This is not the answer you're looking for

I got my Cardiff email.

It said 'no'.

Well, actually it said 'unfortunately your application was not one of those short-listed for interview' and then a bunch of apologies about how this year's competition was very strong etc., the usual set of euphemisms for saying 'haha, your application wasn't good enough!'.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about it, though I do feel a bit sad that I now no longer have a valid excuse to spend 50 pounds on a return ticket for the train to Cardiff and visit the Doctor Who experience. In any case I'm not nearly as disappointed as I was last year when Cambridge rejected me, though I must say I think Cambridge may have had much more valid reasons.

Because I'm now wondering what went wrong. After all, I do feel my credentials are quite strong - my secondary school grades are good (two 9s, in English and Literature, a whole set of 8s, some 7s and one 6 for Latin), as are my undergraduate grades (they more or less equate to a First, according to Fulbright - in any case it's a definite and strong First if one disregards my C+ in Calculus, and a) are there Criminologists who need advanced Calculus? and b) I think my C+ in Calculus should actually make my grades stronger even though it brough my GPA down by a tenth). I'm heading towards a Merit or a Distinction in my postgrad. I've got a load of cool extracurriculars, such as working in a court for one and a half years, chairing the Literature Commission, doing Ambassador things and being a Course Rep, plus I'm enrolled in the University of Leicester's Leadership and Management Award.
Besides, my research proposal has both been called 'interesting' and 'strong' by two different professors.
I did everything right in my personal statement.

Maybe they prefer people who don't have C+s in Calculus and who've already finished their Master's. I'm more or less annoyed, I think, just because they're taking away one of my options. As good as my back-up plan of heading back to the Netherlands and enrolling in a 2-year-LLB is, it's not something I'm desperately eager to do... But I still have my Leicester application.

What I will do now, though, is head to one of the second-hand charity bookshops on Queens Road and spend 20 pounds on a CS Lewis Narnia boxed book set.

Maybe I just shouldn't apply for universities in places that start with a 'C'.

PS On a completely unrelated upside, none of my belts fit properly anymore - they're all too long. Yay, losing weight/body mass.
PPS I just now sent in registration for the LLB in Utrecht. It makes me quite giddy, also because .... blaaah, Bachelor's degree all over again...
PPPS My awesome friend Kristy got a 'yes' from Oxford. I told her so. Also that's epic.