the interviews will be starting in two or three weeks time. If you haven't heard please don't email me to ask whether you should have had an email - we are still scheduling interviews and will be doing so for some time yet. There's nearly 650 of you out there and it takes a long time to get the interview timetables organised. We try to give as much notice as possible but we are still waiting for some final details for some subjects. We're working as hard as we can so please be patient and wait for us to contact you.
If you have an urgent enquiry which needs an answer, drop an email to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk and we'll get back to you. If you do get in touch, please mention the subject for which you've applied as well as your full name - this helps us to locate your application quickly. Many thanks indeed!

Written work again!

It's just been brought to my attention that some people have not yet found the instructions for sending written work on the website.

Look at the fifth paragraph down where you’ll see the text:

"Please regularly check here for details about submitting written work, tests and other interview information FOR YOUR SUBJECT. Further information will be added as soon as it becomes available. The deadline for receipt of written work (if required) is Tuesday 15th November but if you can send your work before that date, please do so."

Click on the words FOR YOUR SUBJECT you will be taken to the subject pages where you can click on the subject for which you have applied.

Fee status form again!

For those of you who had half term holiday last week, I hope you had a good break. And if anyone is on half term this week, I hope you have a good break too - let's hope for some mild weather and sunshine for you.
I'm sorry I forgot to mention something else about the Fee Status form last week. One or two of you have emailed me to say that you don't have a valid passport. In this case please send a copy of your birth certificate instead but be sure to complete section B with the details of your residence for the past three years.
Don't worry if you've already sent the form anyway - we'll ask you for documentary evidence later if necessary.
And if you've sent the form without stating that you'll be applying to Student Finance it doesn't matter at all. If you are successful in receiving the offer of a place you'll be asked later for further information about your funding arrangements.

Fee status Questionnaires and written work

Hello again, I can't believe it's Friday already! We've had loads of emails and mail this week so we've been a bit busy getting your files up to date with all the paperwork.
Some of you have had some queries about the Fee Status Questionnaire; if you are a British Citizen all you have to fill in on Section B is UK for the country of residence, your birthdate for the date your residence began and the reason for residence is living with your family.
For Section C you should put Student Finance if you will be applying for a loan from the UK government.
Section D will not apply to most of you, only for the very few applicants who are applying as Affiliated students and who already hold an undergraduate degree.
Regarding your written work; it's absolutely fine to send in work which was produced during year 12 - most people will be doing that. As far as we are concerned, Year 12 is "recent". Please do send work which has been marked by your teacher, it can be scanned and sent as an email attachement (along with the cover sheet) or posted via the Royal Mail.
I hope these comments are helpful and I look forward to receiving your documents and work (where applicable) as soon as possible.
The sun is shining here in Cambridge and the College looks beautiful. Have a look at the picture on our front page http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/

Interview dates

Thank you for getting your SAQs done in time! We've now started receiving written work - that's excellent thank you. Please keep those essays coming.
We're still finalising the precise dates for most of the large subjects and I'll post information on the applicants' website as soon as they are fixed. In the meantime please try to keep the interview period clear of other commitments; some of the "medium-sized" subjects are only running interviews on a very few dates. We'll do our very best to accommodate you but if you are not available, for example, for the whole of the first week of December, it might not be possible to offer you a date outside that time if that's when the interviews for your subject are taking place.
We have usually managed to get everyone in to interviews one way or another!

Have a good weekend!

Thank you to those who have already submitted their fee status assessment questionnaire.

Don't forget, if you need to send us written work, it should have been marked by your teacher and prepared during the normal course of your studies (except in special circumstances with prior agreement). You can send a photocopy by mail to the Admissions Office, Christ's College, St Andrew's Street, Cambridge CB2 3BU or it's fine to send a scanned attachment by email to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk

Your teacher should complete a cover sheet for your essay(s) - please send everything all together if you can. The deadline is 15th November but it really helps us if you can get your work to us as soon as possible. Thank you!

SAQ Deadline

Please remember that the final deadline for submitting your Supplimentary Application Questionnaire is the 22nd October. You must submit a SAQ to make a valid application and we cannot accept those submitted after the deadline so it's very important you complete it in time.

Open Days and 2012 Admissions

Hello!

We're all ready here in the Christ's Admissions Office for the coming admissions round and it's time to start updating our blog again.

Please take note of the important dates in the bar to the right, particularly the deadlines for application.

If you are applying for a subject that asks for you to send in some written work, we will send you more details after we have recieved your full application, including the SAQ.

We've had a busy few months since January, with Open Days and schools visits seeing many hundreds of potential future applicants from Years 10 to 13 visiting the College for a look around and advice about applying.

Our last Open Day of the year was on Tuesday 27th January and was a great success. Attendees had the chance to talk to admissions staff, current students and Directors of Study about applying to and studying at Christ's. It was a lovely and sunny day, meaning we were able to enjoy lunch in the garden and that our Undergraduate helpers stood out in their new yellow t-shirts! We hope everyone had a good and informative time and that we'll be seeing some applications from those who attended soon.

Lunch time!

 Throughout the admissions round we will be using this blog to keep you updated, so please check here regularly. If you have any specific questions, please get in touch via email or leave a comment on a post here.

Delayed letters

I hope you had a good Christmas and may I wish you a happy New Year.
This is just to say that, although we posted all the decision letters first class on 5th January, it's clear that quite a few of you still have not received your letter. I'm really sorry about that. All I can say is that Mrs Stirling and I went to the main Post Office together at 9.00am Wednesday morning and put the letters in the box ourselves so we know they were posted at the correct time.
If anyone in the UK STILL hasn't got their letter by the time the post comes tomorrow morning, email admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk and I will try to get an email version to you in the afternoon unless numbers are overwhelming!
Thank you to all those who have kindly emailed wishing me a Happy New Year.