How to get into Cambridge University

Cambridge Application Success Rates and Overview

Cambridge Application Success Rates and Overview

The University of Cambridge is among the most selective universities in the world, and its admissions data clearly reflects the level of competition involved in securing a place.

In 2024, University of Cambridge received 22,153 applications and issued 3,632 acceptances, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 16.4%. When you consider the fact that only 5% of UK students apply to Oxbridge each year, this one in six chance of acceptance appears particularly competitive.

The data shows a clear disparity between UK and international applicants. In 2024, the acceptance rate for non-UK applicants was 11%, highlighting the increased difficulty of acceptance for international students.

Most Competitive Courses at Cambridge (2024)

Competition varies considerably by subject. Some courses attract exceptionally high numbers of academically outstanding applicants, resulting in very low acceptance rates.

Course	Acceptance rate
Computer Science	7.6%
Psychological & Behavioural Sciences	8.6%
Economics	10.2%
Land Economy	11.6%
Engineering	12.1%
Architecture	12.2%

Computer Science remains the most competitive course, with fewer than 1 in 13 applicants securing a place. Economics, Engineering, and Architecture also continue to attract intense competition.

What This Means for Applicants

These figures highlight two key points:

• While Cambridge admissions are highly selective across many subjects, competition is particularly intense for STEM and social science courses.
• Strong academic grades alone are not sufficient. Successful applicants typically combine top grades with strong admissions test scores, outstanding interviews, and clear academic motivation demonstrated through their supercurricular subject engagement.

When planning a Cambridge application, it is essential to understand the level of competition for your chosen course and to prepare strategically across every part of the application process.

What Does Cambridge Consider in Its Selection Process?

The admissions process at University of Cambridge is designed to identify students with exceptional academic ability and the potential to excel in its intensive, supervision-based teaching system.

Cambridge’s approach is exclusively academic. Admissions tutors do not take into account students’ wider interests or achievements unless they directly relate to your aptitude for and engagement with your subject.

Rather than relying on any single metric, Cambridge considers each part of the application together to build a detailed picture of how you think, learn, and engage with your chosen discipline.

Grades in School Exams

Cambridge requires strong achieved or predicted grades at A-Level or equivalent. Typical offer levels are:

• A*A*A at A-Level for science-based subjects
• A*AA at A-Level for arts and humanities
• 40–42 points in the IB, with high scores in Higher Level subjects relevant to the course

Many subjects also require students to take particular subjects. For instance, Economics applicants are required to take Maths at A-Level / IB HL, whilst Psychological and Behavioural Sciences applicants need to take at least one of Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, or Physics.

Personal Statement

Your UCAS personal statement is a central component of the application. It should focus almost entirely on academic motivation and subject engagement, demonstrating why you want to study your chosen course and how you have explored it beyond the school curriculum.

As the same statement is sent to all the universities you are applying to through UCAS, you should not mention Cambridge by name.

References

Your teacher reference plays an important role in contextualising your application. Strong references typically highlight academic ability, work ethic, intellectual curiosity, and how you compare to peers studying similar courses.

Cambridge tutors rely on references to understand how you perform within your school environment, particularly where grading standards or subject availability vary.

My Cambridge Application form

After submitting your UCAS application, you will be asked to complete the My Cambridge Application form. This allows you to provide additional academic context, including details of your education and qualifications.

It also gives you the chance to write an extra, Cambridge-specific personal statement.

Admissions Tests

Many Cambridge courses require an admissions test, either pre-interview or at interview. These tests are designed to assess subject aptitude, problem-solving ability, and academic thinking under timed conditions.

Common tests include the UCAT for Medicine, LNAT for Law, TMUA for Economics and Computer Sciece, and ESAT for Natural Sciences.

Admissions test performance can carry significant weight, especially in highly competitive subjects such as Computer Science, Economics, and Engineering.

Written Work

For certain essay-based subjects, applicants may be asked to submit examples of written work. These must usually be pieces completed as part of normal schoolwork rather than essays written specifically for the application.

Interview

The stronger applicants from the initial stages are shortlisted for interview. Unlike Oxford, where fewer than half of applicants are invited to interview, at Cambridge, roughly two-thirds of candidates are interviewed.

Cambridge interviews are conducted by subject specialists and are focused entirely on an academic discussion of your chosen course. You may be asked to:

• Explore ideas raised in your personal statement
• Respond to unfamiliar problems or texts
• Think aloud and explain your reasoning as you work through questions

Interviews typically take place in December, around two months after the October UCAS deadline. Your performance is scored on a scale of 1-10 and considered alongside all other elements of your application before final offer decisions are made.

How to Apply to Cambridge

All applications to University of Cambridge are made through UCAS, the centralised application system for UK universities. Through UCAS, you can apply to up to five universities in a single cycle (or four for Medicine). Our guide to UK university applications contains more information on the UCAS process.

You can only apply to one of Oxford or Cambridge in the same application cycle, so it is essential to research both universities carefully and decide which suits you better before applying. Our guide comparing Oxford and Cambridge is a useful starting point.

Important: You submit one UCAS application which is sent to all your chosen universities. For this reason, you should not refer to Cambridge by name in your personal statement or reference. The later stages of the process – such as admissions tests, the My Cambridge Questionnaire, and interviews – are handled by Cambridge alone.

Application Timeline

Cambridge follows an earlier admissions timetable than most UK universities.

• Mid-October (usually 15 October): UCAS application deadline
• October–November: Admissions tests (depending on course; registration is required in advance)
• October–November: Submission of the My Cambridge Questionnaire (MCQ)
• December: Interviews
• January: Decisions released

Given these deadlines, preparation needs to begin well in advance. If you are aiming to start at Cambridge in October 2027, you should ideally be preparing your application from spring 2026 at the latest.

Selecting Your Course and College

Choosing Your Course

Your choice of course is perhaps the most important decision in the entire application process, as it will affect what you write about in your personal statement and whether you have an admissions test to prepare for.

Cambridge courses are academically demanding and often highly specialised, so you should study the course page in detail before applying. Key aspects to consider include:

• Course structure: core papers and optional modules
• Teaching style: lectures, supervisions, lab work, problem sheets, or essays
• Assessment methods: exams, coursework, or practical assessments
• Entry requirements: required subjects and admissions tests

Cambridge tutors are looking for students with clear academic motivation, intellectual curiosity, and the ability to engage deeply with their subject. Choosing a course you are genuinely excited by is essential.

Choosing a College

Once you have chosen your course, you can either apply to a specific college or make an open application. An open application means you are allocated to a college with availability for your subject.

Your college choice does not affect the degree you receive, but colleges differ in:

• Location within Cambridge
• Accommodation
• Size and community atmosphere
• Facilities such as libraries, music rooms, or sports provision
• Architecture – is it a modern college or a medieval one?
• Ethos – some colleges have a particularly academic focus, while others are more broad-based

If possible, visiting Cambridge and exploring different colleges can be extremely helpful. Colleges usually welcome prospective students to come and look around, and they also run open days (usually in the summer), with a  guided tour and the chance to meet supervisors in your subject. Booking in advance is usually required for open days.

Colleges aim to ensure that applicants are not disadvantaged by their choice, and strong candidates may be pooled to another college if their chosen college is oversubscribed.

Get Help Deciding

For personalised advice on subject choice, college selection, and how to optimise your application strategy, many students choose to speak with Oxbridge graduates who understand the process from the inside.

Book a private consultation to benefit from their expert, personal advice.

Writing Your Personal Statement

Once you have selected your course and college, you can begin working on your UCAS personal statement.

The personal statement consists of responses to three questions:

1. Why do you want to study this course or subject?
2. How have your qualifications and studies prepared you?
3. What else have you done to prepare outside education?

You have 4,000 characters in total to answer these three questions,

Your focus should be overwhelmingly academic. Cambridge tutors want to see sustained engagement with your subject beyond the school syllabus, such as wider reading, independent projects, or super-curricular exploration.

Don’t mention Cambridge explicitly in your personal statement, as the same statement is sent to all your UCAS choices. You have the chance to write an extra, Cambridge-specific personal statement in the My Cambridge Application form.

Get Extra Support

At Dukes Plus, we provide exceptional Cambridge personal statement support to help students meet Cambridge’s standards. Our support includes a package of four reviews of your statement from our senior consultancy team of Oxbridge graduates, or our comprehensive Personal Statement Workshop.

Securing Strong References

Your teacher reference is a vital part of your application and provides academic context that grades alone cannot convey. To maximise its effectiveness:

• Choose wisely: Your referee should know you well and ideally teach you in a relevant subject.
• Provide context: Explain what you are applying for and why, and remind them of key academic achievements or contributions.
• Plan ahead: Give your referee plenty of time to write a detailed and thoughtful reference.

Remember that references are shared with all your UCAS choices, so they should not mention Cambridge specifically.

Submitting the My Cambridge Application form

After submitting your UCAS application, Cambridge will invite you to complete the My Cambridge Application form. This allows you to provide additional academic information, including:

• Details of your education and qualifications
• Information about admissions test preparation
• Contextual or mitigating circumstances, where relevant

As part of the My Cambridge Application form, you can also submit an extra personal statement. This is optional, but it is a good idea to do so if you are applying for a course only offered by Cambridge, as you can include more specific information about your interest in and understanding of this subject which you couldn’t in your main UCAS personal statement.

Cambridge Admissions Tests

Many Cambridge courses require an admissions test, either taken before interview or at interview. These tests are designed to assess subject aptitude, problem-solving ability, and academic potential.

Key points to note:

• Check test requirements for your chosen course before you apply
• Registration deadlines often fall before the UCAS deadline
• You need to prepare for admissions tests as the academic standard will be beyond the school curriculum. Practising past papers and working under timed conditions is essential.

Strong performance in admissions tests can significantly strengthen your application, particularly for highly competitive subjects.

If you need more help preparing for the test, consider our Cambridge admissions test support – 1-1 lessons from Oxbridge-graduate tutors who specialise in your subject. Our average student improves their score by 20% after just 4 hours of tutoring.

Cambridge Interviews

The top 65-70% of applicants from the earlier rounds are shortlisted for interview. Interview invitations are typically issued between November and early December.

What Are Interviews Like?

Our in-depth guide to Oxbridge interviews contains more information and tips, but to summarise:

• Interviews are focused on the subject you are applying for. You won’t be asked about, and interviews won’t want to hear about, your other achievements or interests.
• They mostly take place online via video call, though some colleges (for some subjects) still interview in person at the college
• They are 35-45 minutes long each, and are conducted by an Oxford academic or panel of academics who specialise in your subject
• Candidates will usually have 2-3 interviews in total
• Question types may include:
  • Questions about what you wrote in your personal statement
  • Questions about your motivation for studying this course
  • ‘Unseen’ questions (e.g. asking you to respond to an unseen poem for English or to tackle an unseen problem for Maths)
  • Abstract questions (e.g. ‘What would happen if gravity suddenly disappeared?’ (Physics) or ‘If we abolished all laws tomorrow, would anyone benefit? ‘ (Law, Politics))

You can read real Cambridge interview questions here, divided by subject.

Your aim is not to immediately give the ‘right’ answer or to recite memorised responses, but to show that you can approach challenging questions in a thoughtful way and respond to suggestions from your interviewers.

How to Prepare

You should start preparing before you receive your invitation to interview, as otherwise you will only have a month or less in lead-up time:

• Re-read your personal statement thoroughly – then read beyond it (e.g. if you wrote about a particular historian’s work, read more of their work, or read historians who disagree with them)
• Watch relevant recordings of lectures  / listen to podcasts by academics on your chosen subject
• For STEM subjects, practise solving advanced problems beyond your school syllabus
• Practise speaking about your subject and your specific interests – with a teacher, tutor, friend, or parent
• Do mock interviews – Dukes Plus offers packages of mock interviews and interview tutoring with Oxbridge-graduate tutors and former admissions tutors (the very academics who have interviewed Oxford candidates as part of the admissions process), plus in-depth feedback to improve your performance

How to Increase Your Chances of Getting into Cambridge

We have outlined how the Cambridge application process works and what admissions tutors consider when making decisions. The next step is to understand how you can actively strengthen your application and improve your chances of receiving an offer.

The Benefit of Top Grades

Strong academic performance in school exams remains one of the most reliable indicators of success in the Cambridge admissions process.

UK students who achieved three A*s at A-Level had a 43% acceptance rate in 2024. For those who achieved three As, that figure was just 7%.

Two important caveats apply:

• Students with stronger grades generally have higher underlying academic attainment and therefore perform better across admissions tests and interviews as well.
• Many applicants apply with predicted grades, but Cambridge will still see and consider these predictions carefully.

Despite this, the conclusion is clear: consistent academic excellence throughout Year 12 and strong predicted grades materially improve your chances.

Confirmed results, such as GCSEs or equivalent qualifications, also carry weight. These provide admissions tutors with concrete evidence of past performance and are often used for fine distinctions between strong candidates.

Strategic Course Selection

As discussed earlier, levels of competition vary significantly between Cambridge courses. The acceptance rate for Computer Science is 7%, while it’s more than 50% for Modern and Medieval Languages.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should switch from Computer Science to Languages just to try to game the system.

But what about courses where there is more crossover? Human, Social, and Political Sciences is on the competitive side, with an acceptance rate below 14%, while History & Politics (a newer course) has an acceptance rate of 21.9%.

Where courses do have some similarity in content, it is sensible to:

• Compare acceptance rates and applicant numbers
• Examine differences in course structure and assessment
• Reflect carefully on which subject best aligns with your strengths and interests

You must be prepared to justify your choice convincingly, both in your personal statement and at interview, and to demonstrate substantial engagement with the specific course you have applied for.

Remember that Cambridge tutors will assess your academic motivation closely, especially at interview, and lack of genuine subject interest will be obvious.

Strategic College Selection

Some Cambridge colleges are more oversubscribed than others, often due to location, size, or reputation. While there may be a small marginal advantage to applying to a less popular college, Cambridge operates a pooling system to ensure that strong candidates are not disadvantaged by college choice.

For example:

Strong candidate A has applied to competitive college Z to study a course with 10 places. Out of 100 applicants, A is the 11^th best, so college Z can’t offer them a place.

A less strong candidate, B, has applied to less competitive college Y for the same course. Y has 5 places and out of 20 applicants, B is the 5^th best.

However, B does not receive an offer! Oxford pools candidate A to college Y as they were a stronger applicant than candidate B.

In practice, this means that:

• Strong applicants to oversubscribed colleges may be reallocated to another college with capacity.
• Weaker applicants are unlikely to gain an advantage simply by choosing a less competitive college.

As a result, your primary consideration should be whether you would genuinely be happy living and studying at the college for three or four years.

The Importance of Interviews

One of the most important distinctions between Cambridge and Oxford lies in the relative weight placed on interviews.

At Oxford, only around 40% of applicants are shortlisted for interview, meaning that a large proportion of decisions are effectively made before interviews take place. By contrast, approximately 65–70% of Cambridge applicants are invited to interview.

This suggests that Cambridge places greater relative emphasis on interview performance when making final decisions.

Crucially, this means that:

• A weaker element elsewhere in your application (such as an admissions test or borderline grades) can, in some cases, be offset by an exceptional interview performance.
• Cambridge interviews are a genuine opportunity to demonstrate academic potential, intellectual flexibility, and how you think when challenged.

Knowing What Cambridge Are Looking For

There are a few common misconceptions about the application process and what Cambridge are looking for in candidates. Avoiding these will significantly advantage your application. Here are two key points to bear in mind:

1. Cambridge are only interested in your academics and specifically your academic attainment in your chosen course.
   
   If you’re applying for Maths, they’re not interested in whether you’re a good all-rounder who also likes English and History, let alone that you’re captain of the squash team or volunteer in your local charity shop.
   
   Your personal statement and interview should only focus on your interest and ability in Maths, and things you have done beyond the school curriculum to develop these.
2. Cambridge wants bright, teachable students, not know-it-alls.
   
   The interview is designed to assess whether you have the aptitude and character to thrive in Cambridge’s supervision system. Aptitude is clear enough – you need to be really good at your subject – but many students fail the character test.
   
   Interviewers want to see whether you can think on your feet and respond to hints and suggestions. If you’re tackling a Maths problem and the interviewer suggests that you look at it another way, don’t dig your heels in and act like you know best. You may want to look confident, but what the interviewer is testing is whether you can build on their guidance to arrive at (or get closer) to the solution, as this is exactly how they teach their students.
   
   The interviewer wants to see a student who would be a pleasure to teach in their supervisions over three or four years, not someone who is cocky, refuses to change their mind, and can’t adapt their thinking.

Start Preparing Early

Successful Cambridge applicants rarely leave preparation until the final months before applying. The strongest candidates typically begin developing subject depth from Year 11 or early Year 12.

Early preparation allows you to:

• Build sustained academic engagement rather than surface-level knowledge
• Explore your subject through wider reading, lectures, and independent study
• Practise admissions tests and interviews
• Develop clear academic interests that can be articulated naturally

This long-term engagement is far more convincing than last-minute preparation and puts you in a much stronger position for interviews in particular.

Get Extra Support

Applying to Cambridge is highly competitive, and even strong students can benefit from expert guidance. Our Cambridge application support is delivered by Oxbridge graduates and former admissions tutors, specialists in your subject with insider knowledge on the application process and how to stand out.

From help with your personal statement to admissions test tutoring and mock interviews, we can enhance your application at every stage. 73% of our Premier Service students receive an offer from Oxford or Cambridge.

To learn more, book a free consultation with our friendly team.

Applying to Cambridge FAQs

Navigating the Cambridge application process can raise many questions. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions that might clarify any uncertainties you have about applying to Cambridge.

What is the Cambridge acceptance rate?

The acceptance rate at Cambridge is highly competitive, reflecting the university’s rigorous selection process. While it varies by year and course, the overall acceptance rate hovers around 15-20%. This rate is indicative of the high calibre of applicants and the limited number of places available.

Is Cambridge a good university?

Cambridge is consistently ranked among the top universities globally, renowned for its academic excellence, distinguished faculty, and rich history. It offers a world-class education, extensive research opportunities, and a vibrant student life, making it an outstanding choice for higher education.

Is Cambridge a Russell Group / Ivy League university?

Cambridge is a founding member of the Russell Group, which represents 24 leading UK universities committed to maintaining the highest research and teaching standards. You can read our piece on the Russell Group unis ranked to find out where Cambridge places among the best Russell Group universities.

While the Ivy League refers to an American collegiate athletic conference, Cambridge shares similar prestige and academic excellence with these institutions.

How hard is it to get into Cambridge?

Admission to Cambridge is highly competitive, with the university looking for students who not only excel academically but also demonstrate intellectual curiosity, subject passion, and potential to contribute to the Cambridge community. Successful applicants typically have top grades, strong personal statements, and perform well in interviews and entrance exams.

Does Cambridge give contextual offers?

Cambridge is committed to widening participation and offers contextual admissions to eligible applicants. This means the university considers an applicant’s achievements in the context of their educational and personal background.