Each year, over 20,000 undergraduates apply to study at the University of Cambridge. Each one of those applicants will be considered by one of 28 colleges, averaging out to about 765 applicants per college.
These colleges all have their own admissions standards and available spaces, so the chance of getting into Cambridge doesn’t just depend on getting your offer from the university itself but also one of its colleges.Â
Depending on where you want to study, this may be easier or harder, so this guide looks at all of the admissions rates for the 28 undergraduate colleges at Cambridge. Once you’ve finished this guide, you’ll know how likely you are to get into any of these colleges and will understand what you need to consider to choose where to apply. Let’s begin!
Want to skip to the information about a specific college? Select one of the buttons below. Please note that this guide only overs undergraduate admissions, so colleges that only teach postgraduate courses are not included here. Â
What Are Cambridge College Acceptance Rates?
Before we dive in, it’s important to clarify the statistics and success rates we’ll be discussing. These figures are drawn from Cambridge’s official data for the 2023 undergraduate intake. Please note that this information pertains solely to undergraduate programs, excluding postgraduate courses.
The offer and acceptance rates for each college show what percentage of applicants got their offer and place. This is calculated as follows:Â
Offer Rate: Number of offers sent/Total number of applicants
Acceptance Rate: Number of admitted applicants/Total number of applicants
If you want to learn about the acceptance rates for Cambridge in 2023 by course, check out our Cambridge Acceptance Rates Guide here. The overall undergraduate admissions stats for the university are as follows:
Cambridge Acceptance Rates 2023
Applicants: 21,445
Offers: 4,553
Acceptances:Â 3,557Â
Offer Rate: 21.2%
Acceptance Rate: 16.6%
With the basics out of the way, let’s look at the most interesting statistics from Cambridge’s college admissions.Â
The average Cambridge college success rate is low, but we get 57% of our students their offer
If you want the best chance of getting into Cambridge, enrol on an Oxbridge Programme to receive industry-leading support for your application. Every one of our students has access to comprehensive resources, one-to-one tuition sessions, intensive courses and much more. Everything has been carefully crafted to give you the best possible chance of gaining your offer.Â
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Cambridge College Acceptance Rates: The Key Facts
Easiest Cambridge College To Get Into
Murray Edwards College. Murray Edwards had the highest acceptance rate of all the colleges by a wide margin of nearly 5%. 39.1% of its 417 applicants were given offers, while 26.4% were ultimately admitted into the college.
One thing to consider is that Murray Edwards is one of only two single-sex colleges, only admitting female applicants. It also had more than 200 fewer applicants than its counterpart, Newnham College. However, that college had a far more average acceptance rate, so Murray Edwards’ position as a single-sex college likely didn’t impact its success rates too much.Â
Hardest Cambridge College To Get Into
Pembroke College. Pembroke was one of four colleges to receive more than 1,000 applicants in 2023 and had the lowest offer rate (15.6%) and acceptance rate (12.1%) of any college at the university.Â
The other colleges to receive over 1,000 applicants – Trinity, St John’s and Downing – all sit in the bottom five of the list of highest acceptance rates, so be prepared that these colleges are all tricky to get into despite their larger size.Â
Smallest Cambridge College
Wolfson College. With just 50 acceptances and 291 applicants in 2023, Wolfson was the least popular college amongst undergraduates. However, this makes sense as the college is primarily focused on postgraduates and only admits mature undergraduates, so most Cambridge applicants aren’t eligible to apply here. Â
Biggest Cambridge College
Trinity College. With 197 acceptances in 2023, Trinity admitted the most students into its ranks this year. Bear in mind that this doesn’t make Trinity the biggest college overall, as we aren’t counting postgraduates and students from previous years.Â
Trinity also had the most applicants – 1,397 – so the competition was still tough despite how many were admitted.Â
Offer Rate/Acceptance Rate Divides
Murray Edwards College had the biggest difference by far, with 12.7%. With how high the offer rate was, it’s no surprise that the college ended up with far fewer acceptances.Â
Jesus College had the most consistent figures from offer to acceptance. It was one of the most popular colleges this year, receiving 964 applicants, and had fairly average offer and acceptance rates. However, the difference between the two was just 0.6%, with only 6 of the 141 offers not being completed.Â
The average difference across all colleges was 4.6%.
Cambridge Open Applications
Bear in mind that this is different from the Cambridge Winter Pool, which takes promising students who were unsuccessful at their chosen college and distributes them across colleges with free places to be considered.Â
When an Open Application is submitted, a college is assigned based on factors such as capacity and suitability. After they’re assigned, these applicants are evaluated just like any other candidates. Let’s explore some statistics related to Open Applications:
Cambridge College With Most Open Applications
Lucy Cavendish College received the most Open Applications in 2023, with 285 out of its 689 applicants not specifically selecting the college.Â
Cambridge College With Highest Proportion of Open Applications
Meanwhile, Murray Edwards College actually had a higher proportion of them. Out of 417 applications, 239 of them were open, which is 57.3% of all applicants at the college in 2023.Â
Cambridge College With Least Open Applications
In 2023, the four colleges that received over 1,000 applications did not receive any open applications. As for colleges that did receive open applications, King’s College had the least: just 17. Â
Cambridge College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications
King’s College also had the lowest proportion of open applications. The college had 921 applicants, so only 1.6% of them were open. Of course, the aforementioned 1,000+ applicant colleges had a proportion of 0%.Â
That concludes the overview of key statistics. However, we’ve still got the figures from each individual college to explore, let’s dive into those next!
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Cambridge College Acceptance Rates (A-Z)
Here are the undergraduate acceptance rates for every college at Cambridge:
Christ's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 813
Offers: 158
Acceptances: 121
Offer Rate: 19.4%
Acceptance Rate: 14.9%
Churchill College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 781
Offers: 179
Acceptances: 135
Offer Rate: 22.9%
Acceptance Rate: 17.3%
Clare College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 908
Offers: 175
Acceptances: 142
Offer Rate: 19.3%
Acceptance Rate: 15.6%
Corpus Christi College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 541
Offers: 119
Acceptances: 82
Offer Rate: 22.0%
Acceptance Rate: 15.2%
Downing College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,032
Offers: 162
Acceptances: 128
Offer Rate: 15.7%
Acceptance Rate: 12.4%
Emmanuel College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 860
Offers: 162
Acceptances: 139
Offer Rate: 18.8%
Acceptance Rate: 16.2%
Fitzwilliam College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 787
Offers: 184
Acceptances: 143
Offer Rate: 23.4%
Acceptance Rate: 18.2%
Girton College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 647
Offers: 180
Acceptances: 139
Offer Rate: 27.8%
Acceptance Rate: 21.5%
Gonville and Caius College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 822
Offers: 193
Acceptances: 147
Offer Rate: 23.5%
Acceptance Rate: 17.9%
Homerton College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 950
Offers: 212
Acceptances: 171
Offer Rate: 22.3%
Acceptance Rate: 18.0%
Hughes Hall Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 324
Offers: 73
Acceptances: 54
Offer Rate: 22.5%
Acceptance Rate: 16.7%
Jesus College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 964
Offers: 147
Acceptances: 141
Offer Rate: 15.3%
Acceptance Rate: 14.6%
King's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 921
Offers: 156
Acceptances: 126
Offer Rate: 16.9%
Acceptance Rate: 13.7%
Lucy Cavendish College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 689
Offers: 190
Acceptances: 146
Offer Rate: 27.6%
Acceptance Rate: 21.2%
Magdalene College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 539
Offers: 122
Acceptances: 100
Offer Rate: 22.6%
Acceptance Rate: 18.6%
Murray Edwards College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 417
Offers: 163
Acceptances: 110
Offer Rate: 39.1%
Acceptance Rate: 26.4%
Newnham College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 651
Offers: 168
Acceptances: 121
Offer Rate: 25.8%
Acceptance Rate: 18.6%
Pembroke College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,043
Offers: 162
Acceptances: 126
Offer Rate: 15.5%
Acceptance Rate: 12.1%
Peterhouse Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 438
Offers: 103
Acceptances: 84
Offer Rate: 19.2%
Acceptance Rate: 17.4%
Robinson College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 553
Offers: 141
Acceptances: 120
Offer Rate: 25.5%
Acceptance Rate: 21.7%
Selwyn College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 765
Offers: 162
Acceptances: 121
Offer Rate: 21.2%
Acceptance Rate: 15.8%
Sidney Sussex College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 591
Offers: 137
Acceptances: 107
Offer Rate: 23.2%
Acceptance Rate: 18.1%
St Catharine's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 754
Offers: 170
Acceptances: 141
Offer Rate: 22.6%
Acceptance Rate: 18.7%
St Edmund's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 295
Offers: 74
Acceptances: 54
Offer Rate: 25.1%
Acceptance Rate: 18.3%
St John's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,188
Offers: 218
Acceptances: 159
Offer Rate: 18.4%
Acceptance Rate: 13.4%
Trinity College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,397
Offers: 261
Acceptances: 197
Offer Rate: 18.7%
Acceptance Rate: 14.1%
Trinity Hall Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 590
Offers: 133
Acceptances: 105
Offer Rate: 22.5%
Acceptance Rate: 17.8%
Wolfson College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 291
Offers: 58
Acceptances: 50
Offer Rate: 19.9%
Acceptance Rate: 17.2%
How To Choose You Cambridge College
We’ve seen the statistics, so now it’s time to think about how they can inform your college selection process.
This guide provides extensive statistical insights, but your choice of college shouldn’t be determined solely by what we’ve covered here. While admissions statistics can help you understand the competitiveness of each college, using them to try and apply strategically generally isn’t going to improve your chances of success by a significant degree.Â
While it’s helpful to know this information—particularly if you’re considering smaller colleges—it shouldn’t overly influence your decision. So, what factors should take priority in your choice? Here are the top considerations we recommend when selecting your college:
- Subject Availability: Not all Cambridge colleges offer every course, so it’s essential to ensure that the colleges you’re considering provide your desired subject. Additionally, while all colleges maintain Cambridge’s world-class teaching standards, some are recognised for particular strengths in specific disciplines.
- Location: Although all Cambridge colleges are situated within the city, their locations can vary in terms of proximity to the city center. Most colleges are clustered close to one another, but some, like Homerton and Girton, are situated in the outskirts. While colleges located in the city center are more convenient for attending classes, those on the periphery offer a quieter atmosphere with larger grounds, which some students find appealing.
- Accommodation: Accommodation is a crucial factor to consider in two main ways. First, you should evaluate the types of rooms available, as some colleges offer more modern, contemporary accommodations, while others may provide rooms with historic charm but potentially fewer modern amenities. Additionally, it's important to check the duration of accommodation guarantees, as some colleges only provide housing for part of your degree, while others may offer rooms for the entire duration of your studies.
- Atmosphere: Cambridge is known for its diversity, with each college often developing its own unique reputation. While these stereotypes are not always accurate, some colleges are associated with particular political or cultural leanings, such as being more conservative or liberal. It can be helpful to research these reputations and consider whether they align with your own values and personality before making your choice.
- Food: All Cambridge colleges offer excellent food that caters to various dietary needs, but some are particularly well-known for the quality of their catering. Many colleges boast about having the best food on campus, so it can be helpful to look at menus or read reviews from current students to get a better idea of whether the food options align with your tastes.
We’ve explored a lot of this information for all 35 Cambridge colleges in our dedicated Cambridge Colleges Guide, so be sure to check it out if you want to learn more about which college will suit you best.Â
That wraps up our guide to Cambridge College Acceptance Rates. We hope this has helped you gain a clearer understanding of your chances at each college and has equipped you to start researching your ideal place of study.
Less than 17% of Cambridge applicants were offered a place, but we got 57% of our students into Oxbridge.
To have the best chance of being admitted into your Cambridge college of choice, enrol on an Oxbridge Programme to receive world-leading support for your application. Every one of our students has access to comprehensive resources, one-to-one tuition sessions, intensive courses and more, all designed to drastically increase your chances of success.Â
Discover our Oxbridge Programme by clicking the button below to learn how you can enrol and triple your chances of success.
