Applicants from Canada

Unfortunately, it is not possible to make a competitive application to Cambridge with the Canadian High School Diploma on its own. If you would like to apply you will need to take further qualifications: 

> You could take three International A levels 
> You could take the International Baccalaureate Diploma. 
> You could combine the Canadian High School Diploma (we would expect to see an overall score of 90%) with scores for 5 in five Advanced Placement Tests in appropriate subjects. 

Please see the information on these other qualifications below. If you are studying a suitable curriculum it is also possible to apply from the first year of a degree at a university outside the UK. Please check the practicalities of this carefully at the link above if you are considering it. 

Students taking International A levels will need to achieve at least A*AA or A*A*A, depending on the course applied for. 

See our page for International A levels.

Some courses require an Admissions Test. The registration dates for these tests are normally in mid-September so please check this carefully in relation to the course you are planning to apply for.

Offers for Mathematics include STEP II and III exams, which you take in the same summer as your Abitur or IB exams. Further information about STEP and preparation support is available on the Maths page.

Students taking the International Baccalaureate would need to achieve 42 points overall (including bonus points), with 7,7,6 in Higher Level subjects. 

If you are applying for a course that requires Maths at Higher Level in the IB, make sure that you take the Maths: Analysis and Approaches option at Higher Level. 

See our page for IB students.

Some courses also require an Admissions Test. The registration dates for these tests are normally in mid-September so please check this carefully in relation to the course you are planning to apply for.

Offers for Mathematics include STEP II and III exams, which you take in the same summer as your Abitur or IB exams. Further information about STEP and preparation support is available on the Maths page.

Offers for Christ's applicants taking Advanced Placements require a minimum of five Advanced Placement (AP) Scores at grade 5 AND 90% overall in the Canadian High School Diploma) AND a high score on the SAT (I) Reasoning Test or ACT. 

Please see the further detail on our dedicated pages:

• Advanced Placements
• SAT / ACT 

You must include ALL tests taken and scores achieved (including retakes). We do check information at times, and you may be at a disadvantage if you do not include all of your results. 

Some courses require an Admissions Test. The registration dates for these tests are normally in mid-September so please check this carefully in relation to the course you are planning to apply for.

Offers for Mathematics include STEP II and III exams, which you take in the same summer as your Abitur or IB exams. Further information about STEP and preparation support is available on the Maths page.

If English is not your first language, note that we may include IELTS Academic in offers to candidates whose English seems variable at interview, or in an at-interview admissions assessment; this is more common in essay-based subjects. If you demonstrate very good English Language skills at interview and in any admissions test, we may not need to set you an English Language condition, however. If you are given an English Language condition, the standard requirements are on the university website. 

If you already hold such an English language qualification, you should mention it in your UCAS application. For more information please see our page on English Language requirements.

Do have a look at our finance section for details of the costs and financial support available. In addition to the university-wide awards from the Cambridge, Commonwealth, European and International Trusts, you'll see that at Christ's we have Christ’s College International Awards and Christ's Awards.

The Christ's College International Awards awards are worth £10,000 a year and may be accompanied by a full or partial waiver of the College Fee.

More information is available on our page on international financial support.

There's a Virtual tour which will help you to explore Christ's as well as getting a sense of the university departments and facilities. It's not comprehensive, but you can see quite a lot, including three of our accommodation rooms. See the grounds and facilities section for more information. 

Do explore the undergraduate admissions section, and the international students section plus the relevant subject page in particular. If you read through some of the student profiles and the student life section, you'll also pick up lots of detail about College life.

For your course research we recommend reading the Christ's subject page (and following links from it to the university pages too). It is essential to read this page before making your application as it also has any subject-specific requirements, advice and resources.

We hope that you will feel free to email the Christ's Admissions Office: admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk with any questions. We'll be pleased to hear from you!

If you would like to visit Cambridge, you are welcome to Visit Christ's (and there are a number of options for this on the page). We also have events (including online events) through the year, so don't worry if you can't travel. We recommend reading this website, and it would be particularly helpful to sign up for our international webinar.

The application deadline is 15 October.

It is very, very important to check whether your course has a test that requires registration, as you will need to check the registration deadline for this. Depending on your subject you may need to register by mid-September. See the application process section below.

The application process takes a year - you can see an overview of the timings on our how to apply page. 

You can apply at the beginning of your final school year, however it is worth considering the timing carefully if you are applying to both UK and local universities. 

If you apply in the Sept/Oct before taking your school-leaving exams (the ones we need for the entry requirements) any offer you are given that January would normally be a conditional offer, and we would wait until we receive your results in the summer to confirm your place. 

Alternatively you could apply in the Sept/Oct after taking your school-leaving exams (the ones we need for the entry requirements), when you have achieved the qualifications and grades that we ask for. Any offer you are given that January would then have no academic conditions. After finishing school that summer, you would then have a gap year before you start the course at Cambridge. 

If you want to consider both UK and local university options, make sure that you research the timings for each, as if you get offers from both, you will need to decide between them and you want to make sure that you can choose freely. For more information about the timing of application and the difference between applying before or after exams, please see when to apply. 

Once you know which course you are applying for, it's essential to check whether applicants for the course need to register for an admissions test by mid-September. This depends on the course. 

We encourage all applicants to read the information about applying on the relevant subject page, as well as the how to apply page well in advance of September.

Details of the tests are updated on the Admissions Tests page by July each year for students applying the following October. You will be able to search for the test centres in Canada if this is relevant for your course. 

You apply to universities in the UK by making a UCAS application (you can apply to more than one UK university on the same form). 

UCAS opens for applications in September, and then the application deadline for all courses is 15 October. Application is for entry the following October (or for deferred entry the year after). We recommend that you apply as soon as possible once UCAS opens for applications.

When you are completing your UCAS application, you will be asked to provide a Personal Statement. This is different from a Statement of Purpose because we are only interested in your academic interests (we don't assess other activities such as participation in sports, music, leadership skills etc.). 

You will also need a UCAS referee who provides both a reference (a recommendation) and, if relevant, predicted grades for any exams you have not yet taken / got results for (e.g. any AP's you will sit in the summer). These go on the UCAS application itself. 

Important things to note: 

> we don't accept additional recommendations. If you want more than one person to contribute to your reference, they should liaise with the UCAS referee, who can include comments e.g. 'Sophie's History teacher says.....' 
> Canadian Schools are often not used to providing predicted grades, but these are a requirement if there are exams you have not yet sat, so do explain this to your referee

There is more than one application form. After you have made your UCAS application, you will receive log-in details by email for an additional form called My Cambridge Application (abbreviated to MyCApp).

Most students from Canada will need to upload a transcript as part of the My Cambridge Application. You will need this saved on your computer in advance so that you can upload it when completing the MyCApp form. If your school won't give you the transcript, ask for an unofficial one (we are happy for it to be watermarked unofficial, but we want you to upload it). 

If the school wants to email the official version to us (admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk), that is fine, but please also upload the unofficial version as part of your MyCApp so that it is attached to your application - this is important. 

You will see if you read through our how to apply page, that we have interviews as part of our admissions process. We interview the majority of applicants, though not every applicant is selected for interview. Please see the information about interviews in the Christ's International Applicant Support section.

Christ's applicants who are selected for interview are interviewed online in all cases - the arrangements are the same for both UK and international applicants. You can have your interviews either at home (most applicants do this) or at school (if easier or if you have a better internet connection at school).

Obviously there is a time difference between Canada and the UK. If you are selected for interview, your interviews will be scheduled after 06:00 local time, so they will not be in the middle of the night but they are likely to be very early in the day. If you want to check the local time in Cambridge, UK, this is a useful website. Our clocks run on British Summer Time (BST) March to late Oct, and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) from late Oct to March.

It is worth bearing in mind, for example, that a Cambridge interview is not a straightforward academic “examination” of what you know: it is a way of finding out how you handle and apply new information, and whether you would thrive within the supervision (tutorial) system. See the interviews page for the detail.

Once you're thinking about the detail of the process, we recommend that you read: 

> how to apply 
> additional support pages for international applicants
> current applicants section - available from 20 Sept each year to support you (in detail!) through the next steps once you have submitted a valid application and chosen Christ's College in your UCAS application.

Do read these details carefully, as it's important to understand what you will be assessed on and what we are looking for. 

It will help if you prepare the following in advance:
> Arrange who will write your UCAS reference and provide predicted grades for any exams you've not yet taken.
> Have a photo of yourself saved on your computer ready to upload
> Get a copy of your transcript and save it as a pdf file on your computer ready to upload when asked.