Undergraduate Study FAQs

Please see our undergraduate course pages.

We often refer to A-levels in our minimum offer conditions, but welcome applicants with alternative qualifications, such as the International Baccalaureate or Scottish Advanced Highers. 

If you're unsure whether your qualifications make you eligible to apply to Cambridge, please check the University’s accepted qualifications page and international entry requirements page.

Yes, we welcome applications from individuals who have already received their A-level results (or equivalent). Competitive post A-level applicants will need to have met or exceeded the minimum offer level for their chosen course at Cambridge. 

In your application, it can be beneficial to include information on how your gap year fits into your academic plans. Any activities that contribute to your academic growth are encouraged. For example, relevant work experience or internships can be particularly beneficial, especially in subjects like Engineering.

Yes, you can apply for deferred entry for the following year. However, you cannot apply for both immediate and deferred entry simultaneously, and deferred applications can only be made one year ahead (with the exception of certain Singaporean applications, as detailed below). Please note that in Mathematics specifically, deferred applications are generally discouraged at Magdalene.

We normally only offer a small number of places for deferred entry each year. In making these decisions, we need to be confident that those applications are as competitive as any we might receive in the following round for the same entry year. As such, deferred offers may come with slightly tougher academic conditions.

In your application, it can be beneficial to include information on how your gap year fits into your academic plans. Any activities that contribute to your academic growth are encouraged. For example, relevant work experience or internships can be particularly beneficial, especially in subjects like Engineering.

If you are a male national/permanent resident of Singapore, we understand that you must undertake 2 years of military service after turning 18. If this is relevant to you, you may wish to apply for a place deferred for 2 years (so, for example, if you apply in October 2026, you would defer starting your course until October 2029).  At Magdalene, we will consider applications for 2-year deferred places from applicants in this situation for all courses we offer. If this is your intention, please explicitly declare this in your application, as UCAS will only allow you to apply formally for a 1-year deferral. 

We do not normally consider applications from students currently enrolled on a degree course at another UK university, unless:

1. You are in the final year of your current course and are applying for a second undergraduate degree, or
2. You are completing a standalone Foundation Year or taking credit-bearing courses with the Open University (or comparable institution), or
3. You have exceptional circumstances which mean that you are unable to continue at your current institution, or
4. You want to change from what you are studying to a substantially different subject.

In cases 3 or 4, you will need strong support in the form of a written reference or letter of support from your course director or tutor. You may also be asked to demonstrate that you have sufficient funding to complete the Cambridge degree where you have already used part of your Lifelong Learning Entitlement. 

We recognise that there may be good reasons for students from outside the UK to be undertaking an initial period of study at a local university, and we will normally consider applications of this sort. If you are unsure or have further questions about your eligibility, please contact us at admissions@magd.cam.ac.uk. Please also note that you cannot transfer into Cambridge mid-course; if successful, you would need to start again in the first year.

If you do not disclose prior undergraduate study via your UCAS application, this will be treated as a fraudulent application, and your application may be cancelled.

Yes, we do. Three undergraduate colleges at the University are ‘mature only’: Hughes Hall, St Edmund’s, and Wolfson. Mature applicants often choose to apply to one of these colleges as they are specifically set up to support the mature student experience. However, we are happy to consider mature applications at Magdalene, and your application would be assessed alongside all other applicants without regard to age. If you have family commitments, please note that we only provide single accommodation for undergraduates at Magdalene.

There is no formal age requirement for admission to most courses at Cambridge. However, almost all undergraduates are 18 years or older when they come into residence, and applicants who will be under the age of 18 at the time of admission are subject to specific safeguarding and welfare considerations. The College is not a child-specific residential environment and does not act in loco parentis. As such, we do not routinely admit students under the age of 18. Applications from students who will be under 18 at admission will be considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account factors including: the applicant’s academic suitability for the course; the suitability of the course for those under 18; safeguarding, welfare, and accommodation arrangements; parental and University consent; any other relevant vulnerabilities or support needs. Any applicants who will be under 18 will need to convince the College that they would have the maturity and personal skills to cope with undergraduate study at Cambridge. In addition, it is a legal requirement that students in Medicine must have turned 18 by 1 November in their first year of study.

In most cases, we expect that the primary examinations that satisfy our entry requirements will be taken simultaneously in the final year of school, and at most within a two-year period. 

Like other Cambridge colleges, for A-level applicants, we normally expect a minimum of three A-levels to be sat together in the final year of school. This is because we want to see that you can achieve high grades while managing the workload of at least three A-levels at once. The intensity of a Cambridge degree during the first year is significantly higher than that of A-levels, and we need to be assured that you are well-prepared for it.

For some international qualifications, such as Advanced Placement tests (APs), it is common for exams to be spread over more than one year. However, we still expect that sufficiently many examinations to satisfy the entry requirements are taken within a two-year period. 

Where your school’s teaching arrangements affect how many exams you can sit together at once, and this is declared in your application, we will take this into account.

We understand that you might need to re-sit an exam or retake an AS or A level unit. However, we would be concerned if you have to retake a lot of exams, except in cases where your teaching or exams have been affected by serious extenuating circumstances. If this applies to you, please review the relevant information about extenuating circumstances on our page about the application process, and if you have further questions, please contact us at admissions@magd.cam.ac.uk.

Unless there were serious extenuating circumstances of this sort, results and predictions for re-sat exams will in general be viewed less favourably than equivalent results or predictions obtained at the first sitting.

No. All undergraduate applications to Magdalene must be submitted through UCAS by the standard Cambridge deadline.

Magdalene currently accepts 2-3 incoming exchange students each year from partner institutions as part of successor schemes to the Erasmus+ programme. For inquiries, please contact the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics.

Magdalene aims to admit 105 new undergraduates annually. We have no set subject quotas except in Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. For other courses, the exact number of offers we make each year varies somewhat according to the quality of the applicant field. We aim to maintain an even arts/sciences split overall.

In Medicine, we currently have a quota of up to 10 offers, of which only 1 can typically be to an international applicant, and in Veterinary Medicine up to 4 offers. These quotas are due to national requirements that the University must keep to.

Naturally this varies each year. In the last few admissions rounds, we have received in the region of 550-720 applications per year. It is worth noting that all Cambridge colleges also make use of the intercollegiate Winter Pool to select applicants for offers, which means we do not just consider those who apply to us directly. There is information about the Cambridge pooling system on this page of the University website.

The percentage selected for interview varies by subject and according to the quality of the applicant field each year.

Please see the information on our ‘What we are looking for’ page, as well as on our undergraduate course pages.

Not necessarily. Strong applicants who cannot be offered a place at Magdalene may be placed in the Winter Pool, where other Cambridge colleges can consider them. The Winter Pool is crucial in ensuring that the strongest applicants are offered places at Cambridge, even if their first-choice college is unable to accommodate them. There is further information about the Cambridge pooling system on this page of the University website.

Additionally, as part of the University’s widening participation commitments, some applicants rejected in January may be eligible for the August Reconsideration Pool the following summer.

The 'minimum offer' level is the minimum level of condition that successful applicants for a given subject are expected to achieve, and the level of condition most commonly attached to an offer in that subject. At A level the minimum offer is A*AA or equivalent for Arts subjects (except Economics), and Veterinary Medicine; it is A*A*A or equivalent for Economics and for Science subjects other than Veterinary Medicine. Offers for Mathematics will invariably include an additional STEP condition. It is very rare indeed for us to set an offer lower than the minimum level. Sometimes we may set a condition higher than the minimum offer level (see the next question for why).

It is important to realise that these are the minimum conditions attached to most offers, not the minimum level of achievement attained by successful applicants. The vast majority of successful applicants to Magdalene and Cambridge go on to achieve grades higher than our minimum offer levels.

Every offer is tailored to the individual and takes into account their particular circumstances and educational context. We try hard not to set unrealistic offers and in particular do not normally set offer conditions that exceed an applicant's predicted grades.

This may be for several reasons, including:

• There is strong competition for places on your chosen course. In this case, we may make more offers but make them more challenging. This gives more applicants a chance to prove themselves through their exam performance, rather than not being made an offer at all.
• You performed impressively overall, but less well in specific parts of the application process. Where your offer conditions have been tailored to account for this, it will normally be to provide us with reassurance that you will be able to handle the full demands of the Cambridge course.
• You have taken some exams early and we want to ensure you will achieve the highest grades in your remaining exams. This helps us to assess whether you will be able to manage the academic challenge of sitting multiple exams successfully in a single exam period, which is how students are normally assessed at Cambridge (see also the answer to the next question below).
• You have applied with a less common combination of subjects, and we want to take this into account with our offer; or. if you have applied with more than 3 A-levels (or the equivalent in other qualification systems), we want to encourage you to continue with the best combination of subjects for your chosen course.

If you still have relevant A-levels to take, our offers will normally be conditional upon achieving specified results in those A-levels. If you have completed an A-level and done well, this may enhance your chances of receiving an offer. However, it will not normally count toward the conditions set for your admission.

We do, however, look at every case individually, and set offer conditions that we feel are best suited to the specific circumstances of each student.

Each year, we make more offers than we have available places. Candidates who meet their offer conditions in full will automatically confirm their place. Any remaining spaces may go to candidates who narrowly miss their conditions. However, these decisions are always considered individually. We will take into account a range of information, including the margin of any missed grades, any relevant extenuating circumstances, and the amount of space we have available. Typically, we can only relax a small number of offers. In years where many applicants meet their conditions outright, we may have very little room to reprieve near-miss candidates.

If you narrowly miss your offer conditions and we cannot confirm your place at Magdalene, you may be placed in the Summer Pool for consideration by other Cambridge colleges, who may have unfilled places. The Summer Pool takes place in mid-August, on the day after A-level results are published. If you prefer not to be placed in the Summer Pool, for example because you wish to firm up an insurance offer or to enter clearing, please let us know. There is further information about the Cambridge pooling system on this page of the University website.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this, but you may wish to consult the answers to the questions “Can I apply if I am re-sitting my exams?” and “I have not been made an offer; should I reapply?” above, as some of the same principles apply.

Generally, reapplying to Magdalene is discouraged unless there is a valid (and usually unforeseen) reason for not meeting the conditions of your offer. We would also normally advise against giving up a secure place at another good university to reapply to Cambridge the following year. While some reapplications succeed, many do not.

That said, exceptions always exist, and ultimately this will be an individual decision for you. If you did choose to reapply, we would consider your new application entirely afresh.

We will not normally consider changing an offer-holder's year of entry unless a deferral is needed for reasons genuinely beyond your control, such as in cases of serious extenuating circumstances or other grave cause. There are various reasons for this, which have to do with maintaining the fairness and integrity of our admissions process. If you have further questions, please get in touch at admissions@magd.cam.ac.uk.

Offer decisions are reached on the basis of a detailed assessment of your aptitude for your chosen subject, by comparison with the gathered field of applicants in that subject in the year you applied. It would not therefore not academically reasonable or fair to other applicants for us to allow offer-holders to change their course before they arrive. Students at Magdalene are generally expected to study their chosen subject for at least their first year; changes of course before then are rarely permitted.

The Cambridge Tripos system does, however, allow some flexibility to change courses after one or two years.  Transfers are not automatic and are not possible for all courses, but some students do successfully change subjects while they are studying at Cambridge. Course changes require approval from your Tutor, the relevant Directors of Studies, and the Senior Tutor. They will explore with you whether the change is in your academic interests and decide whether you have the necessary academic background and skills to succeed in the new course. In some cases, extra preparation or restarting from an earlier year may be required. Where relevant, students will also need to check whether changing courses might affect their financial support.

We give careful and holistic consideration to all applications we receive, and evaluate them in the context of the gathered field of applicants that year. There may be a range of reasons why an applicant is not invited to interview, but overall it will be because we do not feel they stand a realistic chance of receiving an offer given the strength of the wider field. Applying to Cambridge is highly competitive and not receiving an interview does not necessarily mean an applicant has submitted an objectively weak application. It is more often the case that there are simply too many other applications that are even stronger.

You can if you wish. Any new application would be considered entirely afresh. However, our standard advice is that applicants may like to consider trying another Cambridge college the second time around. This is so that they (and their interviewers) do not find themselves repeating the previous year’s experience. We would also suggest that you wait until you receive your examination results before making any final decision about this.

Students who are invited to interview and subsequently rejected can request subject-specific feedback related to their application. Instructions on how to request this will be sent with your rejection email.

The College does not provide feedback to applicants who receive an offer (your offer is an indication of the quality of your performance in the admissions round). 

The College does not provide feedback to students who are not invited to interview, or to students who are made offers by other colleges via the Winter Pool.

We accept a broad range of international qualifications, though not all provide suitable preparation for Cambridge. Please review the information on the University’s international entry requirements page, and if you have further questions, feel free to contact us at admissions@magd.cam.ac.uk.

A transcript is a record of your performance in high school assessments. Your school can provide an official transcript upon request. For more information on who needs to provide one and how to do so, see the Providing a transcript page on the University website.

Please see the detailed information on the University’s entry requirements page.

Tuition fees and living costs for international students are detailed on our Fees, Funding and Finance pages.

We do. Please see the information on our Sources of Funding page.

Information on applying for a student visa can be found on the University’s International Students pages.

Magdalene offers undergraduate accommodation for the entire duration of their course. In the first year, students are randomly assigned a room near the College's centre. In subsequent years, students can select their rooms through a ballot system. Room rents vary based on the type of accommodation chosen. Further information can be found on our undergraduate accommodation page.

Please see our Fees and Finance pages