In this post I'll be answering a message I recently received asking about how to choose a college:
Hi, I was just looking @ your blog and it looks really good and wondered if you could give me a bit of help about college choice - I'm stuck between 3.
My main +'s is the accomodation as I will be spending alot of time there, and lovely gardens, food - + good supervisors, apparently have fellows within the college is better (PPS), rather than being shipped off to another college you do not have any?
The three are Sidney, Downing and Jesus.
Sidney plainly because the gardens are lovely but the accom is (N) and not en suite which I really want and apparently the food is not good.
Both Jesus and Downing have en suite which is brilliant but jesus says on its website that its the best and all have received the top grades with scholarships. Downing's accom is slightly better and the food too as it rents out a lot, but only has 1 DOS and no fellows which means moving me around, as Jesus has all of them on site - college fellows.
So I'm a bit stuck :/ What would your advice be?
Thank you so much :)
Thanks for the question, this is my advice:
Choosing a college is difficult. It’s good that you’ve managed to narrow it down to 3 already.
Having more fellows in college for your subject is generally better as they’ll probably supervise you. However the main thing you need is for your college to have a director of studies in your subject. You might be supervised by your DoS and just because there are not fellows does not mean you’ll necessarily have to go to other colleges for supervisions as you might be supervised by PhD students in college.
I wouldn’t worry that much about there not being fellows since you might have to be supervised at your department off site anyway and Cambridge is really small so moving around for supervisions is not that much of a big deal. Obviously fellows in college is preferable but doesn’t matter that much.
Regarding food, both Downing and Jesus ranked highly in a student survey of food quality (Sidney weren’t included in the rankings) so they’re both a good bet for good food (click the images below to read the full student survey on food quality at different colleges).
Downing and Jesus both have nice, large grounds as well although they’re mainly grassy.
You mention Jesus might be tough to get into. Looking at how difficult colleges are to get into, I’d have a look at the application statistics for PPS if that’s what you want to apply for. I’ve had a look and over the past 4 years, the average chance of getting into the college you applied for has been:
Jesus: 12%
Downing: 22%
Sidney: 13%
The over chances of getting in are (this includes, say applying to Jesus, getting pooled and getting another offer from a different college):
Jesus: 17%
Downing: 25%
Sidney: 17%
As you can see, you have similar chances statistically of getting into Jesus or Sidney, but significantly higher at Downing. I strongly advise taking admission statistics into account when choosing a college although the “official” advice is not to. How much weighting you give to the statistics would depend on how confident you are of getting in. If you go to a good school or are very confident of getting in you don’t need to worry about statistics as much, however if not (this is the majority of people) then I'd advise thinking about them.
It seems to me that you’re torn between the 3 colleges. They all seem like they’d be a good fit for you. However, since your chances statistically are significantly higher at Downing, I’d recommend going for that one. Ultimately you want to maximise your chances of getting into Cambridge and since you seem to like all 3 colleges similar amounts, I’d go for the one that gives you the best chance of getting in which is Downing - good food, good accommodation, nice grounds and a better chance of getting in.
It's great receiving questions so if you have any, leave a comment below and I'll try to answer them.
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