AS's at a grammar school in maths

[alexgmcm]

I did 5.. hopefully I'm not a trainspotter :'( I guess they mean the kids that do like 10 over 3 years or whatever.

Hmm, they didn't seem to care much about extra-curricular stuff at Oxford, more about the entry test. And my brother did the same subjects as me and got an offer from Cambridge, so I guess they don't care *that* much either.

I mean you do need to stand out, like I had done some programming and guitar and stuff but nothing that impressive really, but seriously do NOT neglect the academic side, this isn't America, you can't get your place on extra-curriculars :P

 

[Chewy0087]

I didn't apply to Imperial because of the expense so yeah I agree with you there. I applied to Warwick and used that as my insurance as Durham seemed a bit posh and also 300 miles away from my home :( One key thing to remember is that Warwick doesn't have any private accomodation on campus for 2nd and 3rd year (they might let you back on for final year) so it means you have to take the bus from leamington (7 miles away) every single day, that really put me off.

Nowadays, the IoP are pretty strict at making sure all the programs in different unis are standard and most of the weak departments have shut down, so just aim for like the top 15 or so, it matters even less if you plan on doing a PhD as it is your graduate school that will count loads and they are unlikely to care too much over whether you got a first at Oxford or at York if you apply for grad school, they will be more interested in seeing what research experience you did in the final years.

That said, you still have good grades, if you are that bothered about applying to Oxford etc. (you get 5 choices so might as well I suppose) then I would apply anyway, they are unlikely to care too much about the French as it isn't a maths/physics subject and so long as you can do really well on their entry exam (past papers are on the dept website) you should do fine. That exam is really hard btw so make sure you study for it a lot. As Cambridge are phasing out lots of their exams and they have Nat. Sci. not plain physics so you will be competing with people who took straight sciences and maths like I did, I would probably recommend applying to Oxford but it is up to you obviously.

If you are planning on doing a PhD and not joining an Investment Bank or whatever then your undergraduate university doesn't matter *that* much, remember it is difficult to get a first class degree anywhere so I would recommend visiting lots of universities and looking around the cities and remember to check where you will live in the second year too. Remember you will be living there for four years so make sure it is somewhere you will enjoy living!

Finally, if you haven't checked out these programs already, I would look at Sussex's physics program as they have a research placement thing which is worth looking into. (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/physics/1-2-21-8.html )

Sussex is also a small department which I prefer as it is more personal. Southhampton have some amazing scholarship thing if you can pass their qualifying exam so it's worth looking into that too and finally I would recommend looking at Exeter, as they also have a decent scholarship and it's where I'm going and it's awesome!

Nice grades btw, that was almost full marks in Maths, and yeah Chem is definitely the hardest Science, I hated it so much.

Bonne Chance!

again, this is amazing advice, thank you! =O

that's a relief to be honest, i just want to make sure all of my options are open to me :D, i think like you said i might just apply to oxford anyway as one of the 5, and thanks for the info about sussex, exeter & southampton, i'd never even considered those three universities and they do all seem excellent, there's a lot of food for thought here - also what you said about warwick is a good point which id never thought of when i visited the uni, they wanted to big it up so much .

much obliged for the information and advice!

 

[alexgmcm]

again, this is amazing advice, thank you! =O

that's a relief to be honest, i just want to make sure all of my options are open to me :D, i think like you said i might just apply to oxford anyway as one of the 5, and thanks for the info about sussex, exeter & southampton, i'd never even considered those three universities and they do all seem excellent, there's a lot of food for thought here - also what you said about warwick is a good point which id never thought of when i visited the uni, they wanted to big it up so much .

much obliged for the information and advice!

Haha, thank you! It's always nice when people are grateful! :) And yeah, about Warwick, they didn't mention it when I was at the first Open Day, but then I read about it and asked them at the second open day and they said that yeah, it is a pain, they seemed to try to avoid the question lol. I can understand them wanting to make the Uni look perfect though.

So yeah you should try and ask when you visit the unis, but it is quite hard if you are shy like me as they don't tend to bring it up.

Best of luck and hope you enjoy your trip to CERN, I was going to visit last year but then they shut it to visitors for the launch of the LHC (shame that didn't turn out so well lol), I will have to try and go with the university physics society or something. It looks really interesting anyway and you should have a great time!

Oh, one last thing, have you ever used a telescope or done astronomy? Because I bought a telescope recently and found it to be pretty awesome, especially reading about the different types of stars and the astrophysical processes that make them what they are. I guess you might have an astronomy club at your school, it's worth trying out anyway!

 

[Chewy0087]

Haha, thank you! It's always nice when people are grateful! :) And yeah, about Warwick, they didn't mention it when I was at the first Open Day, but then I read about it and asked them at the second open day and they said that yeah, it is a pain, they seemed to try to avoid the question lol. I can understand them wanting to make the Uni look perfect though.

So yeah you should try and ask when you visit the unis, but it is quite hard if you are shy like me as they don't tend to bring it up.

Best of luck and hope you enjoy your trip to CERN, I was going to visit last year but then they shut it to visitors for the launch of the LHC (shame that didn't turn out so well lol), I will have to try and go with the university physics society or something. It looks really interesting anyway and you should have a great time!

Oh, one last thing, have you ever used a telescope or done astronomy? Because I bought a telescope recently and found it to be pretty awesome, especially reading about the different types of stars and the astrophysical processes that make them what they are. I guess you might have an astronomy club at your school, it's worth trying out anyway!

thanks again for this advice :D, i know what you mean about open-days, they're a bit lame for seeing what its really like. thanks i hope i have a good time at CERN (going on saturday =DD) should be good!

also i would like to do some more astronomy, I am going to try to go to the next few international year of astronomy lectures, I've been to the past few but it's been cloudy every single time apart from once when the lecture was on the moon...which was great but everyone was just talking about the moon when like you said there's so much more stuff which is great aswell! also the astronomy club will be doing 8pm viewings in winter so that should be good, of course ill hopefully have an offer or two by then...

that's a good point! if youre just a plain physics student are you allowed to use the university telescopes etc just for fun? i don't particularly want to do an astrophysics degree but it would be awesome using all of the great telescopes! :D

 

[alexgmcm]

that's a good point! if youre just a plain physics student are you allowed to use the university telescopes etc just for fun? i don't particularly want to do an astrophysics degree but it would be awesome using all of the great telescopes! :D

Obviously it differs between unis, but generally you can still take astronomy modules while being on a straight physics degree so yeah you can use them in those modules. As for using them for recreation I suppose it depends how busy they are and how awesome your professors are, you should ask them at Open Days actually, that is an interesting question.