Cambridge admissions ‘skewed towards London and South East’

ADMISSIONS to the University of Cambridge are “skewed” towards students from London and the South East, its vice-chancellor has said as she launches a diversity drive.

Prof Deborah Prentice said she wants to encourage more students from “all backgrounds” to apply, including from across the North West of England.

In 2022, almost half of applications from UK students were from London and the South East, while 7.7 per cent were from the North West and 2.1 per cent from the North East.

Applicants from London and the South East had the highest success rate, accounting for 51 per cent of the new intake, with applicants from the North West accepting 7.3 per cent of places.

Writing in the Northern Agenda during a Liverpool visit to meet aspiring students, Prof Prentice, who was appointed last year, said she wanted the university to “serve the UK as a whole”. She said it has “made real progress in recent years in welcoming a more diverse group of students, and the proportion of students who join from state schools has risen significantly”.

However, she said she shared concerns of some students that “admissions to Cambridge – which is most certainly a national university – is skewed towards London and the South East”.

Prof Prentice was writing in response to an article by Eva Carroll, 21, a Cambridge student who wrote in the Liverpool Echo about not meeting “a single person with a northern accent” in her first few weeks at the university.

Ms Carroll, who was raised by a single mother in Everton, said: “Early in my first year, I went on a date where the guy paid for both our pizzas, then asked me to transfer £7.50 to his online banking. I thought to myself, fair enough, right? We were both students on a budget. We got out our phones and I saw the balance in his account. It was £50,000. I had about £50 in mine.”

Her comments come after Eton College pledged to open three state schools in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham to help close the North-south divide in Oxbridge admissions.

The free schools, to be run in partnership with Star Academies, will recruit young people from deprived areas with the aim of getting them into top universities.

At Oxford University, London and the South East made up 47 per cent of UK undergraduate applications and admissions between 2020 and 2022, against about 2 per cent from the North East and 8 per cent from the North West.

Commenting on Eton’s state school plans, Prof Irene Tracey, Oxford’s vice-chancellor, said: “The issue is not a lack of talented students, but rather sufficient opportunities ... we very much hope that these three colleges will be a contribution to providing that need.”

‘The issue is not a lack of talented students, but rather sufficient opportunities’