At Cambridge, as well as being a member of the University, you're also a member of a College. Colleges provide accommodation, support and more.
Find out more about the role of Colleges in your study here.
Colleges that offer the Foundation Year
There are 29 undergraduate Colleges, and 13 of them admit students to the Foundation Year. These are:
- Downing
- Fitzwilliam
- Girton
- Gonville & Caius
- Homerton
- Hughes Hall
- Lucy Cavendish
- Murray Edwards
- Newnham
- Queens’
- Sidney Sussex
- St Edmund’s
- Wolfson
Choosing a College
Applicants can express a preference for a certain College in our admissions process. This is done via the FYSAQ, not in your initial UCAS application.
If you don't want to express a preference or can't choose a College, you can make an Open application. You also do this via the FYSAQ and it doesn’t disadvantage your application in any way.
You can read this guide for help on selecting a College.
College preferences and their outcomes
Overall, for 2025 entry, 55.5% of offers made were for an applicants' preferred College, if they had one.
Open applications (applications with no stated College preference) made up 24.9% of eligible applications in the 2025 entry cycle.
Each admissions cycle, some Colleges are the preferred choice of more candidates than others for a variety of reasons. However, Colleges typically have around the same number of places for the Foundation Year. Our admissions process is intended to ensure that the candidates with the most potential receive an offer from the University of Cambridge, even if that offer is not from their preferred College.
For 2025 entry, the number of eligible applicants who expressed a College preference per offer made by that College was:
- Downing: 9 preference College applications per offer made
- Fitzwilliam: 3 preference College applications per offer made
- Girton: 3 preference College applications per offer made
- Gonville & Caius: 7 preference College applications per offer made
- Homerton: 2 preference College applications per offer made
- Hughes Hall: did not make offers for 2025 entry
- Lucy Cavendish: 1 preference College application per offer made
- Murray Edwards: 1 preference College applications per offer made
- Newnham: 6 preference College applications per offer made
- Queens': 4 preference College applications per offer made
- Sidney Sussex: 3 preference College applications per offer made
- St Edmund's: 1 preference College application per offer made
- Wolfson: 3 preference College applications per offer made
