This page is to guide international students through the information to check before applying to study with us.
Step 1 - Choose a course
Consider whether Christ's offers a course that you will love. We offer all of the Cambridge undergraduate courses except for Veterinary Medicine, and we encourage you to look into the advantages of living in the College community and being taught in small-group supervisions with experts in your subject.
Some of you will be from countries where local university subject choices are quite different in scope. Here at Cambridge, we ask you to choose just one of the courses that we offer. Don't be daunted by this choice, however, because within our courses, there is often a lot of flexibility.
NB. It is not possible to apply to both Cambridge and Oxford, so if you like courses at both universities, you must choose between us.
You will need to show that you'll have an appropriate academic background for your chosen course in order to be considered for a place. Here at Christ's, we admit students with a wide range of qualifications around the world, but we advise every new prospective applicant to check the detail carefully for your specific qualification and chosen course as early as possible, as particular grades/scores, subjects or, in some cases, further qualifications may be needed.
There are a number of different 'typical requirements' to look at:
Entry requirements for your qualification
You will need to meet or exceed our standard requirements for your qualification either in exams you have already taken or in exams you will be taking during the academic year when you apply (we work with predicted grades or scores for exams you have not taken at the time of application). Please see the International entrance requirementsand send us an email if your qualification is not listed, or if you are not sure if you can meet one of the other requirements.
You must check whether the course you are interested in has an Admissions Test. Some courses have a test that you need to register for before applying, some have a 'College assessment' that you only sit if selected for interview (so you don't need to register) and some courses have no test at all. If your course is one of the ones that requires registration for test in advance, you must register by the relevant mid-September deadline (this is before the UCAS application deadline). The best advice is always to register at the first opportunity so that you can take the test at the most convenient test centre in your country.
The courses that require registration in advance, and the registration deadlines are confirmed here. Note that there are changes to assessments from year to year - the information for your cohort will be available by the July before you apply.
If your course has a "College assessment" that you only sit if selected for interview then you don't need to register, as those are arranged by the admissions office if relevant (and will be sat remotely).
Step 3 - Check costs and financial support
It would also be a good idea at this stage to look at the financial of things; see the finances section, which includes details of costs and financial support.
We realise that EU students in particular often have questions relating to finances following Brexit - do read the notes for EU students, which includes an update on Christ's financial support, and we are gradually adding to our country-specific pages.
Step 4 - Check the application details
If you like what you read about living and studying at Christ's, have found a course that you think you would thrive on, and are able to meet the high academic requirements, then we encourage you to look further into the detail of making an application. As well as meeting the academic requirements, there is, of course, one further practical requirement:
You will need to make an on-time, valid application and be available for online interviews, if selected.
The practical details for making a valid application are set out here:
Once you have considered the information above and are confident that you can meet our requirements and know what is needed for the application, the next question to consider is how you will make your application as strong as possible.
We receive many more applications from students who meet our requirements than we have places. It is important to understand that for each course, we select the applicants that we judge to have the highest academic potential for their chosen course.
Note that we only consider students on the basis of academic criteria. We are looking for
> academic ability and potential > motivation and suitability for your chosen course > commitment and self-discipline
As well as achieving as highly as possible in your exams and qualifications, we recommend that you read this page on improving your application, and we advise you to look at the Christ's subject pages and attend some of our online events for further advice and resources.
Our events include three online open days a year and regular webinars. See our events page here for what is coming up. Of course, if you'd like to visit in person as well, you are welcome to do so. Particularly helpful events for our international applicants are the dedicated Christ's Regular Webinars for International Applicants (roughly once a month February - August, though you only need to attend one) and our annual International Q&A webinar in July.
If you like what you read about living and studying at Christ's, have found a course that you think you would thrive on, and are able to meet the high academic requirements, then we encourage you to look further into the detail of making an application. As well as meeting the academic requirements, there is, of course, one further practical requirement:
