Officially In
Posted by Greg on July 9th, 2007 under Uncategorized | No Comments »
A few weeks ago, I was officially admitted to the University of Cambridge. I have known that I would go since January, but I have finally finished all the paperwork required to actually be admitted. I await the arrival of housing information.
A few pointers for anyone who is going through the Cambridge admittance process (different than the admissions process):
- Mail takes a long time to get to the UK from the US, and, at $25 per express package (USPS Express Mail flat rate envelope), things can get pretty pricey. Get all of your documents together and send them at once by Express Mail. You can track your package to be sure it arrived safely, and you can be sure that it will get there quickly (~5 days). Once it is in the hands of administrators there, it can take up to about 2 weeks to process. In addition, don’t expect a response too quickly, because the mail takes just as long (if not longer) to come back.
- Make a contact in your department on whom you can rely. During the admissions periods, the Office of Admissions gets very busy. They generally have an auto-response for any emails. If you have someone in your department that you can contact when you have questions or concerns. Mine ranged from intellectual property rights in my lab to why it took a while for my transcript to get processed.
- Use your Combination Room to your advantage. Once you have been admitted to a college, you will have a combination room (essentially a student union for members of that college). The officers of this group will not only be very helpful, but often respond much faster than the administrators of the college. I know that by contacting the International Students’ Liaison, I was able to get information that had previously eluded me.
- Be persistent. People there are busy. Like here, emails get ignored, deleted, or just plain lost in the shuffle. If yours does not get a reply in a few days, send a polite follow-up. It is important to find information early, so be persistent so you can get your plans together.
For now, that is all.