If St John’s turns me down in January, is that the end of my application to Cambridge?

Not necessarily. If we don’t have a place for you, but feel that you are a strong applicant then we might place your application in the Winter Pool, where it will be available to all other Cambridge Colleges that might be looking for stronger applications than those they received directly. The Winter Pool is designed to ensure that the best applicants are offered place, whichever college they applied to originally. Once the pool ends you may be asked to attend for further interviews in Cambridge at the beginning of January (make sure to keep this period as free as possible), or you may even be offered a place at another College without further interview. If your application is not selected for further consideration from the Pool then you will hear from us to this effect, normally by the end of January.