Dear L. Crawley,

This is in reply to your enquiry received by the College on March 20th and
made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).I can confirm that
the College does hold some information related to your enquiry. Except for
your first question (which can be answered by the interactive graph
generator at the bottom of the page
[1]http://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk...), the
information you requested is exempt under section 40 of FOIA, personal
data. Because of the low numbers of students affected by your enquiry, it
is not possible reliably to anonymise all the third party data subjects’
identities. Therefore, the information is exempt under section 40 of the
FOI Act.

We hope the following information will be helpful to you:

HOW DO WE ASSESS APPLICATIONS?

At King's, we are looking for promise and potential. So although existing
and predicted grades and BMAT scores form a central criterion for
admission, as do interview scores, we are careful to interpret grades,
BMAT scores and interview results in light of your personal and
educational background. We assess each application individually. We are
interested to learn about your existing knowledge and skills, but we
endeavour also to find out how you would deal with the new materials and
ideas you would encounter at Cambridge. All candidates are considered
strictly on the basis of their academic promise.

During the application process, we look at:

• your academic record, including GCSE and AS (or equivalent) grades and
marks and A level (or equivalent, e.g. IB) grades or predictions, this
record being considered in the context of the quality (but not type) of
schools/colleges at which it was achieved; • your BMAT scores; • your
school/college reference; • your personal statement; • your admissions
assessment (taken at interview) • your performance at interview(s)

With this holistic view you can understand that it is not possible to
predict your chances of success based on predicted grades and/or interview
scores. Our advice is to apply if you look like you can achieve the
standard offer of A*A*A at the end of sixth form.

UMS scores are being phased out with the A level reforms, so not all A
level applicants this year will have UMS scores for each subject. In
recent admissions rounds, the average Cambridge applicant scored about 90
per cent on this measure, while the average successful Cambridge applicant
scored nearer 95 per cent. But please note that both these figures are
only averages – applicants don’t need to have achieved a certain score in
every module and aren’t required to achieve 90 per cent or above in all
modules. There have been successful Cambridge applicants who had UMS
averages in their best/most relevant three subjects below 90 per cent.

We read the whole of each application and take all parts of it into
account before deciding which students to invite for interview. As we only
invite students for interview who could potentially be made an offer, it
would be unusual to invite a student predicted less than our standard
offer for A100 that year. The standard offer has changed over the past
four years.

We have no set quota for the number of applicants we invite for interview
– we invite all candidates who we could potentially make an offer to after
reading the paper application. In an average year, this is 80-90% of
applicants.

If you have further questions please ask me in the first instance. I
attach a leaflet outlining the College's FOI Act policies and procedures.
If, after following those procedures you are still not satisfied with the
way in which your request has been dealt with you may apply directly to
the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Commissioner
will not entertain your complaint unless you have exhausted any relevant
internal review procedures.

Yours sincerely

Peter Jones

Peter Jones

Freedom of Information Officer

King’s College, Cambridge

Cambridge CB2 1ST

Email: [2][King's College, Cambridge request email]

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