Admissions Director’s Report

BY DR MARK KING

After another year dominated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am delighted to write in hopeful anticipation of more normal times at the beginning of our first year as a standard-age (18+), co-ed College. We have now completed our first admissions round under our new admissions policy and, as I write, our incoming students are preparing to arrive for our Undergraduate Bridging course in a few weeks. Without doubt there have been challenges along the way: from a fully online admissions round in the autumn, to the difficulties of managing a global group of offerholders whilst negotiating an ever-changing landscape of examination results, travel restrictions and quarantine policies. However, with the final numbers now confirmed, it is clear that the round has been a great success. We will admit 132 undergraduates this autumn, of whom around 60% - a clear majority – come from backgrounds that are either disadvantaged, or are underrepresented at Cambridge, achieving one of the goals to which we aspired when we first embarked upon our transition. Furthermore, the College is likely to have one of the most, if not the most, socioeconomically diverse intakes in Cambridge, with around 83% of our UK students coming from maintained sector schools, over 40% from the least advantaged backgrounds, and around one in four being part of the first generation of their families to attend university. Crucially, these figures have not come at the expense of the academic standards that are so important for success at Cambridge. Indeed, around 73% of our A-level offer-holders achieved three A*s or higher in their exams, so their academic credentials are beyond dispute.

Within the team, there have been more changes, too. After a very busy year, Lucy Bunker leaves us for a role at the Clinical School of Medicine: she departs with our sincere gratitude for a job well done and very best wishes for her future. Caitlin Law has therefore made the step up to Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach Officer and Hayley Hilson has been recruited as our new Outreach Officer. Hayley joins us after a first class degree in Linguistics at Homerton College and we are very much looking forward to working with her. Amongst the projects Hayley will be managing are two exceptional initiatives. The first is an academic mentoring and tuition programme for offer-holders from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is run in partnership with the charity Causeway Education. 29 students were enrolled on this programme this year and we are delighted to announce that 85% of them went on to meet the conditions of their offer. The second is a new outreach programme of academic enrichment for students from underrepresented backgrounds. This began at the end of July with an intensive six-week online summer school for Year 11 students. It will now continue throughout the forthcoming academic year with further classes to build key knowledge and skills, before culminating in an admissions-focussed follow-up summer school next August. Designed in collaboration with our partner schools, this will be our flagship initiative going forwards as we seek to support talented students to bridge the educational gap exacerbated by the pandemic. Such activities are only possible because of the generous donations we have received from alumni and other benefactors and we are especially grateful for this support during these challenging times.