hi everyone welcome back to the channel if you're new here i'm phil i graduated from cambridge studying law in 2018 and with me today i have ilya and today we're going to be talking about the things that we wish we had known before applying things we should have prepared earlier and make sure that if you have any questions leave them in the comments because we will be answering them in the second part of this video which will be going up on ilia's channel so i guess for anybody who hasn't seen your channel yet earlier um could you just sort of introduce yourself and give them a bit of a flavor of what they can find over there as well we'll leave the link in the description uh yeah hello my name is elia i'm a student at the university of cambridge i did my undergrad there graduating last year i studied natural sciences and i'm now another masters in biology at cambridge and i like phil mentioned i have a youtube channel called elias cambridge advice where i make videos which mostly try to help you with applying to oxford cool so yeah this is really just going to be sort of more of a fireside chat it's not scripted um so we haven't prepared sort of super super efficient answers in advance we're really just going to talk about the sort of things that we wish that we had known so that this will be helpful for you when you do apply or if you are applying or if you do even maybe have an offer and the first thing is really going to be what did we wish we knew before applying and to me i applied for i studied law and really it was about figuring out what would have put me in the best position possible and i think one thing that's consistently come up when i've been talking to people about it is like when you're applying for law you think of it as being like a vocational subject so people uh stressing out about not having enough work experience about trying to get all of these things like going and working for a law firm or getting some work experience shadowing a barrister when in reality for me and i think for lord what they're looking for is not necessarily that actual aspect it's more going deep on the subject studying law is super academic at least at cambridge it's not like you leave and then you're qualified as a lawyer so that would be the same as any university you study that at in england and it's just about immersing yourself in the subject going ahead and looking at the reading trying to figure out what is it that you really enjoy and going deep on that because that will put you in the best position when you apply and go for interview but i think it is obviously like natural sciences doesn't necessarily lend itself to like uh something vocational but do you feel like people were trying to do work experience and trying to work in a lab at the same time or not i don't think there's many students who had the opportunity to work in a lab before coming to university there's people who have done science research in school which i think is great for example i did an epq and extended project qualification as well for my school and science project and i think that very much helped my application um and i think that if you have the opportunity to do a research project of any kind of any subject i would recommend you do it can definitely help you get into pretty much any university um but whether it's essential that you do um like a research project or work experience it's not essential but i think it can help because ultimately what the admissions tutors at cambridge are looking for are a few things one of them is academic potential so from good grades but also genuine interest in your subject and you can indicate that you're genuinely interested in your subject by doing work experience or research or that kind of stuff but they do appreciate that people don't always have those opportunities so they take all these factors into consideration in your application yeah i mean like for example you mentioned going for the epq like i didn't do an epc but i entered into some essay prizes did you also do some some stuff like that just to boost your super curriculus i didn't do any essay prizes i'd say um i think the main things i did was just a levels in epq yeah that's enough really yeah exactly i think and i think especially today with epc like for example when i applied i didn't apply with um or at least we applied with as levels um so when you were applying and they already removed as levels or not at that point i was in the year group where i did maths as um but the year afterwards they didn't um and my other a-levels were all uh linear so okay but i did two a-levels in year 12 um because i did double maths and the way my school taught double masters you did maths in year 12 and unless you're 13. i'm and i also did dutch trainable because i'd speak it anyways so i did turtles and it's well but that's not very representative of cool yeah because i was going to say that with people who haven't done any like who don't have any a level grades whereas before you would have your gcses and then your asses and in your case you actually had some full a levels even when you're applying if you're going for it today then you don't actually have those asses you've got no like no public exams that you took in year 12 necessarily unless you did maths early or any other subjects early so what i've been hearing is that actually doing the epq can put yourself in a really good position because you do actually have like that a or that a star ideally grade when you are actually applying so yeah that's good and just to add to that the last few years obviously we've been affected by the pandemic and therefore many of the grades people have received are predicted grades um and there's students now applying to cambridge who from my understanding have done no exams for like years and years um which means that the confidence that people have those grades is not very high which is why i think any further evidence that your smile or that interest in your subject is very uh valuable and something which i forgot to add earlier is that another way you can really show interest in your subject and also learn more about your subject is reading it's just really around around your subject can be very helpful when you get started with that reading because that what i refer to people often is like that on the cambridge website there's that bit which is like cambridge super curricular list and they've got a lot of stuff for you to start but where did you actually go to start did you use that list as well um i think i used to read more when i was maybe like in primary school then i didn't really read until at the start of year 13 when i kind of had a phase where i felt uncultured and then i read a few books uh including one which i think was recommended on the cambridge reading is called the selfish team by richard dawkins and i very much enjoyed reading it and it's very relevant to what i was applying for and i think it did help me get in like some of the terminology i used in my cambridge interview came from that book for example right yeah so i'd say yeah the salvia 13 is when i did a good amount of reading and did you did you use that as like the entrance way into going deeper into the subject so using that as like the primary initial reading and then going really deep so that you could have something on your personal statement where you were like okay i did my research on this and maybe that is that what sort of led you into what you're doing in your epq um i do apq and year 12 so my apk preceded my reading um actually but um i actually didn't talk about any books in my personal statement because i was aware that first of all it's very uh cliche to talk about the self-machine as a biology student in your personal statement but also yeah i've heard that they can very much ask you very in-depth questions about any books you've listed and i didn't want to be a position where they might grill me about a book so i just didn't mention any books in my personal statement oh nice yeah that's that's that's a tactic i guess if you're not comfortable talking about books they haven't read too much you just don't put them on like what did you put on instead then was it was it talking about green bq a good amount of my personal statement was talking about my ep yeah okay yeah because for me it was like what's the entry point into the reading it was that these very short introductions like those books like really really thin ones which yeah it's like 100 pages each yeah i take i took a couple of those for each one read those and then had a good overview of the overall subject and then off the back of that at the back they would always have additional reading or i found that these topics were super interesting and then i was able to go deep so taking sort of like a funneled approach going broad at the top and then going deeper and deeper and deeper and so trying to bring that out then in the personal statement it's like something that actually i didn't necessarily mention all those books because yeah as you say you don't expose yourself often they could ask you about one of those books and you just have no idea what to say then yeah that's sort of that that was my approach to it yeah i yeah well that i very much uh will say i like the very short introduction to your books um although they're so short they do contain just an insane amount of uh information and i read the um the cell the very short introduction to the cell during year 13 and the content in there was included a lot of content well beyond a level biology and therefore uh by including some of that content um made it easier to gain a star in a little biology had to do an essay and you had to include extra content so um even that small amount of reading did help me get a better grade um additionally i will learn that there are people who read books sorry who say they've read books and put them on their personal statement and who have actually gone to oxford like that is a thing that happens although i wouldn't recommend that tactic so they they said that they've read the book they put on the personal statement when they actually haven't read it yeah and i know people have done that and they've got in like i know people who this person they got an offer they actually missed their grades but they said that they'd read this book and in the interview they were asked about this book they made up some stuff and they got an offer well i guess that's if they've got the art of uh yeah art of bsing their way through stuff then you can do that but for me immortals like us so for anybody watching you'll know yourself best yeah i'd sort of steer away from that probably what do you think i i wouldn't recommend it to be honest yeah i mean and then what what do you do like when you've actually um sort of figured out what you're going to put on your personal statement like did you then go ahead and before interview just like prepare everything that you put on there just make sure that you absolutely nailed it down because that was sort of one of the things which i was sort of advised to do anything that you put on your personal statement is fair game if you don't know it and they ask you it's like meant to be a warm-up question and then it's just gonna leave a bad impression on them if you can't even answer the stuff that you put on your personal statement i think before you go into your interview you very much should just memorize your application like every aspect of it particularly the personal statement but in addition to that try to get access to your reference so when you apply to university your teachers will write you a reference and they can write anything they want there and the interviews can ask you questions about what's in your reference for example the first question i was asked in one of my interviews at cambridge was about something in uh my reference was about some project i was involved with the school and this was not in my personal statement um because i didn't want to talk about it actually but it came up my reference and therefore they talked about it and i had seen my reference so i was slightly prepared for it but had i not read my preference i referenced i would have been much less prepared for that question oh that's that is actually a super super tip like so they don't talk about i guess one of those secrets that uh yeah you only know if you've actually been through it and so they they just sort of took that as the main thing that you were talking about in the interview then like rather than the name first question was the first question legs and uh they were like it says hey you're involved in this project please tell us about what you did um so i talked about that um it was only only brief um but it was the first question that they asked in my second interview like was there anything where you left the interview or during like the time when you were being interviewed where you thought oh if only i had prepared that better or i thought you left and you thought oh i should have done this i should have memorized this bit or gone into this bit of reading or i should have practiced this better in the interview like just coming across more natural or smiling or something like that or maybe they just ask you a really tough question that you couldn't have prepared for like maybe that was the main thing that you left there were things which i could have like answered better um for example i was once in the same interview i just talked about my second interview i was asked about um electron microscopes and um i mentioned how this one microscope wasn't powerful enough and they asked me like oh why is it all powerful enough and um my understanding of how electromotors work wasn't great enough to like properly explain it somewhere else was uh probably wrong initially in my first interview they were trying to get me to grasp this idea and i was struggling to grasp it as only as i left the room runners oh that's how you do it yeah um so that kind of stuff but overall i think i did all right and i came out both into smiling and it worked out all right yeah obviously yeah it clearly worked out well in the end and like was it the same for masters like i never applied for masters actually i'm gonna get my some cantab masters soon but what was it like applying for your master did you also have to re-interview or was it like you'd sort of just as long as you got the grades you would get to do the masters or what's the impossible process like that the experience was completely different i initially it was a pandemic so i was an online interview uh but no i applied in december last year it's from an amphibian biological sciences and this is a research masters so there's no classes no teachings or in the lab doing research so you approach the supervisor um so i approached one of my lecturers from second year who i very much liked and he seemed interested and he had me in this group and we uh discussed a project proposal and then i finalized my application i sent it i think it cost like 70 pounds to send and then a few weeks later um i get invited to an interview with a member of the department who's not the proposed supervisor um and the person who interviewed me was someone who'd lectured me quite a few times and who i was relatively familiar with so um i felt very comfortable during the interview and the interview covered a few things it was talking about my research experience it talked about the proposed project and talked about future my future aims why i'm applying for the m phil that's like just quite standard stuff and it was quite um it was fine like at the end the guy said yeah you should be fine um and a few weeks later or something i got the emails saying you've got an offer you need to get a t1 or more and you've got it yeah right yeah so would you say it was like more less of a stressful experience than applying for the initial underground i'd say it's less stressful yeah much less versatile and plus like the time span is so much smaller because when you um want to go to oxford like by the october 15th if you've got to send in your application and then you get the entrance exam and then the interview and then the offer and then you get the grades like a whole year long process whilst yeah the one for applications much shorter process yeah and and what's next i guess are you after the masters are you going to go and go for the phd like full full-on academic or is that still are still up in the air right now my current plan is once i finish blindfold in august i'll apply for a phd after that so i'll have next year uh out and then hopefully phd year after that okay cool so i guess the next time well soon we'll be doing one of these and it'll be dr carrie then it'll take a few years before that but maybe well cool i mean yeah it's been a fantastic uh having this uh this sort of i guess on script more unscripted chat uh about so yeah what what we wish we'd known sort of before applying um things we could have prepared earlier i i think yeah we'll probably keep it uh keep it at that but i mean before we sort of wrap up i mean do you think there are any sort of final things that you wish you would have known sort of before applying or during or even after like when you're actually at cambridge like that you think would have been really useful for people watching to know everything you need to know to get into oxford is available online either like on official websites or like random people's youtube channels but everything you do need to know is available um online um so as long as you're like motivated and driven and going out there doing your research you should be able to know everything uh to make a good application that's cool fantastic well thanks so much for your time elia it's been fantastic to have you on uh again for any everybody who's watching make sure to leave your comments below with any other questions you have and the next video we'll be doing on ilia's channel and so we'll be answering all of those we can have all of those prepared and we'll do a little bit more more scripted but thanks everybody for tuning in and once again thanks so much elliot for coming on larry's thank you bye