Have we had no further PhD's or MCL's move to PAO so far this week?
Cambridge LL.M. Applicants 2022-2023
Posted Feb 15, 2022 10:15
Posted Feb 15, 2022 18:29
I doubt we will see any movement this week. Considering that the LLM is the last of the programs, after the PhD and the MCL that usually update the status of those who move to the GAO stage, it is most likely that we can expect start hearing about status changes at the end of next week at the earliest, if not until the last week of February, as barely three known PhD and none MCL applicants have reported being moved to GAO.
Thank you for posting.
May I ask what makes you say next week? Most comments here seem to suggest some time in March. :)
Posted Feb 15, 2022 18:49
I doubt we will see any movement this week. Considering that the LLM is the last of the programs, after the PhD and the MCL that usually update the status of those who move to the GAO stage, it is most likely that we can expect start hearing about status changes at the end of next week at the earliest, if not until the last week of February, as barely three known PhD and none MCL applicants have reported being moved to GAO.
Thank you for posting.
May I ask what makes you say next week? Most comments here seem to suggest some time in March. :)
I think OP meant next week 'at the earliest'. Not uncommon for some offers to be released a week or two earlier to some applicants. The website does say 1st of March so in any event, I think the wait wouldn't be too long now. From experience (I applied last year), I believe rejections are often handed out first but the rule of thumb, I think, is no news is good news. Who knows if this pattern would change so take this with a grain of salt.
Posted Feb 16, 2022 19:14
Any updates yet?
Posted Feb 16, 2022 21:45
I doubt we will see any movement this week. Considering that the LLM is the last of the programs, after the PhD and the MCL that usually update the status of those who move to the GAO stage, it is most likely that we can expect start hearing about status changes at the end of next week at the earliest, if not until the last week of February, as barely three known PhD and none MCL applicants have reported being moved to GAO.
Thank you for posting.
May I ask what makes you say next week? Most comments here seem to suggest some time in March. :)
I think OP meant next week 'at the earliest'. Not uncommon for some offers to be released a week or two earlier to some applicants. The website does say 1st of March so in any event, I think the wait wouldn't be too long now. From experience (I applied last year), I believe rejections are often handed out first but the rule of thumb, I think, is no news is good news. Who knows if this pattern would change so take this with a grain of salt.
I see. Thanks for the explanation. Getting a bit anxious now. I noticed online that they only have 170 places but have to juggle with 1200 applications. The odds aren't reassuring.
Are you currently studying the LLM? Or applying?
Posted Feb 16, 2022 21:45
Any updates yet?
Nope. Nothing yet.
Posted Feb 16, 2022 22:34
Thank you for posting.
May I ask what makes you say next week? Most comments here seem to suggest some time in March. :)
I think OP meant next week 'at the earliest'. Not uncommon for some offers to be released a week or two earlier to some applicants. The website does say 1st of March so in any event, I think the wait wouldn't be too long now. From experience (I applied last year), I believe rejections are often handed out first but the rule of thumb, I think, is no news is good news. Who knows if this pattern would change so take this with a grain of salt.
I see. Thanks for the explanation. Getting a bit anxious now. I noticed online that they only have 170 places but have to juggle with 1200 applications. The odds aren't reassuring.
Are you currently studying the LLM? Or applying?
it is 170 students starting the course but more offers are made
Posted Feb 17, 2022 12:19
Any updates yet?
Nope. Nothing yet.
Forgive my ignorance, but if the application is moved to the GAO stage, does this constitute an offer subject to conditions? (just to confirm, my status has not changed - it still reads 'under review by the department').
Posted Feb 17, 2022 15:58
Any updates yet?
Nope. Nothing yet.
Forgive my ignorance, but if the application is moved to the GAO stage, does this constitute an offer subject to conditions? (just to confirm, my status has not changed - it still reads 'under review by the department').
AFAIK if you are moved to the GAO stage this is a strong indicator that you will get an offer, but is not in itself an offer.
I'm also still on the 'under review by department' stage.
Posted Feb 17, 2022 17:10
Essentially it works like this (or has at some point worked like this, at least - give or take some minor details - the whole process used to be laid out in an official document, but not sure where it is now): There are five stages in the admissions process (if not rejected), but only some of them might show up on the portal and be changed at slightly different times because stages have to be updated manually and won’t affect their internal decisions anyway (i.e., it’s a bit of a time waste):
- Submitted: This is the first stage. Simple enough; means your application was submitted and no one has had the time to update to “under review” yet. Many seem to worry about when their application moves from “submitted” compared to the others, but it really is the most insignificant of status changes.
- Under review by department: Most applications will stay here utnil either PAO or unsuccessful.
- Under review by degree committee: Essentially means that the application was not vetted out at departmental stage and subject to degree committee review (second stage). Most applicants will never see this stage on their portals because of the aforementioned time waste involved in updating this middle stage.
- Awaiting approval by PAO: Means that the degree committee decided to recommend that you should be offered a place. The postgraduate admissions office’s (PAO) main task is mainly to check that you meet the minimum entry requirements and to check for potential fraud, etc. Since the degree committee won’t recommend a place to those who do not meet the requirements, PAO’s role is mainly only about the latter aspect, which is why only a very few applicants from unaccredited unis or with suspicious documents might not pass through this stage.
- Offer: Will always be conditional because of the college system.
Hope this helps!
Btw, someone mentioned something about number of places earlier. The uni has published their own admissions statistics for years, although they unfortunately merge all non-doctoral law postgrad stats together. Total non-doctoral offers made in 2019 were for example 419, of which 190 commenced their studies in Cam. Estimate around twice the number of offers as places.
[Edited by Gobbledygook on Feb 17, 2022]
</div><div>- Submitted: This is the first stage. Simple enough; means your application was submitted and no one has had the time to update to “under review” yet. Many seem to worry about when their application moves from “submitted” compared to the others, but it really is the most insignificant of status changes.<br><br></div><div>- Under review by department: Most applications will stay here utnil either PAO or unsuccessful.<br><br></div><div>- Under review by degree committee: Essentially means that the application was not vetted out at departmental stage and subject to degree committee review (second stage). Most applicants will never see this stage on their portals because of the aforementioned time waste involved in updating this middle stage. <br><br></div><div>- Awaiting approval by PAO: Means that the degree committee decided to recommend that you should be offered a place. The postgraduate admissions office’s (PAO) main task is mainly to check that you meet the minimum entry requirements and to check for potential fraud, etc. Since the degree committee won’t recommend a place to those who do not meet the requirements, PAO’s role is mainly only about the latter aspect, which is why only a very few applicants from unaccredited unis or with suspicious documents might not pass through this stage. <br><br></div><div>- Offer: Will always be conditional because of the college system. <br><br></div><div>Hope this helps!</div><br><br>Btw, someone mentioned something about number of places earlier. The uni has published their own admissions statistics for years, although they unfortunately merge all non-doctoral law postgrad stats together. Total non-doctoral offers made in 2019 were for example 419, of which 190 commenced their studies in Cam. Estimate around twice the number of offers as places.
Posted Feb 18, 2022 05:46
Hi, so just to confirm, when you say that ever offer is conditional, what are the conditions usually? because I am not awaiting results from anywhere, I have already submitted all the documents. So I'm wondering what conditions could be imposed If I were to be made an offer?
Essentially it works like this (or has at some point worked like this, at least - give or take some minor details - the whole process used to be laid out in an official document, but not sure where it is now): There are five stages in the admissions process (if not rejected), but only some of them might show up on the portal and be changed at slightly different times because stages have to be updated manually and won’t affect their internal decisions anyway (i.e., it’s a bit of a time waste):
- Submitted: This is the first stage. Simple enough; means your application was submitted and no one has had the time to update to “under review” yet. Many seem to worry about when their application moves from “submitted” compared to the others, but it really is the most insignificant of status changes.
- Under review by department: Most applications will stay here utnil either PAO or unsuccessful.
- Under review by degree committee: Essentially means that the application was not vetted out at departmental stage and subject to degree committee review (second stage). Most applicants will never see this stage on their portals because of the aforementioned time waste involved in updating this middle stage.
- Awaiting approval by PAO: Means that the degree committee decided to recommend that you should be offered a place. The postgraduate admissions office’s (PAO) main task is mainly to check that you meet the minimum entry requirements and to check for potential fraud, etc. Since the degree committee won’t recommend a place to those who do not meet the requirements, PAO’s role is mainly only about the latter aspect, which is why only a very few applicants from unaccredited unis or with suspicious documents might not pass through this stage.
- Offer: Will always be conditional because of the college system.
Hope this helps!
Btw, someone mentioned something about number of places earlier. The uni has published their own admissions statistics for years, although they unfortunately merge all non-doctoral law postgrad stats together. Total non-doctoral offers made in 2019 were for example 419, of which 190 commenced their studies in Cam. Estimate around twice the number of offers as places.
</div><div>- Submitted: This is the first stage. Simple enough; means your application was submitted and no one has had the time to update to “under review” yet. Many seem to worry about when their application moves from “submitted” compared to the others, but it really is the most insignificant of status changes.<br><br></div><div>- Under review by department: Most applications will stay here utnil either PAO or unsuccessful.<br><br></div><div>- Under review by degree committee: Essentially means that the application was not vetted out at departmental stage and subject to degree committee review (second stage). Most applicants will never see this stage on their portals because of the aforementioned time waste involved in updating this middle stage. <br><br></div><div>- Awaiting approval by PAO: Means that the degree committee decided to recommend that you should be offered a place. The postgraduate admissions office’s (PAO) main task is mainly to check that you meet the minimum entry requirements and to check for potential fraud, etc. Since the degree committee won’t recommend a place to those who do not meet the requirements, PAO’s role is mainly only about the latter aspect, which is why only a very few applicants from unaccredited unis or with suspicious documents might not pass through this stage. <br><br></div><div>- Offer: Will always be conditional because of the college system. <br><br></div><div>Hope this helps!</div><br><br>Btw, someone mentioned something about number of places earlier. The uni has published their own admissions statistics for years, although they unfortunately merge all non-doctoral law postgrad stats together. Total non-doctoral offers made in 2019 were for example 419, of which 190 commenced their studies in Cam. Estimate around twice the number of offers as places. [/quote]
Posted Feb 18, 2022 11:19
Hi, so just to confirm, when you say that ever offer is conditional, what are the conditions usually? because I am not awaiting results from anywhere, I have already submitted all the documents. So I'm wondering what conditions could be imposed If I were to be made an offer?
Hi, from what I gather, one of the most likely conditions in that you send them originals or certified copies of your transcripts. I have found this booklet on this topic, you might want to take a look: https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/offer_conditions_booklet_admission_2019-20.pdf
Posted Feb 18, 2022 14:47
Hello everyone! I just received a rejection mail from the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Does that have any connection with the decision on the actual LLM application?
Posted Feb 18, 2022 17:34
Hello everyone! I just received a rejection mail from the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Does that have any connection with the decision on the actual LLM application?
Not at all. Everyone who applied for Gates but didn’t make it to the interview round should get their Gates rejection regardless of whether the faculty intends to admit you or not. Barely anyone get Gates nominated anyway.
I’d generally advise to not search for any secret meanings behind communication from the faculty or scholarship bodies save for the actual offer letter or a PAO update on the portal. Last year the university even managed to send a bunch of information to everyone that almost looked like the persons were already admitted - even to applicants who had already been rejected or were rejected shortly after. The entire procedure is messy and made even more messy by the separate handling of documents and information by college scholarships and other scholarships that might be sent out while the the faculty ponders on your admission.
[Edited by Gobbledygook on Feb 18, 2022]
Posted Feb 18, 2022 17:49
Hi, so just to confirm, when you say that ever offer is conditional, what are the conditions usually? because I am not awaiting results from anywhere, I have already submitted all the documents. So I'm wondering what conditions could be imposed If I were to be made an offer?Essentially it works like this (or has at some point worked like this, at least - give or take some minor details - the whole process used to be laid out in an official document, but not sure where it is now): There are five stages in the admissions process (if not rejected), but only some of them might show up on the portal and be changed at slightly different times because stages have to be updated manually and won’t affect their internal decisions anyway (i.e., it’s a bit of a time waste):
- Submitted: This is the first stage. Simple enough; means your application was submitted and no one has had the time to update to “under review” yet. Many seem to worry about when their application moves from “submitted” compared to the others, but it really is the most insignificant of status changes.
- Under review by department: Most applications will stay here utnil either PAO or unsuccessful.
- Under review by degree committee: Essentially means that the application was not vetted out at departmental stage and subject to degree committee review (second stage). Most applicants will never see this stage on their portals because of the aforementioned time waste involved in updating this middle stage.
- Awaiting approval by PAO: Means that the degree committee decided to recommend that you should be offered a place. The postgraduate admissions office’s (PAO) main task is mainly to check that you meet the minimum entry requirements and to check for potential fraud, etc. Since the degree committee won’t recommend a place to those who do not meet the requirements, PAO’s role is mainly only about the latter aspect, which is why only a very few applicants from unaccredited unis or with suspicious documents might not pass through this stage.
- Offer: Will always be conditional because of the college system.
Hope this helps!
Btw, someone mentioned something about number of places earlier. The uni has published their own admissions statistics for years, although they unfortunately merge all non-doctoral law postgrad stats together. Total non-doctoral offers made in 2019 were for example 419, of which 190 commenced their studies in Cam. Estimate around twice the number of offers as places.
The most common condition by far is the college admission, since the colleges will only be sent your application after the uni decided to offer you a place. Then the colleges will ponder away on whether to accept you or not (at postgrad level its practically more of a first come first served + diversity scheme) , which can take somewhere between 1 week to 8 weeks depending on which college you applied to as a first preference, since they’re obligated to consider you first, even if their application load is immense. You will only get one college offer and you need a college to study in Cambridge, so if you do not accept the college that admits you, your application to the university is basically withdrawn.
Several other formal conditions are usually already fulfilled, yet they somewhat annoyingly keep the completed conditions on the application portal just to mess with you. These generally include:
- Verified copies of diplomas/transcripts (typically only asked for if you originally sent an unofficial document or if your current degree is not yet completed).
- Language documents (I believe the LLM require these pre-application now anyway, so unlikely to be an issue?)
- Upload previous study visa in the UK if you have studied in the UK before. Or a declaration that you have not studied in the UK before, for immigration purposes.
- Upload a passport copy.
- Upload a picture for your card,
- Accept the offer (duh)
- Upload a declaration that you can finance your studies (own money, scholarships, sponsor, etc.).
Asyou can see, a lot of these “conditions” are essentially administrative things which for many other unis would just be some extra stuff to do in addition to their unconditional offer. But Cambridge chooses to make all their offers conditional - probably primarily to be able to reject you if you reject your college.
</div><div>- Submitted: This is the first stage. Simple enough; means your application was submitted and no one has had the time to update to “under review” yet. Many seem to worry about when their application moves from “submitted” compared to the others, but it really is the most insignificant of status changes.<br><br></div><div>- Under review by department: Most applications will stay here utnil either PAO or unsuccessful.<br><br></div><div>- Under review by degree committee: Essentially means that the application was not vetted out at departmental stage and subject to degree committee review (second stage). Most applicants will never see this stage on their portals because of the aforementioned time waste involved in updating this middle stage. <br><br></div><div>- Awaiting approval by PAO: Means that the degree committee decided to recommend that you should be offered a place. The postgraduate admissions office’s (PAO) main task is mainly to check that you meet the minimum entry requirements and to check for potential fraud, etc. Since the degree committee won’t recommend a place to those who do not meet the requirements, PAO’s role is mainly only about the latter aspect, which is why only a very few applicants from unaccredited unis or with suspicious documents might not pass through this stage. <br><br></div><div>- Offer: Will always be conditional because of the college system. <br><br></div><div>Hope this helps!</div><br><br>Btw, someone mentioned something about number of places earlier. The uni has published their own admissions statistics for years, although they unfortunately merge all non-doctoral law postgrad stats together. Total non-doctoral offers made in 2019 were for example 419, of which 190 commenced their studies in Cam. Estimate around twice the number of offers as places. [/quote] [/quote]<br><br>The most common condition by far is the college admission, since the colleges will only be sent your application after the uni decided to offer you a place. Then the colleges will ponder away on whether to accept you or not (at postgrad level its practically more of a first come first served + diversity scheme) , which can take somewhere between 1 week to 8 weeks depending on which college you applied to as a first preference, since they’re obligated to consider you first, even if their application load is immense. You will only get one college offer and you need a college to study in Cambridge, so if you do not accept the college that admits you, your application to the university is basically withdrawn. <br><br>Several other formal conditions are usually already fulfilled, yet they somewhat annoyingly keep the completed conditions on the application portal just to mess with you. These generally include:<br><br>- Verified copies of diplomas/transcripts (typically only asked for if you originally sent an unofficial document or if your current degree is not yet completed).<br><br>- Language documents (I believe the LLM require these pre-application now anyway, so unlikely to be an issue?)<br><br>- Upload previous study visa in the UK if you have studied in the UK before. Or a declaration that you have not studied in the UK before, for immigration purposes. <br><br>- Upload a passport copy.<br><br>- Upload a picture for your card,<br><br>- Accept the offer (duh)<br><br>- Upload a declaration that you can finance your studies (own money, scholarships, sponsor, etc.).<br><br><br>Asyou can see, a lot of these “conditions” are essentially administrative things which for many other unis would just be some extra stuff to do in addition to their unconditional offer. But Cambridge chooses to make all their offers conditional - probably primarily to be able to reject you if you reject your college.<br>
Posted Feb 19, 2022 03:20
[Edited by PolarBear21 on Feb 25, 2022]
Posted Feb 19, 2022 17:20
Do we think there might be movement this coming week?
Posted Feb 19, 2022 17:57
Best of success to everyone!
[Edited by TheRuleofLaw on Mar 02, 2022]
Posted Feb 19, 2022 18:04
Do we think there might be movement this coming week?
If everything goes like in previous years, this next week rejections will be sent to all unsuccessful applicants and some others will move to GAO.
Posted Feb 19, 2022 18:28
Do we think there might be movement this coming week?
If everything goes like in previous years, this next week rejections will be sent to all unsuccessful applicants and some others will move to GAO.
Well at least by the end of this next week I'll have gotten rid of the urge to check the status page 4 times a day lol
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