Guides · Updated 4 November 2026

List of Cambridge Colleges for Applicants: Courses, Size and Offer Rates

The University of Cambridge has 29 undergraduate colleges that admit students, provide accommodation for at least three years, and organise small-group supervisions (University of Cambridge Undergraduate Study). Two colleges admit women only (Murray Edwards and Newnham), and three admit only mature students aged 21 or over (Hughes Hall, St Edmund's and Wolfson). Across all 29 colleges in the 2023 admissions cycle, Cambridge received 21,445 applications and made 4,553 offers, an overall offer rate of 21.2% by our calculation from the Cambridge Undergraduate Admissions Statistics.

All 29 Undergraduate Cambridge Colleges (A to Z List)

Every Cambridge undergraduate belongs to both the central University and one of the 29 undergraduate colleges. The University designs courses, delivers lectures and practicals, sets examinations and awards degrees. Your college handles your admissions process, provides accommodation for almost all students for at least three years, offers pastoral care and organises your small-group teaching sessions, called supervisions.

AdmitMock is an AI mock interview app for Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL and US college alumni interviews: an AI interviewer asks the questions out loud, follows up, and shows you what to fix.

Two additional Cambridge colleges, Clare Hall and Darwin College, appear on University-wide lists of 31 colleges alongside the 29 undergraduate colleges below. As an undergraduate applicant, you can choose from these 29 colleges on your UCAS form:

• Christ's College
• Churchill College
• Clare College
• Corpus Christi College
• Downing College
• Emmanuel College
• Fitzwilliam College
• Girton College
• Gonville & Caius College
• Homerton College
• Hughes Hall (mature students aged 21+ only)
• Jesus College
• King's College
• Lucy Cavendish College
• Magdalene College
• Murray Edwards College (women only)
• Newnham College (women only)
• Pembroke College
• Peterhouse
• Queens' College
• Robinson College
• Selwyn College
• Sidney Sussex College
• St Catharine's College
• St Edmund's College (mature students aged 21+ only)
• St John's College
• Trinity College
• Trinity Hall
• Wolfson College (mature students aged 21+ only)

Cambridge College Admissions Statistics and Our Computed Offer Rates

On average across all subjects, Cambridge receives about six applications per place. In the 2023 admissions cycle (for entry in October 2023 or deferred entry in 2024, published June 2024), the University recorded 21,445 applications, 4,553 offers and 3,557 acceptances across all 29 undergraduate colleges. The male to female ratio of accepted students was 50:50, and 72.6% of accepted Home students from UK schools attended maintained schools.

The table below shows total applications, offers and acceptances for every college from the official 2023 cycle report, alongside our computed offer rate and acceptance rate for each college. Note that the official report records applications, offers and acceptances against the applicant's first-choice college (or allocated college for open applicants), regardless of later transfers through the inter-college pool. You can also filter multi-year data by college and course on the University's Microsoft Power BI application and admissions statistics dashboard.

Age and Gender Restrictions: Mature and Women-Only Colleges

Before you shortlist colleges, check that you meet their age and gender rules. Two undergraduate colleges accept applications from women only: Murray Edwards College and Newnham College. The personal details section of your UCAS application asks for your gender identity, and your response determines whether Murray Edwards and Newnham can consider your application. This also applies if you submit an open application or if your application is placed into the pool after your interview. You can read each college's specific policy on the Murray Edwards and Newnham websites.

All 29 undergraduate colleges accept applications from mature students (defined as aged 21 or over at the start of the course). However, three colleges accept only mature students: Hughes Hall, St Edmund's College and Wolfson College. (In a 2019 University financial support report, Lucy Cavendish was also noted as a mature college at that time, though current admissions rules list only Hughes Hall, St Edmund's and Wolfson as mature-only.) The application deadline for the Foundation Year and for mature students is 13 January 2027 at 6pm UK time.

How Entry Requirements, Written Work and Interviews Vary by College

Every college follows the same overall admissions timeline, and you complete the same extra online form, My Cambridge Application, after submitting UCAS. However, individual colleges set different subject rules and assessments for the exact same degree. Before picking a college, check your specific course page on the University website and the college's own pages for six differences:

• Whether the college offers your course: not every college admits students for every degree.
• Subject and grade requirements: colleges can ask for specific high school or sixth form subjects, an A* (or equivalent) in a particular subject, or a higher college minimum offer for your course.
• Written College admission assessments and submitted work: some colleges require you to sit a written College admission assessment or send in essays or a portfolio after you apply, while others do not.
• Interview format: each college sets its own interview format, either online or in-person. Look through our guide to what to expect at a Cambridge interview and our guide to the Oxbridge online interview setup once you know your college's format.
• Qualifications and resit policies: colleges hold different attitudes toward exams taken in different sittings, exam resits, gap years, applying after completing school, applying from another university, or starting your course under the age of 18.
• Reapplications: if you are reapplying after an unsuccessful application, Cambridge recommends applying to a different college. If you want to apply to the same college again, contact their admissions office first to check they will accept it.

Direct Applications vs Open Applications and the Pool

On your UCAS form, you can either name one specific college or submit an open application. If you submit an open application, your application is allocated to a college. Once you have chosen a college or been allocated to one, you cannot ask to transfer to another. If you make an open application, you also cannot ask to be reallocated to a college with a different interview format. You must interview in the format (online or in-person) set by your allocated college.

Cambridge recommends shortlisting around 3 to 5 colleges and applying directly to one if it suits your preferences, course requirements or access needs. Whether you apply directly or make an open application, your college may release your application after interviews for review by other colleges. This is called pooling applicants. Because of the pool, you can receive an offer from a college you did not originally apply to. Cambridge also runs an August reconsideration pool after exam results are released. To get ready for your December interviews regardless of which college interviews you, use our 4-week Oxbridge interview preparation plan.

Step-by-Step Checklist: How to Shortlist 3 to 5 Colleges

Instead of picking a college based on raw application numbers alone, use this 6-step checklist written by our team from Cambridge's official college selection guidance to narrow the 29 colleges down to one choice:

• Step 1: Filter by course, age and gender. Cross off any college that does not offer your course, and apply the mature (21+) and women-only rules.
• Step 2: Check subject and A* rules on your course page. Remove any college that requires an A-level or IB subject you are not taking, or that sets a higher minimum offer than you want to target.
• Step 3: Compare written work and College assessments. Check whether your shortlisted colleges set an extra written College admission assessment or ask for submitted school essays.
• Step 4: Confirm the interview format. Check whether each college interviews online or in-person, and review common question styles in our guide to Cambridge interview questions.
• Step 5: Check building access and disability support. If you have a disability or specific access needs, check the Disability Services building access guide and contact your shortlisted colleges to confirm what adjustments they offer before applying.
• Step 6: Compare accommodation and rules on living out. Visit your remaining 3 to 5 college websites (or take the virtual tour) to compare room types, rent costs, sports facilities, whether the college allows living outside college accommodation, and rules on paid work during term time.

Accommodation, Tuition Fees and College Financial Support

Your college is where you live, eat and socialise. While Tuition Fees are set centrally (£10,050 for Home fee status students starting their first undergraduate degree in 2027, or 15% of the full fee during a full year abroad), accommodation rents and living costs are billed directly by your college each term. Because Cambridge terms are short and academically intense, students are usually only permitted to undertake a very limited amount of paid work during term time. In a University survey of 776 bursary holders, 77.4% of the 84 students who worked during term time worked 1 to 4 hours per week.

Financial support comes from both the central University and your individual college. Under the Cambridge Bursary Scheme (CBS), eligible Home students receive up to £3,500 per year of non-repayable support based on household income, and care leavers can receive up to £8,350 per year. You do not need to apply separately for the Cambridge Bursary: eligibility is assessed automatically via your UK Student Finance application, even if you do not take out a loan.

On top of the Cambridge Bursary, individual colleges award their own grants, bursaries and prizes for books, equipment, academic travel, vacation residence and unforeseen financial hardship. For example, Selwyn College's published undergraduate financial support guide shows how a college credits awards directly to your termly College Bill: all first-year Selwyn undergraduates receive a £100 Elgar Matriculation Book and Equipment Grant, third-year students receive a £300 Finalists' Grant, and Selwyn students on a full Cambridge Bursary receive an extra £150 book grant, a £180 energy cost grant, up to 14 nights of Easter vacation residence rent credits, and six free Formal Hall tickets per year (worth £90). When comparing your 3 to 5 shortlisted colleges, check each college's fees and funding page for its specific grants.

Home School Types and Neighbourhood Statistics by College

Applicants often worry about whether a college admits students from their school type or region. Cambridge publishes full breakdowns by college in its annual statistics report and on its Power BI dashboard. Across the whole University in the 2023 cycle, 94.4% of accepted Home applicants with three or more A Levels achieved A*AA or better (while 5,022 unsuccessful Home applicants also achieved A*AA or better).

Among Home applicants from UK schools and colleges in the 2023 cycle, the University-wide maintained sector share of acceptances was 72.6% (1,895 maintained acceptances vs 716 independent acceptances). Across the all-age colleges in Table 2.3 of the 2023 cycle report, the proportion of Home UK-school acceptances from maintained schools ranged from 52.7% at Trinity (68 of 129 Home UK-school acceptances) and 61.0% at Emmanuel (75 of 123) up to 83.6% at Fitzwilliam (92 of 110), 86.7% at King's (91 of 105) and 93.7% at Lucy Cavendish (89 of 95).

If you want to explore exam results once students are at Cambridge, you may hear students mention the Tompkins Table, an unofficial ranking compiled by the student newspaper Varsity. Because it is unofficial, it does not appear in Cambridge's admissions statistics or play any role in how colleges assess your application. Focus your college research on the official course pages, assessment rules and accommodation details instead.

Practise your interview out loud on AdmitMock.

Practice question

Question in this style (written by our team): Why have you applied for this course at Cambridge, and what part of the first-year syllabus are you most looking forward to exploring in supervisions?

Example written by our team. The applicant is invented. 'I applied for History and Politics because I want to test political theory against primary historical evidence rather than studying them in isolation. In Part I, I am most excited to discuss the Evidence and Argument paper in supervisions, especially how we weigh conflicting archival sources when state records were deliberately censored.'

Cambridge interviews focus on your academic subject rather than trivia about your chosen college. Answering a warm-up question by naming a specific Part I paper and a concrete academic problem gives the interviewers an immediate thread to follow up on.

AdmitMock is not affiliated with Oxford, Cambridge or any other university.