Headline numbers

Cambridge received 1,604 applications and made 232 offers for the 2025 admissions cycle (entry 2026)^[1] — an offer rate of 14.0%. 291 applicants were given a place under the standard offer (M0), with the remaining gap explained by withdrawals, declined offers, and pool releases.^[1]

Three numbers worth fixing in your head

The Cambridge Law funnel

Every cycle from 2015 to 2025 in one frame.^[1] Applications climbed from ~1,015 (2015) to a 2021 peak of 1,870, before settling at ~1,600-1,700. Offers and admits have stayed in a tight 240-290 band because capacity is set by college tutorial slots, not by demand.

What the trend reveals

• Applications grew 63% between 2015 and 2025. From 1,015 in 2015 to a 2021 peak of 1,870, settling at 1,604 in 2025. ^[1]
• Offers held a tight 245-292 band. College tutorial slots cap capacity.
• Admit rate compressed from 20.5% (2015) to 14.0% (2025). The course got harder to get into because the applicant pool grew, not because the course changed.
• 2020-21 pandemic spike. Applications jumped from 1,537 to 1,870 in one cycle. The bulge has since unwound but baseline demand sits ~600 above 2015.

Home vs international applicants

In 2025, 1,156 home and 498 international applicants applied for Cambridge Law.^[2] The home share has hovered between 45% (2015) and 70% (2025) — international demand rose sharply post-2018 then partially retreated.

Two patterns worth flagging

Pattern 1 — the home share has flipped. In 2015, home applicants slightly outnumbered international (453 vs 562, i.e. home 45%); by 2022 home had risen to 1,244 vs 601 (home 68%); 2025 sits at 70% home.^[2] Brexit, fee-status changes, and the post-pandemic spike in domestic applications all contribute.

Pattern 2 — international offer rates are lower. Home offer rates have hovered 16-19% across the window; international offer rates have drifted from 19.7% (2015) down to ~15-18%. The international pool is smaller but also more self-selected, and Cambridge has not significantly grown the international intake.

Per-college applicant load

Cambridge’s 29 Law-teaching colleges receive very different volumes of applications. In 2025, Downing led with 149 applications, Churchill received 28.^[3] The pool system reallocates strong applicants rejected by one college to another, so college choice matters less than the raw numbers suggest.

The college economics

Three patterns in the per-college data. First, Downing, Trinity, Gonville & Caius, and Clare consistently attract the heaviest application loads, driven by historic Law reputation, Trinity’s endowment effect, and visibility. Second, mature-student colleges (Hughes Hall, Lucy Cavendish, Wolfson, St Edmund’s) admit a different cohort and run on a different competitive logic. Third, offer rates per college vary widely (5-25%) because the small numbers are noisy; within ±2 standard errors of one another, most colleges face the same effective bar.

The Cambridge pool absorbs most of the variation. If your college rejects you but ranks you above a candidate held elsewhere, you can be pooled and offered a place at a different college. In 2024-25 around 20-25% of all Cambridge offers come via the pool, though Law-specific pool figures are not separately published. [DATA GAP: Cambridge does not publish Law-specific pool conversion rate.]