FAQ - Check Here Before Posting
We've tried to answer some of the most common questions here. Please have a look to see if your question is answered below before you post - threads which are answered here risk removal. If you still have a generic admissions question after reading the below, you should use the monthly admissions sticky :)
Please also refer to our rules in the sidebar before posting.
This FAQ is a work in progress; go ahead and suggest amendments and additional questions to add so we can make it as useful a resource as possible!
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What grades do I need to get to get into Cambridge?
This is very difficult to answer because Cambridge contextualise your results, so there's no such thing as a minimum threshold (or a set threshold at which you'll definitely receive an offer). By 'contextualise', we mean that Cambridge uses your educational, financial, and social context to shed light on how impressive your results actually were: if you attended the worst school in Britain and had significant extenuating circumstances affecting your GCSEs, for example, Cambridge will still deem you a competitive applicant even if you have far worse grades than most candidates. Conversely, if you attended one of the top schools, their expectations are commensurately higher. As a rule of thumb, you'll generally need to be performing within the top few percentile of students given your educational, social, and financial context. There's quite a lot of data out there regarding applicants' grades; have a look on this website to explore FOI requests Cambridge has responded to, but please don't allow stories of how you need X grades to even be looked at by Cambridge to put you off applying - this is simply untrue! It's also important to note that grades are never enough in isolation to guarantee an offer: you must also perform well at interview, score highly in any admissions tests you're required to complete, and (usually) demonstrate that you have a supercurricular interest in your chosen subject at the time of application.
Does college choice matter?
Yes. From an academic point of view, the official line from the university and all colleges is that it’s irrelevant; the official line treats colleges more like halls of residence than anything. In fact, college choice can somewhat influence your academic experience. Particularly for arts subjects, the quantity and quality of resources in the college library for your subject can have a big impact on your work by making it easier to access important, scarce, or interesting texts. If your college’s library is lacklustre, you’ll have to rely on university resources and these can be competitive (particularly for arts subjects' core set texts). Additionally, the number and quality of teaching fellows (and the quality of your Director of Studies) can have a big impact your academic experience; for obvious reasons, having easy access to lots of dedicated in-college fellows can make a big difference to your learning by providing what is essentially a "mini-faculty" within your college. Your Director of Studies will always plug any gaps in your teaching, of course, by arranging supervisions with staff at other colleges if your own college’s teaching staff can’t do it, but depending on the quality of your Director of Studies these staff could be other teaching fellows, research fellows, or even PhD students - quality may vary! It's also worth noting that although we can’t know or control this before applying, different supervisors have different interests and will channel your energies in particular directions by pushing certain topics; although two people might be studying the same course at different colleges, therefore, the precise details of what they actually study may differ quite substantially.
From a non-academic perspective, college choice can have a massive influence on your wider Cambridge experience: bursaries/scholarships offered, sports, societies, location, rent, food, culture, and so on are all intrinsic to your experience.
How do I decide on a college?
Try to use online resources to create a shortlist of colleges. Many colleges can be eliminated quickly depending on whether they are mature/postgraduate only colleges, single-sex colleges, only offer certain subjects, and so on. Deciding on whether you want to attend a large, medium, or small college will help you narrow the field further, as will deciding whether you want a hill college or a town college. During this research, you may also wish to consider the levels of funding/scholarships/bursaries each college can offer, as these can differ significantly from college to college. You may also find it useful to research accommodation quality, price, and locations, library resources for your subject, number of teaching fellows for your subject, food price and quality, societies and facilities, intake size for your subject, and general academic performance (as broadly as possible over time – do not use slight year-to-year differences in performance to differentiate colleges). This website can help you with this research, but please use official college websites wherever possible and contact colleges with questions you can’t answer for yourself: https://www.whichcambridgecollege.com/ There's also the alternative prospectus: https://www.applytocambridge.com/colleges
This should allow you to assemble a shortlist of colleges. The best thing to do is then to visit Cambridge and tour these shortlisted colleges. Colleges will generally let you look round them for free (even if they’re officially closed) if you tell them you’re a prospective student: just ask at the Porter’s Lodge. Have a look around the town while you’re there and try to situate each college within the town: where is it in relation to the shops? To your faculty? Lecture site? Libraries? Is its area touristy? If you can’t visit Cambridge, even having a virtual wander around the town on Google Maps will give you a sense of how things fit together and where the busy bits of Cambridge are. Many colleges also have videos on their websites/social media channels which give you an inside look at them.
Remember that around a quarter of applicants will end up at a different college to the one they applied to anyway due to the pool system, so don’t spend weeks deciding and don’t get too attached to your college choice!
Is college X harder to get into/better than college Y?
Variations on this question are very common! Generally, no. Certain colleges have reputations for being particularly strong for particular subjects, but this shouldn’t influence your decision; if you’re strong enough to get into Cambridge, the pool system will ensure that you are offered regardless of where you applied. A particular myth which seems especially prevalent overseas is that Trinity is harder, for all subjects, to get into than any other college. This is absolutely not true and the myth probably stems from the fact that Trinity is well-known internationally.
Applicants often use Cambridge's online admissions stats page to try and identify colleges which are under-subscribed and consequently 'easier' to get into. This is an incomplete understanding of the admissions process, because it fails to consider the pool system (explained below). Believe it or not, but Cambridge are wise to the fact that certain colleges (generally the more central ones) get more applicants than others. If College X, which is historically under-subscribed (and so looks like an attractive 'easy' college according to the stats), receives only 5 applicants one year for a course for which it normally takes 8 students, it is under no compulsion to offer any of those applicants at all. If it deems them weak, it can reject all of them and wait for the pool system to send it dozens of strong candidates interviewed at other colleges, who (by virtue of being pooled) have been deemed strong enough to get into Cambridge, but whose original colleges didn't have space for them. In this way, College X rejects all of its direct applicants who applied because it looked 'easy', and fishes 8 students out of the pool from other colleges. This system ensures that regardless of where you apply, the playing field is level - if you are strong enough to get into Cambridge, you will be offered a place somewhere.
What is the pool system?
The pool system is designed to ensure that deserving applicants to over-subscribed colleges are given a chance to go to another college which is under-subscribed. Say, for example, that college X has 20 excellent candidates for 10 spots and so can’t offer all of them. College X makes 12 offers (on the assumption that 2 candidates will miss their offers), and then ‘pools’ the remaining 8 excellent candidates that it didn’t have space for, but which it believes deserve to go to Cambridge (or deserve at least a second look by other admissions tutors). Then college Y, which received only 2 excellent applicants this year, looks at college X’s pooled candidates and decides to ‘fish’ all of them. Fishing is the jargon for when a college decides to take somebody out of the pool. In this way Cambridge ensures its admissions process is fairer by helping all deserving candidates receive offers irrespective of the college they applied to. This process is usually automatic, but occasionally the ‘fishing’ college may invite pooled candidates back to Cambridge for a second interview.
Is St John’s posh/is King’s Communist/is Magdalene sexist/is Trinity pretentious/etc?
No. These are unfair stereotypes; there are various stereotypes floating around Cambridge for most colleges and they’re all intended as a joke. Don’t base your college decision on stereotypes!
Which college is the most diverse/best for international students/best for state school students?
Don’t base your decision on these factors. Demographic data indicates that all colleges are broadly equivalent in terms of diversity (excepting, of course, the women-only colleges).
Can I change course?
Yes. Some swaps are simpler than others (it’s hard to switch from Art History to Maths, for example) and all are assessed on a case-by-case basis by your college. If someone is going to switch, a common time to do so is between Part I and Part II. You can also switch right at the start of your time at Cambridge, but colleges are often reluctant to let you do this; in their eyes, you’ve applied for course X and claimed to be very passionate about it, yet now all of a sudden you want to do course Y. Generally, switching will only be allowed if there’s space on the new course you want to do and if you can pass the interview/exam set by the new course.
Can I change college?
Not generally. In certain cases colleges will permit switching, but these cases are extremely rare and usually serious: abuse, harassment, and the like can all be valid reasons why a switch might be possible (or even encouraged). It is not possible to switch because you dislike your college, or think that you'd rather attend a different one. If you believe that you do have a valid reason to switch college, contact your Tutor/Senior Tutor in the first instance for advice.
Which college is best for [insert subject here]?
Some colleges have reputations for being particularly strong for certain subjects, but this is not generally true for all subjects. It’s generally a better idea to use other factors to determine which college to apply to, as even colleges which have been historically strong for your subject can have a weak year and it’s far more important that you like the space in which you’re going to spend 3+ years!
Should I go to an admissions school/summer school? Do they help people get in?
If the school is not an official university-run event, then absolutely not. These courses are borderline scams which cost a huge amount of money and in no way prepare you for the Cambridge admissions process or interview. On the other hand, official university insight events are a fantastic way to get to know Cambridge and meet some students and staff! The Subject Masterclass events are also a really interesting day out, if you have the time.
I have extenuating circumstances: what do I do?
During the application process you’ll be asked to fill out a SAQ (Supplementary Application Questionnaire). You can add details of your extenuating circumstances here, and you absolutely should. Give as many details as possible to allow the college to adjust admissions criteria accordingly. If you withhold extenuating circumstances and only tell the college at interview/after applying then it won’t be possible to make any adjustment.
If you have any special requirements for interviews or admissions tests, inform your college as soon as possible to allow them to make adjustments and preparations for you as necessary.
I do X clubs/societies: do Cambridge care?
Cambridge draw a keen distinction between extra-curricular and super-curricular activities. Extra-curricular activities are things like sports, DofE, or chess club - they’re not academically related to the subject you hope to study. Cambridge do not care - at all - about these activities, virtually regardless of your level of ability. Super-curricular activities are academically related: things like Politics Society (if you hope to study HSPS), or work experience in a hospital (if you hope to study Medicine) are super-curricular activities which demonstrate your passion for your subject and show that you’re working at a level above the standard required of you to perform in school exams. Cambridge do care about these activities, and it’s a good idea to mention some that you do when applying. Particular highlights include essay competitions, academic conferences, assisting with research, going to academic lectures, and the like.
I have a language condition for my offer. Is IELTS or TOEFL mandatory?
IELTS/TOEFL is often expensive and unnecessary especially if you are a native speaker of English outside of the so-called Anglosphere (e.g. Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa). If for some reason you are told that you must take the IELTS/TOEFL to prove your native-speaker status, in order to avoid paying an exorbitant amount for a test you do not really need, it may be best to contact the undergraduate/postgraduate admissions office of your Department (not the admissions office of the University as a whole) for assistance. You may ask them for a referral to the University's Language Centre. You may wish to furnish evidence of your English usage status (e.g. GCE O Level, A Level) to them, to request for a referral to ADTIS for you to take a free online test directly with the Language Centre.
