This page is part of the Christ's College current applicants section, Stage 2 information. If you are supporting an applicant to anther Cambridge College, please instead see this page.
It is important to ensure that any extenuating circumstances (other than Covid-19 disruption) that have caused significant educational or home life disruption or disadvantage are explained in your application.
We will need this information to accurately assess applicants who have experienced particular personal or educational disadvantage. It helps Admissions Tutors by providing context against which they can judge the academic record of an applicant, and information useful in assessing an applicant’s performance if selected for interview.
Examples of extenuating circumstances
The Cambridge Admissions website page has a list of examples of extenuating circumstances, as well as guidance on situations that are not usually extenuating circumstances.
Where to include extenuating circumstances information
Your referee will be asked to include any extenuating circumstances in the extenuating circumstances section of your UCAS reference. In the majority of cases this will be enough, as all information about extenuating circumstances in the UCAS reference will be taken into account.
There are three cases where we may need additional information:
- If your UCAS referee is not aware of your extenuating circumstances
- If your referee did not have space in the reference to provide details
- If your extenuating circumstances are highly sensitive and it is not appropriate to include them in your UCAS reference
In these cases, your referee or a suitable professional should email an Extenuating Circumstances Form by 22 October (advised deadline).
Who should provide the information?
Information on your extenuating circumstances should normally be provided by a teacher/tutor at your school/college.
If that is not possible, you could ask a doctor or a care worker.
Link to the Extenuating Circumstances Form
Please first of all check whether an Extenuating Circumstances Form is really needed by reading the rest of this page (it is not needed in most cases).
If you are sending Extenuating Circumstances information for a Christ's applicant, please click here to download the template, complete and save it as a Word or pdf. document making sure that the applicant's name is in the file name.
Then please
EITHER send it as an email attachment to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk (files must not be password protected; we will acknowledge receipt)
OR upload it via this upload tool (files must not be password protected; you will get an automatic acknowledgement)
If your student has applied to a different College please look up the relevant contact details for the College or see this page for further information.
Extenuating circumstances after 22 October
We advise referees to provide extenuating circumstances information in the UCAS reference by the 15 October 18:00 UK time deadline for applications, or, if necessary by providing an Extenuating Circumstances Form (ECF) by 22 October. Meeting these deadlines means that the information can be considered throughout the process.
After 22 October, although the advised deadline has passed, we do continue to accept Extenuating Circumstances Forms. Extenuating circumstances information received later in the application process will be considered as part of post-interview decision-making for students selected for interview, and should be submitted at the earliest opportunity.
Please be aware that it is not possible for us to alter decisions retrospectively in light of new information.
Disability, Neurodiversity, Mental health and long-term health conditions
Students with a disability, neurodiverse condition, mental health condition or long-term health condition should read about the adjustments form (deadline also 22 October). This is needed for all students with one of these conditions, whether or not you require adjustments.
Where appropriate, it is possible to have both an Extenuating Circumstances Form (ECF) and an adjustments form as they do different things - the Extenuating Circumstances Form is optional and tells us about any impact on your education to be taken into account when looking at your overall application, whereas the adjustments form is required and provides practical information and things we need to know in order to organise interviews and exercises appropriately.
We only look at the adjustments form and document when we are organising adjustments for interviews and College assessments, so please ensure that the information needed is on that form, whether or not extenuating circumstances information is included in your application.
