Cambridge Admissions Stats: Success Rates By Subject

Numbers and Percentage Changes

Rates

Applications to Cambridge picked up in 2021 following the COVID pandemic, which began in 2020. In 2021, offer and acceptance rates both took a significant dip compared to the previous year.  

In 2023, we see offer rates creeping back up towards their 2020 level, with acceptance rates also increasing but at a slower rate.  

Overall application numbers were down in 2023 by almost 5% on the previous year, whilst offers increased by 7.5%, contributing to the noticeable increase in offer rates this year.  

In short, whilst 2023 was not out of the ordinary given previous years, both offer and acceptance rates are higher than they have been since 2020, which is hopefully good news for applicants in 2024. 

By Offer Rate

By Acceptance Rate

Looking at both of the above lists, we can see that Computer Science is consistently the most difficult course to get into at Cambridge University. This is the same as Oxford University; across the board, Computer Science is a very competitive course to get into at UK universities in general.  

As these lists also demonstrate, the hardest courses to get into at Cambridge consist relatively evenly of sciences (4 of the 10 lowest offer rates and 5 of the 10 lowest acceptance rates) and humanities/social sciences.   

By Offer Rate

By Acceptance Rate

Once again, the top ten courses for offer rate and acceptance rate are relatively consistent;  Modern and Medieval Languages (MML) is by far and away the ‘easiest’ course to get into at the University of Cambridge, with a whopping 61% of applicants receiving an offer, and 50.4% eventually being accepted onto the course.  

Whilst the hardest courses to get into were a mixture of sciences and humanities/social sciences, the easiest courses to get into are exclusively humanities subjects. In fact, the first sciences to appear on either list are Mathematics with the 12th highest offer rate (33%) and Natural Sciences with the 12th highest success rate (22.4%). From this we can conclude that, generally speaking, essay-based humanities topics have the highest offer and acceptance rates.  

As these lists also demonstrate, the hardest courses to get into at Cambridge consist relatively evenly of sciences (4 of the 10 lowest offer rates and 5 of the 10 lowest acceptance rates) and humanities/social sciences.   

Whilst Sciences make up the majority of applications to Cambridge (10% more than Humanities and Social Sciences), the number of offers and acceptances are, in fact, far closer to 50% between the two. This is explained by the higher offer and acceptance rate onto Humanities and Social Sciences courses compared to Sciences.  

In simple terms, the chance of being accepted onto a humanities or social sciences course appears to be higher than onto sciences. Of course, one should consult the specific course to which they are applying to see if their course follows the trend.  

As our analysis of lowest and highest offer/acceptance rates above suggests, social sciences (such as Economy, HSPS, and Land Economy) tend to be far more competitive than arts and humanities (such as MML, classics, archaeology, or music). In fact, all the ten subjects with highest acceptance rates are arts and humanities rather than social sciences.  

Why are offer rates and acceptance rates different? In short, offer rate refers to the percentage of applicants who receive an offer in the winter, whilst acceptance rate refers to the percentage of applicants who are accepted onto the course in the summer (almost all of whom, barring exceptional circumstances, begin the course in October).   

What influences a student with an offer to not be eventually accepted? The prime reason for an applicant with an offer not to be accepted is that they have not fulfilled the terms of their offer. This usually means that they did not get sufficient grades in their A-level or equivalent exams.  

Sometimes it is something other than their school qualifications, such as in Maths where the STEP admissions test (held in the summer alongside A-levels) is also part of the offer. It also accounts for applicants who chose to pursue another course and withdrew their application between receiving their offer and attending university (although, this being the University of Cambridge, this is presumably not very common).  

Let’s briefly explore the subjects with the largest differences between offer rate and acceptance rate (i.e. with the most applicants who received an offer but did not then begin the degree course). The ‘percentage of offers not accepted’ is the main metric we are using here; it indicates the percentage of applicants offered a place who were not then accepted onto the course. 

The first thing we notice is that Mathematics, despite being a large and very popular course, saw a huge number of offers not accepted in 2023. The most likely reason for this is that the STEP (Sixth-Term Examination Paper) admissions test, used by the Cambridge Maths Department, is taken in the summer alongside A-level exams, rather than before shortlisting or interview like the assessments for other subjects.  

This means that Maths applicants at Cambridge have an additional hurdle to get over to fulfil the terms of their offer.  

Aside from Mathematics, every other subject in the top ten here is an Arts, Humanities, or Social Science subject. Whilst this isn’t an incredibly significant result (since there are simply more Humanities subjects than Sciences on offer), it does indicate that humanities are slightly less predictable when it comes to whether applicants are going to make the grades in their offer.  

We know that essay-based subjects such as English, History, Languages, Art, or Music (which applicants to humanities degrees are more likely to be taking at A-Level) can be more subjective in their marking, so perhaps this plays a role.  

We would advise against reading into your particular subject on this metric alone, since it is very susceptible to unique occurrences in a given year (especially for smaller subject, such as ASNC, Linguistics, Education, or Archaeology).  

Subjects with the Largest Number of Offers 

Subjects with the Smallest Number of Offers

Here we have used number of offers as the key metric to determine the largest and smallest course, since it’s largely indicative of how many places are available on the course (although slightly inflated to account for people missing their offers).  

As we see from the averages above, there is a significant difference in offer and acceptance rates when comparing the subjects with the largest and the smallest number of offers. Despite the smaller and more niche subjects in the second table having far smaller quotas for admissions (i.e. they offer far fewer places than the larger subjects), the much greater competition for the larger courses overrules this, making them more competitive overall.   

It is worth pointing out, however, that the subject with the highest offer and acceptance rate, Modern and Medieval Languages, is a relatively major, mainstream course (it is tenth in the list of most offers given out). 

In short, make sure to look at the statistics for the particular course to which you are applying to see if it follows this trend.   

One question we are asked a lot is whether applying for single or joint honours is a better strategy for Oxbridge acceptance. Whilst Cambridge do not offer a large number of joint honour subjects (due to their Tripos system, which we cover in our blog here), we have compared the joint subjects (largely consisting of languages and history) to see if there are any notable trends.  

Looking at the above table, we see a mixed bag of results. History and Modern Languages, the more popular of the joint courses, sees results slap bang in the middle of its constituent single honours degrees, MML and History. Therefore, an applicant most interested in languages considering adding History to their application might be dissuaded from applying to the joint course.  

However, a historian with an interest in pursuing languages on the side might be encouraged to apply for the joint degree and up their chances of success. 

History and Politics is a different story, however, with a far lower offer and acceptance rate compared to History alone; the offer rate for History and Politics is even lower than the average across Humanities and Social Sciences, making it a pretty competitive course.  

What we see overall, however, is that there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to strategizing over joint honours at Cambridge. We recommend that applicants look at the specific course figures, and consider their own abilities when it comes to potentially juggling more A-Level requirements and admissions tests as part of their application.  

Another question we are frequently asked is to what extent sitting an admissions test may or may not impact an applicant’s chances. In the tables below we have split the subjects into three categories: courses with a pre-registered admissions test, courses with a college at-interview admissions assessment only (where the test is used by four or more colleges), and courses with no admissions assessment (or courses where three or fewer colleges use an at-interview admissions assessment).  

Courses with Pre-Registered Admissions Tests (ESAT, LNAT, STEP, TMUA, or UCAT)

Courses with College At-Interview Admissions Assessments Only (Where Admissions Assessments are Used By Four or More Colleges)

Courses Without Admissions Tests (excluding College Admissions Assessments at three or fewer colleges)

Averages

In 2023, it is clear that Cambridge courses with Pre-Registered Admissions Tests (the ESAT, LNAT, TMUA, STEP, or UCAT) were by far more competitive on average than either courses with College At-Interview Admissions Assessments or no assessment at all.  

Additionally, there appears to be little meaningful difference in the average numbers between courses with College At-Interview Assessments and those without.  

Do these results mean we can say that admissions tests make your chances of success lower? Not exactly.  

Rather than admissions tests making an application more difficult (although undoubtedly, in many cases it does), we instead interpret these results as indicating the tendency of Cambridge University to use admissions tests for the courses that are more competitive in the first place.  

The main purpose of a pre-registered admissions test is to help admissions tutors decide between lots of impressive applicants on the more competitive courses. In fact, there is only one course which received over 1,000 applicants which does not use a pre-registered admissions assessment (HSPS): every other course with over 1,000 applicants uses one. This means the admissions tests generally are a result of the high competition on certain courses, not the other way round.