Not Newnham either...!

[compilerbitch]

Hmm...

I just got back from a gruelling trip to Mallorca and back (I'll probably post about that separately later), so I phoned the Board of Graduate Studies again to check on progress with my college application. It seems that my papers are with St. John's now. It's therefore the case that Newnham must have rejected my application.

Extended rant follows. Apologies in advance...


This is a bit of a shock, after what I'd been led to believe. I've not had anything back from Newnham to this end, I just discovered it by phoning the BOGS graduate admissions people and asking them to check the status of my application. I don't know why I was turned down.

I'm getting a bit nervous about this trend. Trinity said no, but that was not terribly unusual since they are so oversubscribed anyway. From what I've heard, St. John's are pretty similar to Trinity in the kind of people they take, so it seems very unlikely that they will say yes either. As for Corpus, my 4th choice, I probably have to assume a no also, since as a slightly richer college that can offer 3 years of accommodation they are also doubtless very popular.

The prospectus says that BOGS will keep circulating my papers until they find a college that will take me. But, what happens if none of them do? The rules say that I have to have a college. The prospectus says that BOGS guarantees to find me one. But, again, what if they don't? What if all the colleges say no? Do BOGS force one to take me?

And in any case, if it takes Johns another month, then Corpus another month after that, it only leaves six weeks before the beginning of October. Not much time, and probably zero chance that I'd get accommodation. My funding is bare-bones minimum -- I'm going to find it really quite hard financially if I have to live out.

Waaah. What the hell is so wrong with me??? I know I have a nonstandard background, but I was good enough that the department offered me three separate PhD places! So why is my experience with the colleges so different? I mean, Newnham are supposedly desperate to recruit compsci graduates to cover their supervision needs, and I was told they normally only turn someone down if there is doubt about the provenance of the evidence of their past academic career, or if there are funding problems. Neither of those things could possibly have been a problem (although Teesside, in their infinite lack of wisdom, did manage to lose my M.Sc transcript, but that should have been more than adequately covered by written statements I got from my lecturers at the time).

I do remember that in rare cases Oxford graduate students did end up collegeless, in which case their default membership of Halifax House (a pseudo-college somewhat analogous to Cambridge's Grad Pad) did suffice as regards University admission rules, although they were undoubtedly seriously disadvantaged in comparison with someone with a 'real' college place. From what I've read of the Cambridge rules though, this doesn't seem to be an option at Cam.

I think what I'm probably going to do is just start to look for private rented accommodation in Cam and then figure out how I'm going to manage to pay for it. Any improvement on that will be a bonus, but I'm not expecting much now.

Comments

Re:

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I just don't know. They seem desperate for compsci graduates in order to meet their supervision requirements -- I have a year's experience as a full university lecturer in compsci (at Sunderland a few years ago), so I'd have thought that this might be at least a little bit tempting.

I don't suppose I'll find out why they dropped me. It is usually not policy to give out that kind of information, for fear of legal retribution. I have asked, but I very much doubt I'd get a reply.

There could be an age thing going on, I suppose -- at 35 I'm a fair bit older than most graduate students, but I'd have thought that this might be a plus (i.e. more stability, less likely to flip out under stress, etc.) rather than a minus. Certainly, when I was an admissions tutor at Sunderland, good mature students were a prized commodity in that a few good ones amongst a predominantly younger course typically helped hold things together much better, taking the load off the tutorial system. This is partly why I'm 99% certain I won't find out why I was dropped -- I remember Sunderland having extremely strict policies on that kind of thing.

We shall see how things go with Johns, but I'm not hopeful at this point. I suppose the thing I'm most worried about is BOGS not finding me a college place by October, and/or not getting accommodation as a consequence of getting a place very late. Either of these outcomes would be a major pain, if not terminally serious in themselves.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Lack of college accommodation is less of a problem than it used to be -- ISTR there are quite a lot of private places available for rent (the house prices in Cambridge encouraging people to do the buy-to-rent thing) and the colleges have been putting their rents up fairly substantially over recent years. I had the choice of living in college accommodation during my doctorate and chose not to. A lot of college housing for most colleges is in fact nowhere near the main building, so socially living privately is not too much of a problem either. And you get to choose your preferred environment as opposed to having a broom cupboard thrust upon you.

Having said that, it is a hassle. I hope it all turns out well in the end.

Re:

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

That's good to know. What would, if you don't mind my asking, the typical cost be for a room in a shared house, ideally in the Maddingley Road area (i.e. near the computer lab)?

(Thanks, by the way)

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

It depends on whether it's a room with a group of people who are renting a house and have a spare room, or a house which is broken up into rooms by a landlord and each rented separately (the latter being more expensive). At the old fluffhouse we paid around L200 a month each, which is probably on the low end. Currently we pay around L300 a month each, which is for two people sharing a house. The West Cambridge site is largely surrounded by fields and colleges, however, so finding housing near it might be a problem.

Re:

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

That's not too bad. Leo & Gemma have already expressed an interest in getting somewhere jointly, so it may well be a very sortable problem. I'm not that bothered about proximity to the computer lab -- it would be nice, but anywhere with parking would make life relatively simple for me.

Thanks -- you have succeeded in cheering me up quite a bit!