How can i get into cambridge

Standalone Foundation Year programmes can provide appropriate preparation for some arts courses at the University of Cambridge. However, they're generally less appropriate for those making an application in the sciences. Prospective applicants are advised to consult a College admissions office at an early stage, providing full details of their Foundation Year programme, in order to ensure that it will be adequate to meet the requirements of the course they wish to study.

One of the strengths of the Cambridge admissions system is its ability to assess all applicants individually. Our research shows that post examination performance is a much better predictor of degree success at Cambridge. Typical offers usually require scores between 40 and 42 points out of 45, with in Higher Level subjects. Applicants may be required to achieve 7 in a particular subject s , depending on individual circumstances.

If this option is not available at your school, please contact the College that you wish to apply to directly for further advice and guidance. If the qualification you're taking isn't listed here, please see our I nternational qualifications page. Offers are based on achievement in Higher Level subjects, with H1 in subjects most relevant to the course. For advice about suitable subject choices see course requirements. Please note that for these purposes, Highers will satisfy AS Level subject requirements, and Advanced Highers will satisfy A Level subject requirements.

If you're studying towards a Scottish Baccalaureate qualification, you're expected to offer three Advanced Highers as part of it. NB: We recognise that the Scottish secondary school sector is undergoing significant curriculum reform. Please see the University's admissions policy statement on Curriculum for Excellence for information.

T-Levels are not considered appropriate preparation for the Cambridge Engineering degree and are therefore not accepted for entry. Applicants with a mix of qualifications should contact a College admissions office for advice. Potential applicants taking these qualifications are advised to seek further advice from a College Admissions Tutor as early as possible.

For students taking the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate, offers are conditional on three A Level subjects studied as options for the Advanced Diploma. The Skills Challenge may be taken into consideration in assessment for admission, but would not normally be included as part of an offer.

Students taking any modular A Levels are required to provide details of these and their UMS as part of the application process. If English isn't your first language and you're being taught in a Welsh-medium school, you should also refer to the information on our English language requirements and the guidance on interviews. Any examples of written work you submit if required must be in English whether translated into or originally written in English.

We regularly receive applications from and admit Welsh students, including students whose first and main language is Welsh. If you have any queries about our entry requirements or admissions process, you're welcome to contact the admissions office of a Cambridge College. Participant data and booking policies. Teachers and Parents. International students. Disabled students. Mature students. Care leavers and estranged students. Search site. International students Continuing education Executive and professional education Courses in education.

Research at Cambridge. Home Applying. Are there any restrictions? Can I join when I arrive at Cambridge? Application timeline Pooled applicants What will happen at the audition? Aural tests for choral award auditions Open day and finding out more Cambridge Choral Experience Instrumental awards Instrumental awards overview What instruments are eligible?

What happens at the audition? How do I apply? Organ scholarships Organ scholarships overview College vacancies and course restrictions When are the auditions and interviews? What do the Organ Trials involve? What do interviews involve? His home country is a poor one, not known for its education system. One of the women says: "I would take him and keep a close eye on his progress. He might need a boost in confidence.

Next up is a girl from a leading private school, who was strong on paper but stumbled at interview. Partington suggests: "One possibility is that she's someone who's learned in a compartmentalised way. Another tutor says: "The comment I've put down is: 'Needed help with next steps.

Partington wonders aloud if tutors can lead a student through an entire degree. Both Oxford and Cambridge are regularly accused of bias against state school applicants — most famously, in the case of Laura Spence , the girl from Tyneside who was refused a place at Magdalen College, Oxford, more than a decade ago. At present, that proportion is The university has also agreed with the Office for Fair Access — an official watchdog set up when the Blair government brought in top-up fees — to increase the share of students from neighbourhoods where few people have gone to university.

Churchill College is a low-rise modernist stack on the edge of the city centre, a series of interlocking brick cubes. It does better on state-school intake than Cambridge as a whole.

This is partly because of its reputation for science, which attracts more state school pupils. In its prospectus , the college is described as having a "friendly, unpretentious social atmosphere". It is certainly not as physically daunting as some of the grand and ancient buildings in the city centre.

But even here, the surroundings speak of wealth and intimacy with power; the sketches on the walls are by Winston Churchill, the floor is teak and the room is panelled with another glossy tropical hardwood. The phrase "a good school" comes up repeatedly in the tutors' discussions. It is used most frequently about private and grammar schools, but also some comprehensive schools, and has a double meaning.

It is a school that knows what Cambridge requires, where the school reference is delivered in the terms the university is looking for — the key phrases are ones that emphasise superlative performance compared with their age group: "He [or she] is best in … he is top of …" But when a candidate comes from "a good school" they are also cut less slack. The Sutton Trust , the charity that aims to promote social mobility through education, blames the unequal outcomes between state and private candidates at university level on the poor exam performance of some schools.

That failure at school level becomes painfully apparent in the case of one of the Churchill candidates. She has had "unimaginable teaching difficulties", the tutors hear.

She has taken her A-levels at a school that has had a spectacularly high turnover of teachers. Peering at his laptop when her name is announced, Nick Cutler, an admissions tutor at Churchill, says there are "multiple flags". The flags are used to indicate factors such as poverty, or a school that performs very poorly at GCSE. There are six categories in all — including whether an applicant has spent time in care.

There is evidence that a strong candidate from a bad school is likely to perform well when they come to Cambridge. But the academics are concerned that in this case, the school has been so turbulent that she simply lacks essential knowledge. Her examination and interview marks are low. The rapid pace of Cambridge would "kill her", one of the academics says.

Another agrees: "I would really like to give her a place, but for her own sanity, she's much better going to one of the other redbrick, Russell Group universities, and just taking her time. Partington says: "If we gave her a chance she would do what everybody else would do, and think: 'I'll probably be all right' and she will probably be wrong. There is a despairing consensus around the table that the university cannot repair the gaps in this candidate's knowledge.

A damning line from the school's reference — which lays bare its inability to teach the candidate — is read aloud by a tutor who raises outstretched hands in exasperation. The candidate's file goes back into the trolley with a clang. Another candidate from a comprehensive school has four contextual data flags by her name. There is a note too about "teaching difficulties" — a physics teacher who left during the sixth form and a stand-in for chemistry.

This is an easier case — her interview scores are high, an eight and a seven out of One of the academics reviews her "flags": "She's got low socio-economic, low-performing GCSE, low Oxbridge — she's nearly got the full set. There is another girl from a comprehensive school who got an eight at interview, but one academic exclaims: "Blooming heck, her GCSE score was terrible. Partington decides to make an offer but to set the hurdle high because of the doubts. The tutors are divided about this — there is a feeling she has already been stretched thin in a "school that's not great".

But they decide this will not be an entrance requirement. She just needs a little more fluency in maths to cope at university. But, you're also clever enough to realise that there are ways that you can improve your chances of getting in.

In this podcast episode and blog post I'm going to give you some top tips on how to increase your chances of getting into Oxbridge. In episode 52 of the podcast I talked about when to start a UCAS application , and the necessity of thinking and planning ahead, particularly if you're aiming for a top university like Oxford or Cambridge. This is important on several fronts:. My first advice to any student who asks me what they should do with their life, is to always follow their greatest passions and their greatest talents.

You're more likely to excel when you do something that you love and are naturally good at it. When I was applying to university, my dream was to go to Cambridge. There were lots of different subjects that I would have been more than happy to study, but I wanted to maximise my chances of going to Cambridge.

This meant choosing geography, which was a subject that I loved and was very good at. But, it was also a subject that was less competitive to get a place for than my other top choice, English Literature. In Oxford's Annual Admissions Statistical Report, , they list the courses with the most applicants per place as follows:. From this list, you can see that there were half the number of applicants per place for mathematics than there are for economics and management.

My suggestion here would be to look at your motivation for choosing a particular course. For instance, if you want to study economics and management to get a career in the City of London in banking, accountancy or the like, you're likely to be just as successful, and in some cases, more in demand, with the maths degree.

Most of the maths graduates I know have ended up in that kind of career and are highly in demand because of their highly quantitative skills and their ability to create complex computer models. So, if you have the skills and aptitude and getting into Oxford is important to you, then choose maths over economics and management.

Similarly, for Cambridge, their admissions reports show the success rates of applicants to each specific course. In , applicants to study classics had a You need to be very aware of these odds when you're applying so that you can set your expectations accordingly. You can also compare courses between the universities.