Wednesday 31 October 2012

Still waiting for some transcripts!

If you have not already uploaded your transcript when completing your SAQ or COPA, please send your transcript by email as soon as possible to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk.  
If we do not receive your transcript with a translation by noon (UK time) Friday 2nd November, I regret we will not be able to take your application any further.
This applies to those attending a school or college outside the UK; without a copy of your high school transcript your application to the University of Cambridge is invalid. The only exception to this is if you took IGCSEs and are now taking/have just taken the International Baccalaureate (IB) or A Levels. If you took IGCSEs and the IB or A Levels and are now at university, then you must provide us with a university transcript. If you have taken A Levels or the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB) but did not take IGCSEs, then you must submit a transcript for the qualification you completed prior to studying for A Levels or the IB. If the original transcript is not in English, it will need to be translated and authorised, i.e., signed or stamped, by an official translation service or by your school/college/university.
By high school transcript we mean a record of your academic achievement to date in your secondary school or college examinations. Your secondary school or college examinations are usually taken in the last two years of your schooling, but please provide as much information on your examination performance as possible. If possible, please include details of any internal assessments that you may have undertaken. For most students your transcript will be an official document or certificate from your school or college which lists the subjects you have studied and the grades/qualification that you have obtained.

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Fee status form question

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.

It's a busy term here for our undergraduates; later this week Christ's Amateur Dramatic Society will present an exciting production of Oscar Wilde's classic comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest" http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/news/events/pg/article==391
The Christ's JCR (student union) are about to elect their new committee http://www.thejcr.co.uk/
The Chapel Choir sing services twice a week http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/college-life/chapel-and-choir/choir/choir-tours/
And the sporting life of the College continues to flourish http://www.thejcr.co.uk/sports

Friday 26 October 2012

Have a good half term break!

I think most of our UK students will be having half term break next week - I hope it's a good one and if you are going away I hope you have a great time. Have a good rest!
We'll be pressing on with processing your applications (over 600 of them) - as you can imagine it takes quite a long time sorting out all the paperwork and getting everything together. Although the application process is now electronic, we still have a paper file for each one of you. So although we might seem to have gone a bit quiet on you after the all the initial email flurries, we are working away, carefully assessing your application and putting everything you have sent us into your file!
Anyway, all we need now (if you haven't already sent it) is your Fee Status Assessment Questionnaire, your written work (if applicable) and your disability information (if relevant).
For those who haven't got half term break, at least have a good weekend!

Thursday 25 October 2012

Fee Status Questionnaire and written work

When completing and returning the Fee Status Questionnaire, everyone must also send a copy of their passport or birth certificate to confirm name and nationality. 
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 think 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.
Please don't forget to send a copy of your passport or birth certificate to confirm your name and nationality.
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 (but check out my comments about using "track and trace" on the applicants' website).
I hope these comments are helpful and I look forward to receiving your documents and work (where applicable) as soon as possible.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Transcripts (International students)

If you have not already uploaded your transcript when completing your SAQ or COPA, please send your transcript by email as soon as possible to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk.  
This applies to those attending a school or college outside the UK; without a copy of your high school transcript your application to the University of Cambridge is invalid. The only exception to this is if you took IGCSEs and are now taking/have just taken the International Baccalaureate (IB) or A Levels. If you took IGCSEs and the IB or A Levels and are now at university, then you must provide us with a university transcript. If you have taken A Levels or the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB) but did not take IGCSEs, then you must submit a transcript for the qualification you completed prior to studying for A Levels or the IB. If the original transcript is not in English, it will need to be translated and authorised, i.e., signed or stamped, by an official translation service or by your school/college/university.

By high school transcript we mean a record of your academic achievement to date in your secondary school or college examinations. Your secondary school or college examinations are usually taken in the last two years of your schooling, but please provide as much information on your examination performance as possible. If possible, please include details of any internal assessments that you may have undertaken. For most students your transcript will be an official document or certificate from your school or college which lists the subjects you have studied and the grades/qualification that you have obtained.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

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'll be posting information for HSPS for those of you who have not written essays during school, and for those who don't have essays written in Engish - please check the website again in a day or two.
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.

Monday 22 October 2012

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!

Friday 19 October 2012

SAQ deadline is Monday 22 October

As you know, the deadline for submitting your Supplementary Application Questionnaire is Monday 22 October. Don't leave it until the last minute - allow for technical hitches at your end. There will be many hundreds of applicants trying to complete the SAQ over this weekend so the system is likely to be very busy.
If you have submitted an application to the University of Cambridge through UCAS but do not receive an email about the SAQ by Saturday 20 October 2012 you should contact the Cambridge Admissions Office (email: saqhelp@cao.cam.ac.uk / telephone: 01223 333308).
More information about completing the SAQ can be found at
http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/saq.html
Many of the most common questions can be answered by looking at the FAQ tab.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Students at school outside the EU, please complete your COPA

If you are applying from outside the EU, you need also to complete the Cambridge Online Preliminary Application (COPA). You need to complete and submit the COPA by 22 October in order for your application to be considered. This is a long form and will take some time to complete, so I suggest you make a start before the deadline.


Details of how to complete the COPA may be found on the following webpage:

AFTER you have completed the COPA, you also need to complete the first section of the Supplementary Application Questionnaire (SAQ). You should have received an email from the University with your login details for the SAQ. Again, you need to complete and submit the SAQ by 22 October in order for your application to be considered. Providing you have already completed the COPA, this form should only take a few minutes to complete.

If you do not submit these two forms by the deadline of 22 October, then I am afraid your application can't be considered.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Admissions for 2013 Entry!

Hello!

It doesn't seem that long since we were sending out offer letters in Januray, but here we are for the admissions round for 2013 entry.

There's less than a week to go before the final UCAS deadline, so hopefully everyone who's planning to apply is in the final stages of getting their forms sorted. We've begun to recieve our first few completeed applications, please remember that the deadline for the Supplementary Application Questionnaire is the 22nd October, so don't put it off too long once you recieve the link!

Once we recieve your full application, you will recieve an email with a link containing full details of what to do next. For those of you applying for subjects requiring written work to be submitted, the deadline will be the 15th November and full guidance will be available via the link as to what types of essay are suitable to submit.

All communication will be via email so please check your spam folders to make sure you don't miss anything.

This blog will be updated regularly throughout the admissions round, so please keep an eye on it. If you have any specific questions, please get in touch via email or leave a comment on a post here.