Personal statements allow students to tell us about their subject interests, students are advised to follow the UCAS advice about what to include in their personal statement. 

Find out more about what we are looking for in your personal statement.

Applicants may be asked to submit examples of their written work from a relevant A Level/IB (or equivalent) course. Information on which courses require submitted work can be found on each individual course page. We will advise you on what sort of written work we require, where it should be sent and deadline of submission. You can find more information about written work here.

Most applicants are required to take a subject-specific written admission assessment, either pre-interview or at interview. More information about the Admissions Assessments can be found here.

See the University of Cambridge course information for details of the associated assessments. Dates for applying for these assessments can be found in our important dates timeline.

Interviews have to be challenging, and you can expect to be asked testing, thought-provoking questions. The interviewers will invite you to speculate, to think on your feet, to discuss problems to which there are often no easy or neat solutions. We are interested in your ability to think for yourself, not in how much you can remember.

We know that candidates are nervous, and make allowances for this. We want you to feel confident enough to express your own views and talk about your own interests. The whole point of interviews is to give the interviewers a sense of the individuality and potential of each student - something that no exam paper can reflect.

Most candidates have two interviews. Each lasts about half-an-hour. One will be with the Director of Studies who is responsible for that subject in the College, the other with College teachers in a related subject. Both will focus on your academic interests but will range widely around that, depending on subject.

Most interviews take place in the first three weeks of December and prospective applicants are advised not to make any unbreakable commitments during this period. Interviews for 2024 will take place online.

Preparing for your Interview 

Information regarding how to prepare for an interview can be found on the University’s undergraduate website.

If there are extenuating circumstances that have caused significant educational or home life disruption or disadvantage for a student, it may be appropriate for the school/college referee or the applicant’s doctor or social worker to complete and submit the Extenuating Circumstances Form (ECF).

More information regarding the ECF and deadlines for submitting the form, can be found on the University’s undergraduate website.  

Like most other college, Fitzwilliam awards a range of scholarships for music. While your academic application will be reviewed concurrently to your scholarship application, they are separate. To learn more about the process, and the awards available at Fitz, please click here.

If you'll be aged 21 or over by 1 October in the year in which you hope to come to Cambridge and you haven't already completed a higher education course, then you'll be applying as a mature student. Fitzwilliam College welcomes applications from mature students. 

The application process for mature students is the same as that for standard-age students, find out more here.

Fitzwilliam College is a great place to be a student and has a truly global community. The University of Cambridge International Applications website provides information for international students on applying to Cambridge and we have a dedicated page here on our website.

We accept a wide variety of qualifications from all over the world, if you have any questions regarding your international qualifications please contact our Admissions Office – admissions@fitz.cam.ac.uk

Because application numbers to individual colleges vary from year to year, Cambridge has developed a system to redistribute high quality applications. 

We want to make sure that the best applicants each year are offered a place, no matter which College they originally applied to or were allocated to.

Your application will be assessed by the College you applied to in your UCAS application, or by the College you were allocated to if you selected the open option.

Your College may be impressed by your application but not have a place for you. If this is the case, they may put your application forward to be considered by other Colleges as well. Colleges would rather admit a strong applicant that applied to another College, than a weaker applicant who applied to them directly or was allocated to them.

To do this, we follow processes (known at Cambridge as ‘pools’) where Colleges can:

1. look at applications that were assessed by another College first
2. consider these applicants for courses where they have places left
3. make offers to the best applicants

This means that you may get an offer from a College that you didn’t originally apply to. More details on this process can be found here.

We normally do not consider applications from students enrolled on a degree course at another UK university.

We’ll only consider this if:

• you have exceptional circumstances
• you want to change the subject you're studying

You will:

• need strong support from your course director
• need a written reference or letter of support sent to us
• be assessed in the same way as any other applicant

If you transfer to Cambridge from another UK university, you will need to start from the beginning (first year). It is not possible to transfer credit to Cambridge from another university.

Please be aware that if you have previously studied at another university, this may impact your eligibility for student finance and/or a student visa.