The Student Room Group

Cambridge Colleges

Does anyone know of any YouTube videos/ websites which give an honest comparison of the colleges. I’ve managed to look around a few myself but some I couldn’t get round and I am interested in how they compare to the others. I know every Cambridge college is very good but I just want to make sure I apply to the right college (studying mathematics if that changes anything), thanks

Reply 1

Hi, I applied to Cambridge this year and in my opinion you should look at some of the college websites yourself if you haven't already. You can look at sports facilities, accommodation, facilities (e.g Emmanuel does laundry for you for free) or even pint prices. The tompkins table ranks colleges based on academics if this is important for you, but higher ranked colleges are then more pushy. Finally, you can search up admission statistics and see which colleges had the best acceptance rates for your course.

Reply 2

Original post by N1.GOAT
Hi, I applied to Cambridge this year and in my opinion you should look at some of the college websites yourself if you haven't already. You can look at sports facilities, accommodation, facilities (e.g Emmanuel does laundry for you for free) or even pint prices. The tompkins table ranks colleges based on academics if this is important for you, but higher ranked colleges are then more pushy. Finally, you can search up admission statistics and see which colleges had the best acceptance rates for your course.


I’ve been on most of their websites and tbh with the Tompkins table it’s obviously good to go to a top college but for example I went round Christs and thought the accommodation at the back was quite ugly so I probably wouldn’t go there. Which college are you applying to?
Current Cambridge student here. What sort of things are you looking for? Size? Location? Age? Reputation (like social not academic)? Facilities?

Reply 4

Original post by melancollege
Current Cambridge student here. What sort of things are you looking for? Size? Location? Age? Reputation (like social not academic)? Facilities?


To be honest with the size of the college I would prefer a smaller college but I know some of the more prestigious ones are larger and these can have better social life. I’m going to study a maths degree so I could do with it being close to the centre of mathematical sciences. Preferably quite a lively social life with all accommodation on site, which I think is quite important as I looked at Caius and their accommodation is in random places by the looks of things. Not too fussed about the facilities the pools and things are just added bonuses. Thanks
Original post by Rory L
To be honest with the size of the college I would prefer a smaller college but I know some of the more prestigious ones are larger and these can have better social life. I’m going to study a maths degree so I could do with it being close to the centre of mathematical sciences. Preferably quite a lively social life with all accommodation on site, which I think is quite important as I looked at Caius and their accommodation is in random places by the looks of things. Not too fussed about the facilities the pools and things are just added bonuses. Thanks

If you prefer a smaller college, then go for a smaller college. Prestige of the colleges isn't a huge thing here I'd say. Trinmos have a reputation but it's nowhere near like what people think. Also, the social life isn't much dictated by the size of the college in my opinion. Some larger colleges seem way more social, some seem more reclusive.

Also just to note, being near the CMS is useful for your third year and some supervisions in your second year, but your lectures in the first two years are actually in the New Museums Site (look up Museum of Zoology on Maps as sometimes the individual lecture theatres aren't named) with many of the supervisions being in colleges.

I'm at Sidney Sussex and I can vouch for it. We are smaller but not suffocating, we tend to do alright academically and we have a good social life. Almost all of our undergraduate accommodation is on site, bar some first-year accommodation which is like 250m down the road - i.e. near enough that you can see the college's main site from the road in front of it. However, it has its own JCR just for the first years, which, in our first year at least, housed quite a few first year events. We aren't especially near the CMS as is the case for pretty much all the central colleges but we're near the first and second year lecture theatres and we're very close to Sainsbury's, many of the clubs and the city centre. We also have a very cheap, student-run bar, a student garden and a 24/7 library, if that's important to you.

Reply 6

Original post by melancollege
If you prefer a smaller college, then go for a smaller college. Prestige of the colleges isn't a huge thing here I'd say. Trinmos have a reputation but it's nowhere near like what people think. Also, the social life isn't much dictated by the size of the college in my opinion. Some larger colleges seem way more social, some seem more reclusive.
Also just to note, being near the CMS is useful for your third year and some supervisions in your second year, but your lectures in the first two years are actually in the New Museums Site (look up Museum of Zoology on Maps as sometimes the individual lecture theatres aren't named) with many of the supervisions being in colleges.
I'm at Sidney Sussex and I can vouch for it. We are smaller but not suffocating, we tend to do alright academically and we have a good social life. Almost all of our undergraduate accommodation is on site, bar some first-year accommodation which is like 250m down the road - i.e. near enough that you can see the college's main site from the road in front of it. However, it has its own JCR just for the first years, which, in our first year at least, housed quite a few first year events. We aren't especially near the CMS as is the case for pretty much all the central colleges but we're near the first and second year lecture theatres and we're very close to Sainsbury's, many of the clubs and the city centre. We also have a very cheap, student-run bar, a student garden and a 24/7 library, if that's important to you.


Thanks i hadn’t looked at Sidney Sussex but it sounds really good, thanks :smile:

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