This section is aimed at those choosing a Cambridge college for computer science (but much of this advice extends to Oxford and other courses).

To learn more about what colleges are, and how the Cambridge college system works, please see the Application FAQs.

How Important Is Choosing a College?

The biggest lie told to applicants is that your college does not affect your university experience, teaching experience, or chances of getting in. This is not true.

There are many factors that might affect your university experience such as: college sports teams & facilities, the quality and variety of food at college cafeterias, how close you are to friends / shops / lecture halls, and even just the general “vibe” of the college.

Colleges are also in charge of organising your supervisions (small teaching groups for each course topic), which are a large part of your learning experience at Cambridge. Some colleges can be more competitive to get into than others.

So, given that colleges can have a large impact on your life at university, which should you choose? Unfortunately this is a very difficult question as different people have very different requirements and preferences.

I believe that the best thing I can do is provide a (semi-comprehensive) list of factors to consider when making your decision. Some of these factors may matter to you and some may not, but they might help you think about things you hadn’t considered before.

The most important thing to remember is that you will likely enjoy your Cambridge experience no matter which college you apply to. Choosing a college just helps you better tailor your experience to what you are looking for. Most people love their colleges, and would not swap to another given the chance!

University Experience

The following is a list of university experience factors to consider when choosing a college (in no particular order). The importance of each factor is purely subjective:

  • How far / close are you to the city centre?
    • Colleges closer to the city centre are closer to the action, but may feel more surrounded / busy.
    • Colleges further from the city centre may feel bigger and more open, but can be further to travel to.
  • How far / close are you to the lecture theatre:
    • In first year, roughly half of compsci lectures are held in the New Museums Site, with the rest being held in the Computer Lab.
    • In second year onwards, almost all compsci lectures are held in the Computer Lab.
    • If you live close to the city centre, it is only a 10-15 minute cycle to the Computer Lab.
  • How far / close are you to the shops:
  • How touristy is your college?
    • Some colleges (e.g. King’s, Trinity, St Johns) have grand, impressive architecture.
    • However, these colleges can get a bit busy during Easter / summer, when they open up the grounds to tourists.
  • How cheap is your college?
    • Is the accommodation / food / bar cheap?
    • Does the college make you spend a minimum amount of money in the buttery per term (to keep the prices subsidised)?
    • Do you have to pay for extras such as laundry / gym?
  • College bursaries
    • Does your college offer bursaries (such as academic bursaries, sports bursaries, travel bursaries, etc.).
    • Many colleges offer financial resources (especially if you are financially struggling).
    • Make sure to check out both the university bursary scheme and your college’s bursary scheme (often found on the college’s website).
  • Is the food good?
    • Is there a good cafeteria (aka buttery)?
    • Is there also an on-site cafe?
    • Is there a good selection of vegetarian / vegan / halal / etc. food?
    • Are formals good? (aka fancy dinners you may go to ~1-3 times a term).
  • How many people take your course?
    • These statistics show how many people historically take each course at each college.
    • Some people prefer tight-knit colleges with less coursemates, whereas others prefer colleges with more coursemates to interact with.
  • The college architecture / environment
    • Some people prefer older colleges with impressive architecture (e.g. King’s, St John’s, Trinity).
    • Others prefer more green colleges (such as Fitzwilliam), or more open colleges (such as Churchill and Homerton).
    • Some colleges contain interesting landmarks (such as King’s College Chapel and Queens’ mathematical bridge).
    • For some people the architecture / environment doesn’t make a large difference, its up to you to decide.
  • College accommodation
    • College age
      • Older colleges tend to have bigger rooms but older infrastructure (it might be colder, and things may break more often).
      • Newer colleges typically have slightly smaller rooms but have newer infrastructure.
    • Rooms
      • Some colleges offer room plans / photos / videos online.
      • These can give you an indication of what rooms are like (but it is best to try and visit some on college open days).
      • However be aware that on open days colleges may present to you the “best rooms” rather than average rooms.
      • Some things to consider:
        • Ensuite vs shared bathrooms
        • If bathrooms are shared, how many people are they shared between?
        • How large are the rooms
        • How big is the desk (both width and depth if you want monitors)
        • Does the room provide a good office chair
        • Is there ethernet and is it fast
        • Are there nice accessories such as lamps, bedside tables, and pin boards
        • Does the room have a lot of plugs and good plugs locations
        • Does the room have good wardrobe and cupboard space
        • Do the rooms have good storage space
        • Are the mattresses comfy or hard
        • What is the view from the rooms like
        • What is the tenancy contract (can you stay / leave your belongings over holidays)
    • Gyps (Kitchens)
      • Gyps are the Cambridge name for shared kitchens.
      • Are the gyps well equipped (note that most colleges do not provide ovens in gyps on the main site). Are there microwaves, toasters, freezers, kettles, and hobs?
      • How many people share a gyp?
      • How often are the shared bathrooms and kitchens cleaned?
    • Main / Off-site
      • Most colleges do not offer all three years on the main site.
      • Colleges usually own off-site accommodation (typically with its own community, common rooms, etc.).
      • How far are the off-site accomodations from the main site?
      • Some people prefer off-site accommodations due to their more modern rooms and tight-knit community. However, you may have to travel back to the college for events, cafeteria, etc.
  • Events
    • Formals
      • Formals are black tie 3-course dinners run by colleges (usually at a highly subsidised cost).
      • How regularly are formals held (colleges typically run between 1-7 formals a week, but you will usually only attend 1-3 formals a term).
      • Does your college host themed formals (e.g. Christmas / Halloween formals).
      • How many guests can you invite to formals, can you invite non-Cambridge guests?
      • What room are formals held in (if its an old hall, this can add to the experience).
    • Does your college host other events? Is there a dedicated events officer?
    • Events might include May Balls, bops (college parties), garden parties, and coffee & cake mornings.
  • Sports
    • What sports facilities are available (e.g. badminton courts, squash courts, rowing teams, etc.).
    • Does your college have active societies for your favourite sports? (If not then it is likely a university-wide society exists for this sport instead).
  • Facilities
    • Is there a nice (cheap) college bar?
    • What is the JCR (junior common room) like? This is a socialisation area for undergraduates, which may have a Wii / games console, board games, computers / monitors, bean bags, and work areas.
    • Does the bar / JCR contain pool tables, table tennis tables, darts, etc. (and are they free)?
    • What is the library like? Does it have a nice atmosphere, how late/early is it open, can you walk in and get a space at any time or do you need to book in advance?
    • Can you book college rooms to run your own activies?
  • Pastoral Support
    • Do you have any special pastoral needs? Does the college have any specific resources to help students (most colleges have a pastoral officer)?

Some things that I do not think are worth worrying about are:

  • How posh are people at the college
    • Most people at most colleges are very down-to-earth. You are almost guaranteed to find people you get on with at any college.
  • Academic performance (such as the Tompkins Table)
    • Nobody at Cambridge cares much about each college’s academic performance.
    • Supervision quality, college academic support, etc. are much better indicators of how academically successful you will be at each college.
  • College horror stories
    • I’ve seen some “horror stories” circulating the internet for different colleges. Most are many years out of date, no longer relevant, or lack the relevant context.
    • I would try to avoid being influenced by these stories too much, as they are a bad indicator for what college life is really like.
  • DoS (Director of Studies) Specialities
    • You can pick a college because the DoS (Director of Studies) specialises in an area you are interested in. However, this will usually not make a big difference to your academic experience (you are unlikely to get many chances to discuss this interest with them).
    • Do not pick a college hoping that having similar interests to the DoS will help you during your interview – it will not!

Teaching Experience: Supervisions

Colleges (or more specifically, Directors of Studies at colleges) are responsible for organising your supervisions: small 2/3 person teaching groups for each topic – you’ll typically have around 10-15 supervisors each year.

It’s difficult to compare the quality of supervisions across colleges, as it can vary greatly by supervisor. That said, most supervisors are quite good – many are PhD students or subject-matter experts who are genuinly passionate about sharing their knowledge. If you are looking for more specific insights, the best advice I can give is to reach out to students studying your subject at that college directly (such as via LinkedIn) to see what their overall supervision experience was like.

If your college’s Director of Studies care about providing high quality supervisors, then this is a strong indication that the supervisions at the college will be good. Many colleges form small cliques which share supervisors, so don’t worry about smaller colleges having worse supervisors.

Chances of Getting In

The number of applications and offers for each college and subject are publically available on Cambridge’s application statistics website. Being a typically computer science student, you may wonder if you can use these statistics to your advantage.

However, be aware that these statistics don’t tell the full story. To understand how colleges pick applicants, we must first discuss Cambridge’s pooling system.

Pooling

When applying to Cambridge, you can choose a college to apply to (or alternatively, you can choose to apply through “open application” and be assigned a college). However, the college you are apply to might not be the same college you receive an offer from!

This due to Cambridge’s pooling system: how Cambridge tries to make your chances of acceptance equal, no matter which college you apply to.

The general idea is that if you’re rejected by the college you originally applied to, another college may still offer you a place if they consider you a stronger candidate than those who applied directly to them. Colleges would prefer to admit a stronger student who originally applied to another college, than a weaker student that directly applied to their college. Director of Studies for each college (who decide who receives offers) meet during the admissions process to make sure this selection is as fair as possible.

The most common form of pooling is known as “Winter pooling”, which occurs after you have completed interviews at the college you applied to. If a college considers you a strong candidate, but has no more places to give you an offer, they would place you in the Winter pool. Other colleges can look in the pool, and fish applicants out of the pool if they prefer them to applicants who applied directly to them. It is not uncommon for undersubscribed colleges to give most (if not all) of their offers to candidates from the pool!

The less common type of pooling is known as “Summer pooling”, which happens if you don’t meet the academic conditions of your offer – for example, if you fall short of the required A-level grades. Even if you don’t meet these requirements, your original college may still accept you. However, if they don’t, then another undersubscribed college may offer you a place instead.

If you are rejected before the interview stage then unfortunately you are not eligible for pooling: there is no way to be interviewed by a college other than the one you applied to.

Unfortunately no system is perfect, and so applying to competitive colleges may still decrease your chances of admission (for example, if you are rejected pre-interview). However, this system tries to make applications as fair as possible, aiming to minimise the impact your choice of college has on your chances of receiving an offer.

Admission Statistics

Cambridge’s application statistics are a useful way to see how many people apply to each college, and how many students each college accepts.

Applying to a college with a high admissions rate (higher ratio of “offers” to “number of applicants”) does not necessarily increase your chances of acceptance:

  • The pooling system tries to make your chances of acceptance equal, no matter which college you apply to.
  • Colleges with higher admission rates are not necessarily “less competitive”, it could be that a college receives fewer but stronger candidates.
  • Other people are also looking at these statistics and are doing the same thing! If you find a college with high admission rates, don’t assume that this trend will continue as everyone else might apply to it too for the same reason.

Despite these factors, it can still be useful to look at which colleges tend to have higher admission rates. Cambridge’s application systems doesn’t work perfectly, and so applying to less competitive colleges can increase your chances of receiving an offer. Just keep in mind that these statistics don’t always tell the full story. While admission statistics can be useful, I would recommend not using them as the main driving force in your decision.

Lets look at the application statistics for computer science in 2024:

Application Statistics Image

There are some interesting trends in this figure worth discussing. Firstly, Churchill college has the largest number of applications by a significant margin. This is due to several factors: it is the closest college to the Computer Lab which accepts a large number of students, and it used to have a reputation as being the “computer science” college (having historically admitted over 20 computer science students per year).

Furthermore, there are a collection of colleges known as “Dudebase”: colleges with Dr John Fawcett as their Director of Studies. There are about 8 colleges which fall into this category – they form a cluster which share supervisors and also run events such as student presentations. Churchill college is considered the “main” Dudebase college, and strong candidates who are rejected by Churchill are often pooled into other Dudebase colleges.

When applying to your college, it is worth checking your Director of Studies to see if you fall into Dudebase. Many Dudebase supervisions are taken by Dr John Fawcett. He is known as a very good supervisor, but there is always a small risk of not getting on with your supervisor (which can be a problem if your supervisor is your DoS – who is the person you would normally talk to about these problems).

Another college to be aware of is Trinity. On the statistics it doesn’t appear like Trinity is particularly unusual, however in practice Trinity is a highly competitive college to get into. Unless you have competed nationally / internationally for mathematics or computer science, you will likely struggle to get in. But if you are at this level, it would be a great opportunity to collaborate with like-minded peers.

Trinity, along with Peterhouse, ask applicants to complete an additional assessment known as the CSAT. This is assigned after you are invited to interview, and considered alongside the rest of your application.

Finally, the statistics show that colleges with higher admission rates tend to admit more applicants from the pool. This suggests that “less competitive” colleges often receive fewer strong direct applicants and therefore take on pooled candidates from more competitive colleges.

Open Applications

Open applications mean that you don’t pick any specific college to apply to, and are instead allocated to a college at semi-random. The college you are assigned to is generally one with less applicants compared to available places, in order to spread out the applications.

As mentioned before, being assigned to a less-competetive college can improve your chances of admission, but the pooling system mostly evens this out. I would personally recommend applying directly to a college that appeals to you. Since you’ll be spending three years at university, it’s worth choosing a college that suits you well, as this can significantly affect your overall university experience.

Narrowing Down Your Choices

Ok so you have a list of factors to think about… what now?

I generally recommend narrowing your choices of colleges down to ~3/4, and then visiting these colleges on a Cambridge open day. Don’t underestimate how much of an influencing factor a college’s “vibe” is when you visit it in person. This is as good of a reason to choose a college as any!

If I were to choose my college from scratch, I would use the following process:

  • Start with the 31 colleges
  • Remove colleges you are not eligible for
    • Mature colleges for students aged 21 or over: Hughes Hall, St Edmunds, Wolfson
    • Female-only colleges: Newnham and Murray Edwards
  • Pick 3-5 of the most important factors from the list above and eliminate colleges that do not meet these criteria (more objective criteria like “location” work better here)
  • Write out your preferences for all of the remaining factors, and try to use these to narrow down your choices further to just 3/4 colleges
  • Visit these colleges on open day, and ask questions for anything you can’t find online
  • Don’t be afraid to email the college if you have any other questions (such as: what is their pastoral support like, what bursaries do they have available, etc.)
  • If you are still stuck, try reaching out to students currently studying at those colleges (such as via LinkedIn). Most people would be more than willing to share their experience!

A Practical Example:

Imagine you are a male under the age of 21 – so remove Hughes Hall, St Edmunds, Wolfson, Newnham, and Murray Edwards from the list of 31 colleges (as you are neither a female, nor a mature student).

Then pick out 3-5 important factors. Say you have a preference for central colleges to be closer to the action, you also want a college which takes a lot of computer scientists each year (≥6), and you want a college with grand architecture as you think it would be a very cool place to live.

Using Cambridge’s statistics website, you can find how many computer scientists attend each college each year.

Application Acceptances Image

In 2024 we can see that the colleges which took ≥6 people are: Churchill, Downing, Fitzwilliam, Gonville and Cauis, Homerton, Jesus, King’s, Lucy Cavendish, Queens’, Robinson, John’s, and Trinity.

I would then look for colleges close to the city centre using the Cambridge Map, which narrows down the list to: Downing, Gonville and Caius, Jesus, King’s, Queens’, John’s, and Trinity.

One might consider “central colleges” to be those within a reasonable distance of Cambridge’s Market Square.

Out of these colleges, the ones I would consider to have grand architecture would be: King’s, John’s, and Trinity.

I would then try to visit these colleges on an open day, and pick the college which best meets the rest of my criteria. For example, if I enjoy badminton and King’s has an active badminton team then this might sway my decision.

Don’t worry if you don’t get a chance to go to an open day – I chose my college (Queens’) without ever visiting it before! But if you do get a chance to visit the college in-person, then I would highly recommend it.

Open Day Planning

You can find the next Cambridge open days on their website – make sure to book your place! There are many talks that take place on the open day, so try to find all of the talks that are most relevant to you and incorporate them into your visit.

I highly recommend planning out your route in advance. It can take a while to walk between colleges and departments which are far away, so try to visit nearby colleges at the same time.

Resources

This document was created as a collaboration between Cambridge computer science students. It contains information about people’s experience studying computer science at different colleges, as well as: interview vibes, supervision quality, and community.