Cambridge from the Inside #19: How will we assess your application? | University of Cambridge

Stay tuned to hear our Director of Admissions, Dr. Marcus Tomalin, explain everything you need to know about how we assess applications, including an analysis of several hypothetical cases! 00:00 Introductions 02:10 What pieces of information do we look at when assessing applicants? 04:50 We say we assess applications holistically—what does "holistic" actually mean? 05:50 Who assesses the applications? 10:20 Explaining the Winter Pool 13:20 What’s the most important part of the application? 17:40 Hypothetical case: Part 1 20:10 Predicted grades compared to final grades 20:40 Hypothetical case: Part 2 22:25 Trying to wing the Cambridge admissions process 24:10 Hypothetical case: Part 3 30:10 Siam’s predicted grades 33:10 Hypothetical case: Part 4 37:00 Differences between humanities and sciences in admissions assessments 41:40 What is contextualisation/contextualising applications? 50:25 What’s the difference between contextualisation and positive discrimination? 55:00 Hypothetical case: Part 5 58:40 So, is there any difference between holistic assessment and contextualisation?