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Our picture shows Year 10 students from Saffron Walden County High School lined up on the steps of Selwyn’s Hall on the way into lunch. They were here this month to find out about the ambitious choices they can make for their university careers.

Visits like this happen year-round, but June and July are particularly busy times for those involved in admissions. The Open Days at the beginning of July are always a high point. This year we welcomed over a thousand visitors to Selwyn as participants in the College Open Days or as ‘drop-in’ visitors who came by as part of their trip to the University’s concurrent event. Thirsty, sometimes footsore but still enthusiastic visitors were provided with refreshing drinks as well as being given tours of the College by current students and having the chance to speak to the Admissions Tutors, Admissions Secretary and Schools Liaison Officer.

We have hosted numerous other visits by schools and individuals wishing to find out more about us and about Cambridge – such as a group of more than 60 sixth-formers from schools across Leeds and Wakefield – as well as going out to speak in schools across the country. A particular highlight was the second set of HE+ master-classes for the consortium of schools and colleges based in Calderdale and Kirklees, hosted at Greenhead College in Huddersfield. A dozen Fellows visited Yorkshire in March and three more, including the Master, went at the start of July. This year, over three hundred students from the six schools and colleges in the consortium are involved in the partnership, which we lead for the University. The school students take part in a mix of ‘extension classes’ to stretch them academically beyond the sixth-form curriculum as well as getting advice about University applications generally and Cambridge-specific information.

The teacher co-ordinators from HE+ came to Selwyn this year for their annual meeting (pictured below) with their partner Colleges and the University Admissions Office. You can read more about HE+ at  http://www.myheplus.com/.

Typical comments from our visitors covered how beautiful the College looks, the excellence of the facilities and the quality of the catering. One of our visitors wrote to Ellen Slack, our Schools Liaison Officer, after the trip to say "I just wanted to thank you again for such a great day and to feedback what myself and my friends thought of Cambridge. We were completely overwhelmed by how beautiful and exciting the whole university was. We loved visiting the colleges and were so grateful for everything you arranged and provided for us. It was such a privilege so visit Selwyn College and see the outstanding facilities and gardens across the city. I was motivated before, but now I am completely determined to do everything I can to be a Cambridge student!"

After a lull for the summer holidays the visits and trips will begin again, including a two-day interviews workshop visit to Scotland. If you or your school would like to arrange a visit, please contact the admissions office. And keep an eye out for more details of our next Open Day on September 20th.

The Master of Selwyn, Roger Mosey, has been meeting former students of Selwyn College and of Cambridge University now living in East Asia.

After an event with alumni and friends in Tokyo (story at http://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/news-selwyn/#July 15), he visited Hong Kong for a drinks reception and dinner. Our picture shows Roger (centre) accompanied by Development Officer Andrew Flather (second left) with guests at the reception.

The Hong Kong events were kindly hosted by Selwyn alumnus, Sir David Li (below, right). He attended Selwyn from 1961, and is now chairman of the Bank of East Asia as well as being a well-known figure in Hong Kong public life.

Speaking in Hong Kong, Roger Mosey said: “We like to say that Selwyn is a community that exists for you throughout your life. We know people see it as a source of enduring friendship and inspiration. Events like this remind us that the Selwyn community extends around the world, too. It’s wonderful to meet alumni in Japan and Hong Kong, and for me as a new Master to establish personal contact. We want to build on that, and to develop our use of new technology and social media, to ensure that former students can keep in touch with everything that’s going on at Selwyn – and, just as importantly, stay in contact with each other.”

Selwyn alumni and friends in Tokyo had dinner with the Master, Roger Mosey, this week during his visit to the Far East.

Roger has been speaking to staff at NHK, the Japanese national broadcaster, about coverage of Olympic Games – with Tokyo now chosen as the host city for 2020. But there was a chance for former students living in Japan to meet him and each other for a relaxed conversation about Selwyn past and future.

 

Our picture shows:

Back row: Shokyu Minamoto; Sven Palys; Anthony Head; Jun Kanda. Front row: Motoyasu Yamazaki; Tatsuko Yamazaki; Roger Mosey; Peter MacInnes; Amy Selwyn (broadcasting consultant).

Selwyn had a hard-fought victory over Manchester University in the first edition of the new series of University Challenge, shown on BBC Two on Monday, July 14th.

The lead changed hands a number of times during a close contest, but Selwyn moved ahead in the final stages to make it into the 2nd round of the competition. The score was 190-160.

 

The team, pictured with quizmaster Jeremy Paxman, is from left to right: Afham Raoof, a first-year scientist; Hannah Warwicker, a second-year classicist; team captain Joshua Pugh Ginn, who’s in the second year of a PhD in Classics; and Charles Cooper, a second-year scientist. Their average age, as announced on the programme, is 20.

The University of Manchester are past champions with a tremendous reputation on University Challenge: winners in 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013. Joshua Pugh Ginn described it ahead of the game as "a tough draw"; and Selwyn had lost by a big margin to Manchester in their last appearance on the programme.

University Challenge is usually the most-watched programme of the week on BBC Two, with around 3 million viewers per episode.

 

Selwyn’s Choir has received a 4-star review in The Times newspaper for its performance of Rachmaninov’s Vespers “All Night Vigil”. The concert was given as part of the City of London Festival at the Church of St Bartholomew the Great in East London.

 

Neil Fisher’s review (extract) said the choir director Sarah MacDonald had “led a beautifully sustained performance in which intonation remained secure — no mean feat — and the blend of voices was cool, elegant and textually responsive. Selwyn doesn’t have the gravelly Russian basses Rachmaninov probably imagined singing the low B-flats (don’t students smoke fancy French cigarettes any more?) but the particularly resonant solo alto brought a velvety gravitas to the proceedings. This is another classy choral outfit to add to the more established names on the Oxbridge roster.”

 

You can read the full review here (note The Times online is a subscription service): http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/classical/article4143987.ece

Selwyn had one of its busiest periods of the year for visitors, with Graduation on June 27^th (story below) followed by the Open Days beginning on July 3^rd and the College Garden Party on July 5^th.

Hundreds of people came through the College – in mostly glorious weather, though there was the need to dodge the occasional shower. Below, prospective students are being welcomed to the Open Days at the main entrance to the College. We had guests from schools across the UK, some accompanied by their parents.

They were shown round Selwyn by student volunteers. Pictured below are three of them: (left to right) Tom Andrew, Laura Makhoul and Fergus Oakley.

Last Friday the College had a service and dinner to commemorate its benefactors: usually just referred to as “Commem”. A service in Chapel included some members of the choir who have now graduated, and these leavers are pictured here:

This was followed by dinner in the College Hall, attended by many past members of Selwyn – some of whom studied here as far back as the 1940s and 1950s.

Our final surge of visitors was for the Selwyn Garden Party on Saturday. Tea and the live band were moved into Hall because of a pessimistic weather forecast, but a crowd congregated on the lawn of Old Court with no need for umbrellas: 

They included many children, who had entertainment laid on for them.

You can see pictures from the Garden Party, from the Open Days and from these and other recent events on our Flickr pages.

The latest school visit to Selwyn was by the Lower Sixth-form of Caterham School in Surrey. They’re pictured in the garden of the Master’s Lodge with Roger Mosey. The director of Learning and Teaching at Caterham is Kim Wells, a former Selwyn student himself.

Selwyn hosts numerous school parties from a wide range of institutions each year, giving potential students a chance to look around the College and meet its current members. Another recent visiting group was made up of over sixty students from schools across Leeds, hosted by our Schools Liaison Officer Ellen Slack and Admissions Tutor (Sciences) James Keeler. West Yorkshire is one of the areas where we’re developing special links between schools and the College. Key figures from Selwyn also travel round the UK visiting schools, and encouraging pupils to think about Cambridge when they’re applying for University.

Next week the University and the College will be hosting Open Days, and you can read more about what Selwyn is offering here: http://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/open-days/. Our Friday session is fully booked and very few slots remain across Cambridge this year, but there’s a wealth of material on this site http://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/ about applying for Selwyn. You can read too about our Access and Outreach programmes, including the email address for further information: http://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/access-outreach/.

Selwyn has a new Development Director – the role which raises money for the College to secure its financial future. Mike Nicholson joins from Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, where he’s been in a similar job; and he will become a Fellow of Selwyn and begin his work in Cambridge on September 1^st. He is an alumnus of the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, where he read History and Classics.

The College is committed to access for all students irrespective of their financial background, and it also wants to build further on its academic strengths. Roger Mosey, Master of Selwyn, said: “To deliver all our ambitions, we need someone who cares about a College community and can also raise funds to make sure we offer the best possible support to this and future generations. The Fellows and I believe Mike is extremely well-qualified to do this, and we’re delighted he’s taking on the role.”

Mike Nicholson said:

“The opportunity to work with Fellows and alumni in helping to deliver the College’s aspirations is both a privilege and tremendously exciting.  Undoubtedly, these are challenging times for students at all levels so the role of the College in supporting individuals and allowing the most gifted to flourish has never been more important.   Selwyn’s alumni are generous and the College already has an impressive record in attracting their support as well as others who are inspired to help.    Building on the considerable achievements of my predecessors, I look forward to exploring new ways in which we might widen participation still further.  So, I’m keen to hear ideas about how Selwyn might play an important, enjoyable and life-long role in the lives of all its alumni and friends.”

The College congratulates Jeremy Sanders, one of its Fellows, on being awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. You can read more here:

 

http://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/news/jeremy-sanders-awarded-cbe