A few new things… (pt. 1)

It’s been a while since my last post, and don’t expect many more too soon…

What’s been on

Life.

As per usual, life just had to go and get in the way. When I say that, what I really mean is school - lot’s of it!!

From A levels to STEP to, well A levels, the stuff I’ve been up to feels a bit mundane as I’m typing this paragraph, but hopefully I remember some more exciting things a bit later (you can see if I did by checking the contents list). I’ll try and cover the main things that have gone on since November-ey times up till now. This I’ll do for whoever may dare read this, but largely for my own sanity :) - something I’ve been told I don’t have a lot of left.

The UCAS application

Along with most of the country’s eighteen year olds, I also decided to submit a UCAS application way back when in October and universities eventually got back to me, though some did want to do some extra tests just to size me up.

In summary, I applied to 5 places:

• Oxford for MathCompSci
• Imperial for MathCompSci
• Warwick for MORSE (basically MathStat)
• Durham for MathStat
• Bristol for MathCompSci

Of course, the ones was most keen on were Oxford, Imperial and Warwick. This is mainly because Durham and Bristol are a bit far from from (plus all the stuff about the actual courses of course). Only did attend open days for these three so I can’t be certain of course and would not want to unfairly dismiss Durham or Bristol. Funnily enough, I eliminated Bath as a potential option since I heard there was a big hill in the city whcih made cycling annoying.

As part of my application, I wrote a personal statement as the main part of it that I could really pour my heart into. More on this in a bit including maybe a few quotes from the finished thing since I do still feel pretty proud of it, maybe part of that irrational hesitation to move on from things a lot of time went into.

Anyway, before any decisions actually came through, and even before any application deadlines, I had to do some mathematical admissions tests. In my case, I did 4, which felt like quite a lot at the time and likewise retrospectively. In fairness, the preparation for these has definitely stuck with me long-term as a mathematician to enhance my problem solving and has put me in good stead for the upcoming STEP exams I’ll be soon to do.

Admissions tests

As mentioned I did 4, and am yet to sit an additional 2 papers at the same time as A levels:

• MAT (main)
• MAT (extra due to a TCS mess-up on the main)
• TMUA
• Imperial proprietary
• STEP 2 & 3 (upcoming)

The MATs

This was the test I put most effort into, indeed spending a lot of the previous summer preparing using past papers, old STEP I papers, and whatever else I could get my hands on… to be honest I don’t remember much else about the paper except for the fact that I liked some of the questions.

Unfortunately, I was in the first batch to sit this test in a new ‘hybrid’ format (see here for details). Predictably, that all went wrong on the day nationwide (I got locked out twice). Hence we had an ‘extra’ MAT of 10 multiple guess questions in addition. What else is there to say.

Scores: 83/100 on the main MAT and 8/10 on the extra.

TMUA

This was a day before the main MAT, and I s’pose I entered it partially as a warm-up for MAT, as well as to get more favourable offers from Warwick and Durham. Questions were challenging but simultaneously quite satisfying. In the last cohort to have done this test under CAAT, I was sort of expecting examiners to give us the most awful questions possible as a ‘fitting send off’ for the exam, but thankfully it went alright but I’m kinda sad they still haven’t released the papers, keeping them under embargo for no knowable reason.

Anyway got 8.0 in that overall putting me in the top 5% or so of all test takers so was decently pleased with that

Imperial’s proprietary

Since I applied to the DoC, they didn’t consider MAT and instead mandated some kind of proprietary test, which I was instructed to sit on 16 October ‘24. As there were no past papers, it was quite scary but turned out alright with questions varying from pseudocode analysis to combinatorics and graphs, and even touching on logic.

Turned out that a friend of mine also sat the test on the same day for the same department and hypothetically it emerged that Imperial had a clever system in place to keep the general style of question the same between candidates but eliminate systematic cheating by switching up small details here and there. Pretty cool and a very good idea imho.

Reckon I got around 8.5/10 in this but can’t be sure since they don’t release scores.

Also quite interesting how I was also in the last year to be sitting this test under Imperial, before they make the switch to a reformed TMUA next year for the DoC.

STEP (upcoming)

Doing this as part of my offer conditions and pretty nerve-wracking with it being at the same time as A levels (one day before Physics 2 in fact). In fairness all I need is a 2 in paper 2, but I want to beat that and also experience STEP 3 (hopefully that decision making makes sense).

Really would quite like a couple of 1s (or better if I dare to dream) but would be happy with anything that satisfies the offer.

Anyway, now the fun stuff:

Universities

Just a bit about the next stages / decisions from each really

Imperial

Perhaps I should start by saying this is the uni I’ve firmed my offer from and am super excited to go to come October!

Essentially, I don’t think the admissions process here is necessarily dissimilar from that of Oxbridge, and if Imperial’s own statistics are to be believed, then potentially more competitive.

After the proprietary test I mentioned earlier, I got invited to interview about 2.5 weeks later but I think I was pretty lucky in this with other people having to wait months or more, and then only to be rejected. Although, in retrospect, I don’t think Imperial bases shortlisting on the admissions test alone and use the personal statement / reference a fair bit too.

My favourite bits that I wrote in the personal statement:

…As well as the elegant relationships, I enjoy the challenge of solving difficult problems. In pursuit of these, I regularly sit challenge papers and have worked through over 190 STEP questions including many from S2 and S3. I love the progressive nature of these advanced problems, with later parts expanding on earlier parts to reach a near-poetic result in the same way I imagine real conclusions are drawn in mathematical research. The challenges offered beyond the school syllabus have given me a captivating flavour of what I want to pursue in further study…

…In addition, during a week’s work experience at [confidential] I studied the motion of biased spinning wheels to try to predict the landing numbers. To do this I created two highly analytical models in C# based on wheel heuristics, one using principles of angular velocity and the other with ML.NET. Both led to a minimum 10% edge over chance when tested on new spins and showed how effectively maths and coding can be applied to quantitative tasks. At university I would like to study the mathematical theory that underpins these types of machine learning models and AI.

All of this leading to the interview day, which was really structured more like an offer holder’s day with tours in the morning and lunch provided, followed by a relatively short 30m interview in the afternoon.

In the interview, I got asked two questions - one about maths and one on CS/logic. The maths one was quite fun, being about a continued fraction, and I quite liked it. In comparison, the CS one was a bit trickier an focused on a made-up game and devising optimal strategies, though ultimately the solution was quite fun to find.

I think this experience varies a lot from person to person, with my friend reporting their interviewer went rogue and asked a Leetcode question instead.

Anyway, putting all this together got me an offer at the start of December, about which I was absolutely ecstatic. Offer conditions are tough but are a hurdle I should be able to jump (A*A*AA + 2 in STEP 2).

Oxford

My MAT score was evidently sufficient to make the shortlist. This meant I got interviewed (though 5 times for some reason) and some went better than others to say the least.

That said, some of the interviewers were downright mean by writing out the question wrong and magically hoping I’d still be able to do it, or interrupting me mid-response to move me on. Since I had applied for MathCompSci, I ended up with 3 CompSci interviews and 2 Maths interviews which I’d have definitely preferred being the other way round.

It goes without saying that I got deselected in the end, was only to be expected. Nevertheless, I requested some feedback, which was sent through a month later and was written by a man with no evident understanding of compassion (my New interviewer I reckon). I was not even called by my name in the feedback, which felt quite condescending. Moreover, some interviews were arbitrarily, with no fault of mine, cut short or delayed significantly with no reason which really threw me off.

Including quotes like:

The candidate was…

Missing the point…

Very quick with techniques…

Basically, I think the feedback was written by just one interviewer with no intention of helping me improve and solely focused on one interview. I accept some of the things said but strongly dispute that it applied to all the interviews since I knew and could recognise that I had made good progress on questions in the other interviews.

My most recent opinion of Oxford is that it is an institution that, while extremely capable academically, is not as inclusive as it could be (as I certainly found from my interviews).

On reflection, I believe this was something of a blessing in disguise since I will firm a great London uni, with all the exciting opportunities that will be on when I get there!!

Warwick

Picked primarily so that it could be a good backup uni for me, as I noted it had a very high offer rate in MathStat even before I applied.

Another thing that sweetened the deal was the outcome of my TMUA score having a positive effect on the Warwick offer. I got the grade requirements reduced from A*A*A to A*AA and also if I have to go, then I am entitled to a prize of £2000 owing to having a TMUA score in excess of 7.5.

Warwick was, according to my mum, the only uni that looked like a ‘proper uni’. Apparently Oxford looked a bit too much like a bubble world with all the small colleges and Imperial was a bit cramped since the physcial campus size is actually fairly small. In fairness, I do agree with this and Warwick did look like a genuinely good, large and well-built uni that seems like a nice place to study at.

I’ll also explain why I applied MathStat here instead of MathCompSci (or Discrete Maths as they call it). Very quick reason: didn’t like the computer science department and the statistics courses just seemed nicer for what I wanted to do.

Durham and Bristol

Got the offers (A*AA) but not really interested in these. Declined them in the end. Not to say they aren’t good universities, but just not for me, sorry.

[image of offers pending confirmation to go here]

Next

Sorry this has dragged on so much. This is only part one and covers the November to January season, though I will be writing more on upcoming stuff when I can. Be sure to check out pt.2 of this article when it’s out as well!

Congrats to all who have exciting offers from UCAS, or even maybe (degree) apprenticehips / gap years to look forward to as well!

Feel free to send me an email if have anything to ask or comment on here. I’ll try to get back to you!