First hurdle: interviews. Second hurdle: results day.

Like most, I reckon I thought about those all-important grade requirements every day since receiving my offer, and honestly they scared me a little. I needed an A* in French, which seemed a very daunting task to me at times.

The terrifying brown envelope handed to me on the morning of results day informed me that my hopes of accomplishing this were dashed; I had fallen short of the A* - well short - and my heart sunk with the realisation I had not quite lived up to expectations.

So it was with sheer amazement that I sat bleary eyed and read and re-read my Cambridge acceptance confirmation which arrived by email. Somehow they had still let me in. Somehow I was still heading to my dream university.

So why did I feel like a fraud? Why was the word ‘failure’ still bouncing around in my head? As October approached and more and more emails and letters flooded in, some emblazoned with the imposing college stamp, I greeted them with equal measures of pride and trepidation. The mention of reading lists, class allocations and lecture timetables made my stomach churn. Crazily, I felt that my place would eventually be reconsidered, my file would be stumbled upon again and with a regretful sigh the admissions tutor would realise that I really shouldn’t have slipped through the net in the first place. I was the lucky benefactor of a statistically low year of applicants for my course and someone somewhere had taken pity on me. Perhaps the rightful owner of my place was wallowing in sorrow, and here I was happily riding the wave of short lived success.

This feeling subsided a little once I saw my name written in clear, bold letters above my door on the first day of fresher’s week. Surely if they had gone to this effort and left it this late then things must be for definite?

I worked as hard as I could throughout the first couple of weeks of term to exude as much confidence as possible, to offer what I felt were somewhat intelligent utterances in supervisions and to agree with those around me that yes, of course that lecture was extremely straightforward to understand.
However it was only a matter of time until my grammar teacher would catch on to the fact that I just was not up to scratch. I most definitely felt I had something to prove: that I deserved to be here, and could stay close to the level of everyone else doing my subject who had obviously had no trouble at all getting that A*.

I felt as if I belonged to a fairly exclusive group of students who felt this way, who were still convinced they had to demonstrate something more, and that missing the specified grades somehow devalued their worth to something far below ‘true Cambridge standards’.

Therefore it was with surprise and sheer relief that in a quick conversation with a friend I realised that several others in my subject had also missed their grades, and did not all boast an A* in the subject I had concluded I was so pitifully unprepared for.

I know my story is not unique, nor is it even the most extreme case. Many students come to Cambridge despite missing the grades that had been expected of them. Some even experience the torturous experience of having to begin at a different university, come to terms with a different scenario than what they had originally envisaged, only to then be called back again by Cambridge. This experience undoubtedly creates feelings of inadequacy, of never having been good enough in the first place, and a long, painful process of proving to yourself that you have a right to be there.

Yet I now know what I wish I had known back in my first term.

Cambridge is extremely hard to get into, let’s not forget that, and grades form only a small part of the application process. Cast your mind back to those fateful interviews, back in December when the mist was clinging to the Cam and you stood outside that imposing oak door waiting to be called in to your impending interrogation. Well, clearly you passed that test if you were given an offer. A Level grades or equivalents are only a small piece of the jigsaw which you just didn’t quite get slotted in perfectly.

Cambridge doesn’t give pity votes, they don’t just accidentally press a button next to the wrong name. Your application was carefully and meticulously considered. You are here because they wanted you to be here, and because you deserve to be here, not just because of a letter or a symbol on a results page.