An Oxbridge Overview

“Who here wants to apply to Cambridge?” Ambitious hands shot up.

“Oxford?” This time, a change of hands.

“Both Oxford and Cambridge?” The ‘kiasu-est’ (most competitive) of the bunch finally raised their hands, but instead of thunderous applause, they received peals of laughter.

“You can’t apply to both Oxford and Cambridge! Those are the rules,” Ms. Irma explained that due to high application to both universities, a rule was set stipulating that no one, no matter how legendary he or she is could apply to both universities in order to cut down the volume of applicants. I was lucky that day; I haven’t got the guts to say that I want to apply to Oxford and Cambridge (collectively known as Oxbridge) or either one yet. However that little incident piqued my interest – just how quaint these universities are? and also marked the inception of my journey to 'try to get into Cambridge'.

And quaint they are indeed. Oxbridge are the two oldest universities in the world, but there is no one single building that we can call the Oxford University or the Cambridge University. Instead, they both run a collegiate system, meaning that under the big umbrella of Cambridge University (I will hitherto use Cambridge for all my Oxbridge examples) there are actually 31 different colleges which are part of the University of Cambridge. So Cambridge University is more like the ‘University town of Cambridge’ with all the Cambridge Colleges dotting the landscape.

Under the collegiate system, the universities will provide the lectures to the students en masse while the colleges will provide for the students’ welfare and supervisions. Four colleges will accept only mature students, i.e. those aged 21 or over (St Edmund’s, Lucy Cavendish, Wolfson and Hughes Hall) while another three only accept female students (Murray Edwards, Newnham and Lucy Cavendish). Girton and Homerton are located quite far from the town of Cambridge. Trinity College is the most well-known as well as the hardest to get into whereas Peterhouse is the nearest to the engineering department. Hence, there are a few considerations in choosing a college to apply which I will detail in my next post.

The supervision system is something only specific to Oxbridge colleges (In Oxford they are called tutorials). A student at Cambridge has a tutor who will guide the students in learning, usually on a one-to-one basis or sometimes a few students to a tutor. This sort of tutelage guarantees that the students who are frequent askers of questions will wring the most out of this system. Don’t be surprised if your tutors happen to be famous researchers or even Nobel laureates because the whole purpose of having the supervision system is to have the best brains passing on their knowledge to the students. Personally, I find this system to be a good one as we have the chance to learn from the top of the field in a face-to-face interaction. Although the facing the tutor, mano-el-mano, might freak some of us, but in the end of the day, it is indeed a rewarding experience.

In Xu Zhimo’s poem - “再别康桥” or “On Leaving Cambridge”, Cambridge is described as a heart-stopping, breathtaking beautiful place, so much so that he said he would rather live as a reed in the river Cam. Anyways, Cambridge is a marvelous place with rustic scenery and majestic buildings due to its location in the outskirts. It is the place that will give you goosebumps all over your skin just by being so beautiful.

For example:

Girton - my friend maintained that this is the most beautiful college of all

Punting in the river Cam - Ze Kai said it is a must

Caius library - the largest and the oldest
and one of the reasons why I selected  Gonville and Caius as my college of choice

Besides being picturesque, Cambridge is also much steeped in tradition. Some of the colleges provide dinner at halls, meaning that you have to wear the full academic regalia while having dinner with fellow coursemates and tutors at the college, just like something out of a Harry Potter movie.

but Hogwarts is modeled after Oxford

Hoped my explanation opened the doors for you to dream to go to Oxbridge :)

TIPS:

1. Malaysia has a very strong presence at Cambridge under the Cambridge University Malaysian Society (CUMaS). Be sure to check their website for tips on entering Cambridge, their experiences in Cambridge and their next Outreach sessions.

Do you think Oxbridge is the place to be? What are your first opinions of these two giants? Do share your thoughts and opinions.

Personal Statement part 2

Remember the personal statement by my friend

talking about the wonders of the universe which stunned me,

here's an excerpt of it:

"The study of our universe has had a profound influence on me. It revealed to me a humbling perspective of the universe, that humanity is insignificant in the scale of the cosmos. Faced with such reality, I often ask: is there meaning to our existence? Amazingly, physical laws seem to provide hints. I am intrigued by the implications of the Anthropic Principle which echoes humanity’s connection with the universe. Perhaps there is a chance that I will be able to discover the truth behind this question. For this reason alone, I believe the study of physics is something worth devoting my entire life to.

Is it possible to discover the meaning behind physical laws? Will we achieve grand unification? What is the fate of our universe? These are the questions that I hope to one day be able to answer, the reasons I will study physics.”

The Rambling Style

In the Rambling Style, instead of following the formulaic “what I did at school, what co-curricular activities I’ve done to prove my love for chosen subject, why I loooove the subject so much” (typo intended), the Rambling Style goes for the jugular – it directly describes the subject that you’ve chosen vividly, making it the most spectacular personal statement if done correctly.

Here’s another example of a Rambling personal statement for law.

Notice the strange fluidity of the whole essay despite the writer not mentioning any “verbs”, i.e. actions that he had done. Notice the passion that seems to radiate from his words? Besides the 10 commandments I have posted earlier, there is another way to go on writing the personal statement – Behold! I call it the Rambling Style!

In my previous post, I’ve highlighted the need to write before editing. This actually goes in accord with the Rambling Style. When we write without editing, we tend to write sentences that first appear in our minds. We tend to write these disorganized, repetitive sentences that looked messy but were logically sound. In other words, we tend to ramble. These sentences have a RAW quality to it. Like a blunt axe, the essay shred directly into the reader’s mind, hitting the point directly in the reader’s head. THUD! The parries by the long, edited, superfluous sentences seem fluff when compared to the crunch by the big, ‘in-your-face’ battleaxe.

However, the axe is ugly. Thus after we possess the axe, we need to polish it to make sure it shines without diminishing its raw power. Now that’s a tough act of balance. On the one hand, we want it to look as smooth as it could and fit in with the other sentences; on the other, we want to retain its RAWNESS. This editing job can only be done by one person and one person alone – yourself. Be warned! The journey to crafting the perfect essay is long and arduous process; it is akin to boiling Chinese medicine soup – seven bowls of soup is boiled until a small broth is left. We need to cut out the sentences that do not add value to the personal statement until the sentences that mattered left. There are two types of sentences that add value – sentences that enhance a special effect, and sentence that answers the prompt. If the sentence does not add value, ditch it. I will talk more about value in the US application part.

Besides showing your passion and likes more strongly, another pro with the Rambling Style is that you avoid the risk of writing the standardized essay like everyone else. Instead of the usual “to inform my choice, I joined blah blah blah (activity) to get a better grasp of engineering (lesson learnt)” or “I did xxx and learnt yyy”, you go berserk by writing about what it meant to be an engineer, how you were inspired after using a toilet bowl with a flawed design etc. To quote my friend: “if you can make the admission officer smile, you win.”

Of course, a prerequisite of the Rambling Style is to know what you’re talking about. If you are applying for a course like engineering, chances are the experiences you had can’t be threaded together to form a good ramble. Usually Rambling Style is better suited if you are applying to a course like Physics, Law, Economics or Political Studies (like the two examples above), where a huge bulk of the essay can be based on your own unique views and opinions. For courses like engineering and medicine, the personal statement is almost set in stone. Budding engineers will almost always talk about the Mathematics competition that they had won a prize whereas future medics will never hesitate to mention the job shadow at the hospital. For these courses, it is hard to use the Rambling Style unless you had a special experience worthy of mention (e.g you made a multi-million app/ invented something/did CPR and rescued someone) or been through certain thinking processes. However, the traditional personal statements are not bad either; they are at least solid.

One word of caution – the Rambling Style may backfire, even to the educated English writer. In the UCAS Personal Statement, you are supposed to write about a bunch of things: your interests, your first introduction to said subject, your relevant studies and skills in ONE WHOLE ESSAY. If you rambled too much about something, you may have wasted the words given on the other aspects of yourself or you run the risk of veering off course from what the personal statement is about - YOU. One rule of thumb is to use the Rambling Technique sufficient enough to make your essay ooze “Oomph” and still cover the rest of you meaningfully (See how the Law essay writer still managed to squeeze in his experiences in the student council as well as his readings in there).

Personally, I am an advocate (read: sucker) for the Rambling Style, and I think it should be used as often as you could and it is a perfect transition to the US application essay style (if you are applying to both US and UK). If you really are passionate about something, you should be able to express ideas and experiences in the pen of a crazed enthusiast, right? If you can’t achieve the Rambling Style, don’t fret, just write the personal statement the best you can and make yourself as valuable as possible – after all, the Rambling Style is another way to write the personal statement, not the only way.

Do you agree on what I have said? What are your opinions on this? Please do share your thoughts :)