Black and Asian teenagers from across the UK are in Cambridge this week (9-11 August) taking part in a three-day conference on applying to university.

Around 30 ethnic minority students are taking part in the event, which has been organised by the Group to Encourage Ethnic Minority Applications to Cambridge (GEEMA), within the Cambridge Admissions Office.

The GEEMA Information Conference has been specially designed to cater to the needs of Year 12 ethnic minority students. The sessions aim to help them make well-informed decisions about higher education, and cover everything from the UCAS applications process to choosing a course and university, as well as student finance, preparing for interviews and graduate careers.

The students attending the conference will be the first generation in their families to go to university and/or from schools with little history of sending students to Cambridge.

This is the second year that GEEMA has organised a Year 12 Information Conference on applying to university. GEEMA also runs a residential summer school giving Year 11 students an introduction to university life, as well as hosting visits to Cambridge by ethnic minority students, organising brainteasing challenge days for students in Years 8 to 10 and visiting students in schools and colleges around the country.

GEEMA was founded in 1989 by black and Asian students. It is co-ordinated from the Cambridge Admissions Office and is supported by all the Colleges.

Sixteen per cent of current Cambridge students are from an ethnic minority background.

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