Cambridge’s acceptance rate for the 2025 entry cycle was 16.3%, which the university itself describes as about six applications per place. Your course can halve that rate, the winter pool quietly reshapes it, and college choice matters far less than most applicants believe. This article puts real numbers on all three, including Freedom of Information data that you will not find in the official reports. The Cambridge acceptance rate sits alongside Oxford’s in our full admissions statistics hub.
What Cambridge’s acceptance rate actually measures
Cambridge’s acceptance rate for the 2025 cycle is 16.3%: 3,669 students accepted from 22,513 applications. The university itself puts it more plainly: on average across all subjects, it receives about six applications per place. Both framings are true, and both hide the details that decide real applications.
As with any acceptance rate, check what is counted: applications (everyone who applied), offers (conditional and unconditional offers made), and acceptances (who took a place). On this page we use offers as a share of applications, the same definition as our Oxford and Cambridge admissions statistics. Cambridge admits a slightly larger share of applicants than Oxford does: our Oxford acceptance rate guide breaks the 14.2% down the same way, by course, college and domicile.
Cambridge adds a mechanism Oxford applicants never meet: the winter pool. Strong applicants whose first-choice college is full are pooled and can be picked up by other colleges. It is not a consolation prize. As the data below shows, a meaningful share of all offers are made this way.
How the acceptance rate has changed over five cycles
Applications surged through the pandemic cycles to a peak of 22,795 for 2021 entry, dipped to 21,445 for 2023, and have climbed back to 22,513 for 2025. Offers have grown more slowly than applications over the period, so the acceptance rate has come down from 19.6% in the 2020 cycle to 16.3% in 2025. The full year-by-year and course-level tables are in our admissions statistics hub.
For Mathematics the offer is the harder filter than the acceptance rate: all Colleges usually ask for grade 1 in two STEP papers alongside A*A*A.
Total undergraduate applications by UCAS cycle. Source: University of Cambridge Undergraduate Admissions Statistics reports, 2021 to 2025 cycles.
Acceptance rates by course
Course choice moves your odds more than anything else on this page, and subject-level rates vary enormously. The most competitive Cambridge courses run at half the university-wide rate or below:
| Course | Success Rate | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Computer Science | 7.4% |
| 2 | Engineering | 10.3% |
| 3 | Land Economy | 11.8% |
| 4 | Mathematics | 12.7% |
| 5 | Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology | 14.2% |
The biggest courses by application volume show where the competition concentrates:
| Course | Applications | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Engineering | 3,263 |
| 2 | Natural Sciences | 2,644 |
| 3 | Mathematics | 2,032 |
| 4 | Computer Science | 1,739 |
| 5 | Medicine | 1,530 |
For UK applicants specifically the ordering shifts slightly, with Economics entering the top tier at 11.1%, and most rates sit a touch higher than the all-applicant figures. The full course tables are in the statistics hub. If your course sits in the table above, the admissions test is the gate. Our ESAT and TMUA practice tests exist for exactly that reason, and our guides to what counts as a good ESAT score and a good TMUA score are built on individual-level Freedom of Information data.
Acceptance rates describe the field, not your chances. We take on a limited number of applicants each cycle and build the application around the student: statement, admissions test, interview.
Book a free consultationThe winter pool: Cambridge’s second chance, quantified
Most articles mention the pool; almost none put numbers on it. Freedom of Information requests reveal them. For Natural Sciences in the 2025 cycle (FOI 2025/1026):
- Biological: 1,160 applications
- 288 offers (24.8%)
- 60 offers via the pool
- Physical: 1,465 applications
- 384 offers (26.2%)
- 72 offers via the pool
Read that again: roughly one Natural Sciences offer in five came through the pool, and about a quarter of pooled applicants ended up with an offer. Being pooled is a live application, not a rejection letter in slow motion. It also means college-level tactics matter less than applicants fear, because the pool recirculates strong candidates.
Do colleges have different acceptance rates?
Yes, but mostly for reasons that should not drive your choice. Freedom of Information data for Economics 2023 entry (FOI 2023/812) shows how offer rates varied by college for a single course:
| College | Applications | Offers | Offer rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trinity | 105 | 16 | 15.2% |
| St John's | 72 | 11 | 15.3% |
| King's | 82 | 9 | 11.0% |
| Selwyn | 96 | 10 | 10.4% |
| Emmanuel | 58 | 6 | 10.3% |
| Jesus | 58 | 5 | 8.6% |
| Hughes Hall (mature) | 16 | 7 | 43.8% |
| St Edmund's (mature) | 9 | 4 | 44.4% |
Two honest readings. First, among the standard colleges the spread of roughly 8 to 15% reflects field strength and applications per place, and the pool smooths much of it out. Second, the mature colleges (Hughes Hall, St Edmund’s) run far higher offer rates, but they are only open to applicants aged 21 and over. They are a genuine route for mature applicants rather than a loophole for school leavers. College tables for both universities are in our statistics hub.
Home vs international applicants
Cambridge publishes where accepted international students come from, and the concentration is striking:
| Country | Applications | Acceptances | Acceptance rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 2,900 | 284 | 9.8% |
| Singapore | 575 | 133 | 23.1% |
| Hong Kong | 574 | 82 | 14.3% |
| United States of America | 597 | 33 | 5.5% |
| Malaysia | 243 | 29 | 11.9% |
China, Singapore and Hong Kong account for the majority of international acceptances. Individual-level Freedom of Information data on admissions test scores (FOI 2025/1098) shows international applicants competing at the top of the score distribution on courses like Engineering and Computer Science, which is exactly what you would expect when strong applicants from a handful of markets concentrate on a short list of courses. If that describes you, benchmark yourself against the score data in our ESAT and TMUA guides rather than the headline 16%.
What this means for your application
Cambridge’s process is unusually legible: a test score that clears the interview threshold, work that shows how you think, an interview that rewards reasoning out loud, and a pool that gives strong borderline applicants a second look. Every stage is preparable.
Applying to Cambridge this cycle? Our Oxford & Cambridge admissions service covers strategy, admissions tests and interview preparation end to end, delivered by consultants who studied at Cambridge.
Conclusion
Treat the 16% as background, not verdict. Find your course’s real rate above, respect the test that gates the interview, and remember the pool exists to catch strong applicants the college arithmetic squeezed out. Start with our personal statement guide and the interview question banks.
Find this article useful? Check out our other resources for Cambridge applicants.
Admissions Statistics Hub
Every table behind this article: courses, colleges and countries for Oxford and Cambridge.
ESAT Practice Tests
Practise Cambridge’s science admissions test under timed conditions with original questions.
Personal Statement Guide
Learn how to structure and write a UCAS personal statement that shows how you think.
- University of Cambridge: undergraduate application statistics
- Freedom of Information responses: FOI 2025/1026 (Natural Sciences, offers and winter pool), FOI 2023/812 (Economics by college), FOI 2025/1098 (ESAT and TMUA scores by fee status)
- Clavis Education: Oxford and Cambridge admissions statistics
Frequently asked questions
The headline rates say marginally yes, about 16% against 14%, but the comparison flips course by course. Cambridge Computer Science at 7.4% is tougher than most Oxford courses. Decide on course fit first, then compare the specific numbers.
The pool is how Cambridge moves strong applicants from full colleges to colleges with places. It helps rather than hurts. In our FOI data for Natural Sciences 2025, about one offer in five was made through the pool, and roughly a quarter of pooled applicants received an offer.
There is no single published figure. International applications concentrate on the most competitive courses and come disproportionately from China, Singapore and Hong Kong, so the effective rate an international applicant faces on courses like Engineering or Computer Science is below the 16% headline.
For school leavers, no. The winter pool redistributes strong candidates, and college-level differences mostly reflect who applies where. The exception is real: mature applicants aged 21 and over can apply to mature colleges such as Hughes Hall and St Edmund’s, which run far higher offer rates because they serve a much smaller applicant pool.
