Senior Tutor’s Report
Lucinda Rumsey After several years of good progress in the Norrington Table, it was disappointing to drop to 29th this year, with only Queen’s College below us. Although our position was depressed by a small number of less strong results, there were many very good results, with 18 of our finalists getting firsts: the same number as five years ago when we were 12th in the Norrington Table! This year we had four firsts in History, three in Engineering, three in Geography, two in English, and one first in each of Maths, Materials, Physics, Law, Oriental Studies and Theology. A further eight of our scientists on four-year courses were awarded firsts in their third-year examinations, and 19 of our students doing first-year examinations were awarded scholarships and exhibitions for excellent Mods and Prelims performance. Currently 53 of our students are scholars or exhibitioners. Undergraduates across a range of subjects were awarded a total of 11 university prizes. Five of those prize winners were Materials students: Katherine Danks received two awards for her Part II project, the R H Craven Prize and the James S Walker Award; India Kirkpatrick was awarded the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers’ Prize for her Part II project; Rusheb Shah received the Armourers and Brasiers’ Company / TATA Steel Prize for Best Team Design Project in Part I; Yuxin Yin was awarded the Armourers and Brasiers’ Company / Rolls Royce Prize for outstanding overall performance in Prelims; and Lev Chechik was awarded a Gibbs Prize for the best third-year performance in Materials.
10 Mansfield 2015/16
Three other students were awarded Gibbs Prizes: Ella Grodzinski was awarded a Gibbs Book Prize for her high distinction Prelims performance in Human Sciences; Ludovico Lazzeretti (Engineering) was awarded a Gibbs Prize for the best third-year performance in Engineering; and Elliott Thornley (Philosophy and Theology) won a Gibbs Prize for the best finals Philosophy performance in the joint school. Other finalists receiving awards were Vidar Skretting (Oriental Studies) who was awarded the Senior James Mew Prize for Arabic; and Joel Semakula (Senior Status Law), who received the D’Souza Prize for overall best performance in the second BA. This year Mansfield received its highest ever number of applicants for undergraduate admission. Our direct (first choice) applicant numbers went up nearly 11%, compared with a 4% increase in applications to the university as a whole. We had wondered whether our current building works might put off prospective applicants when they come to visit on Open Days, as the College looks a bit less beautiful than usual at the moment. However, for our current students the temporary inconvenience of the building site is far outweighed by the prospect of having accommodation provided for the full duration of their course. I believe that this significant new benefit is also one of the reasons the number of applicants to Mansfield has risen so much this year.