Colleges Guide
University of Cambridge Colleges
All 29 undergraduate colleges at Cambridge, how the collegiate system works, and how to choose.
How the collegiate system works
Cambridge is a collegiate university made up of self-governing colleges. Every student belongs to a college, which provides accommodation, dining, small-group teaching (tutorials/supervisions), and much of day-to-day student life. Your degree, lectures, exams, and academic department are run by the university centrally.
When you apply you either choose one college or submit an open application with no preference. Your degree and teaching quality are identical either way, and a pooling system means strong candidates at popular colleges can be reconsidered elsewhere — so college choice does not materially change your chances.
Full list of Cambridge colleges (29)
Colleges admitting undergraduates, listed alphabetically.
- Christ's College
- Churchill College
- Clare College
- Corpus Christi College
- Downing College
- Emmanuel College
- Fitzwilliam College
- Girton College
- Gonville and Caius College
- Homerton College
- Hughes Hall
- Jesus College
- King's College
- Lucy Cavendish College
- Magdalene College
- Murray Edwards College
- Newnham College
- Pembroke College
- Peterhouse
- Queens' College
- Robinson College
- Selwyn College
- Sidney Sussex College
- St Catharine's College
- St Edmund's College
- St John's College
- Trinity College
- Trinity Hall
- Wolfson College
How to choose a college
Useful factors include location (central or further out), size and history, overall atmosphere, accommodation and facilities, and whether the college regularly takes students for your course. The degree and teaching are the same everywhere, so if you cannot decide, an open application — where the university allocates you based on application patterns — leaves you no worse off.