Dear Mr Miah,

Thank you for your enquiry made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). It was received by the College on 3 September 2013. I can confirm that the College does hold some information related to your enquiry. The answers to your questions are in the attached PDF files, and below.

General comments:

We do not hold records of GCSE results. One candidate received an offer from King's and went elsewhere. Any part of an entry reading 'we do not have records' would clearly identify him/her and thus the information is exempt from disclosure under section 40 of FOIA, Personal Information. That information has not been included in the attached.

Where three or fewer students took a particular AS exam, it is likely that individuals will be recognisable from their scores. Their scores are thus also exempt under section 40 and are marked as such.

Each table in the attachments has been sorted separately and thus a row cannot be interpreted as relating to a person: the candidate who scored lowest in AS Chemisty (the first row in that table) is unlikely to be the same as the candidate who scored lowest in AS Biology (the first row in that table), for example. The profile of each candidate would include enough information that they might be identifiable by third parties; we have anonymised the data so that it is not exempt under section 40 of FOIA.

1) For each applicant who was unsuccessful in obtaining an interview, can I get a list of their BMAT score, their GCSE's, and predicted A Level results and subjects studied as well as UMS marks in their subjects.

Please see the attachment entitled 'unsuccessful candidates'.

2) For each applicant who was successful in obtaining an interview, can I get a list of their BMAT score, their GCSE's, and predicted A Level results and subjects studied as well as UMS marks.

Please see attachment entitled 'interviewed'.

3) Can I get a list of criteria that the interviewers looked at during the interview to determine a candidates suitability?

Please refer to the online information at http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate...

You will also find information in our Admissions Policy: http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate....

4) How was the interview scored? Was it a score out of 10 by each interviewer or anything along those lines?

Interviews are scored from 1-10, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest.

5) For each applicant who was successful in obtaining an offer, can I get a list of their BMAT score, their GCSE's, and predicted A Level results and subjects studied and UMS marks as well as their score in the interview stage?

Please see the attachment entitled 'successful candidates'.

6) I would also like any scoring or grading system used to assess interview performance and if a form or such is provided to interviewers to record performance is available I would also kindly request this. This specific request is for this years admission cycle, ie 2012/2013.

Interviews are scored as follows.
10 Exceptional applicant - must make an offer
9 Very strong - definitely worth an offer
8 Strong - worth an offer
7 Probably worth an offer
6 Possibly worth an offer
5 Doubtful for an offer
4 Weak
3 and below, probably unacceptable

Following interviews, interviewers fill in information about the interview in the following format:
_____________________________________________________________________
Interview Notes

Score
_____________________________________________________________________
7) Finally I would also like to kindly know the weightings (if there are strict 'points' systems in place or more loose preferences of which criteria is more important) of candidates' UMS average at AS, the weighting of their Interview score and the weighting of their BMAT score. ie which is more important in deciding if a candidate gets an offer.

There is no weighting system. We look at each part of the application in the context of the whole application.

I attach a leaflet outlining the College's FOI Act policies and procedures. If you have further questions please reply to [King’s College, Cambridge request email] in the first instance. If you are 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.

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Patricia McGuire (Dr.)
Archivist
King's College
Cambridge CB2 1ST

Tel: 01223 331444
FAX: 01223 331891

Dear Mr Miah,

I have just noticed that I attached a superfluous Word document to my reply, please ignore it.

Thank you.

--------------------------------------
Patricia McGuire
Archivist
King's College
Cambridge CB2 1ST

Tel: 01223 331444
FAX: 01223 331891

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