Cambridge Acceptance Rates by College

A common question we receive from students is, 'Which Cambridge college is the easiest to get into?' Colleges 'pull' students at interview stage in order to ensure an equal number of interview candidates per place at each college, and if, after interviewing their candidates, a college feels like they interviewed a surplus or deficit of capable candidates, they will send candidates to or request candidates from other colleges for a further round of interviews, in order to ensure each Cambridge college is equally difficult to get into. As such, the short answer to our opening question is 'none of them.'

Consequently, we recommend that students take the time to learn about each college, and apply to the one that most appeals to them, accepting the fact that they may end up at a different college instead if they apply to a more popular college.

However, it can be worth knowing which the more popular colleges are. For one thing, it informs you of your likelihood of being pulled to a different college, and also, it could be argued that the most popular colleges attract a higher calibre of student, and so, even if you are up against the same number of candidates per place, the standard is higher, making it harder to gain an offer.

For this reason, we have analysed statistics from 2024 to bring you the breakdown: how many applications does each college receive, and how many offers do they give out?

Number of applications and offers with offer rates by Cambridge college, 2024

College	Applications	Offers	Offer Rate
Christ's	774	156	20.2%
Churchill	827	203	24.5%
Clare	952	176	18.5%
Corpus Christi	535	122	22.8%
Downing	1046	161	15.4%
Emmanuel	848	161	19.0%
Fitzwilliam	696	181	26.0%
Girton	621	182	29.3%
Gonville and Caius	1181	215	18.2%
Homerton	853	230	27.0%
Hughes Hall	321	89	27.7%
Jesus	883	164	18.6%
King's	762	154	20.2%
Lucy Cavendish	669	193	28.8%
Magdalene	550	133	24.2%
Murray Edwards	413	169	40.9%
Newnham	607	154	25.4%
Pembroke	970	157	16.2%
Peterhouse	487	114	23.4%
Queens'	888	194	21.8%
Robinson	586	153	26.1%
St Catharine's	705	157	22.3%
St Edmund's	289	81	28.0%
St John's	1409	221	15.7%
Selwyn	839	155	18.5%
Sidney Sussex	555	137	24.7%
Trinity	1612	268	16.6%
Trinity Hall	602	135	22.4%
Wolfson	310	57	18.4%

As you can see, some colleges have offer rates much lower than those of other colleges. Downing (15.4%), St John's (15.7%), Pembroke (16.2%), and Trinity (16.6%) are the most competitive, while Murray Edwards (40.9%), Girton (29.3%), Lucy Cavendish (28.8%), and St Edmund's (28.0%) are the least competitive.

Now, before you send off your application to Murray Edwards, it is worth remembering that this reflects the offer rate for applications to the college, but many applicants to the more popular colleges will have been pulled to these other colleges, meaning that they will have sent out offers to students who did not apply to them, thus pushing up the offer rate. Furthermore, each college has a different makeup of courses, with varying levels of competitiveness. Therefore, a college may be more competitive than other college simply due to it making more offers for competitive courses, and so if you're applying for the same course at each then it makes no difference. One final point to note is that Murray Edwards and Newnham are female-only colleges, and so many candidates are ineligible to apply to them anyway.

And so, as observed at the beginning, while it may be useful to know how competitive each college is, the main factor in deciding which college to apply to should simply be the one that appeals to you the most.