Senate House

The University's Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Virgo, has written to the Times to clarify a misleading story that we would withdraw offers to students in the event of oversubscription. His letter was published on 5th February, 2021.

CAMBRIDGE OFFERS

Sir, Apropos your report “Cambridge to withdraw places if oversubscribed” (Feb 3), the university is not planning to withdraw places from students who meet the terms of their offers. As your article notes, last summer we admitted a record number of students after A-level grades were revised upwards. Fortunately we were able to accommodate this higher intake but only through voluntary entry deferral by some students or by others accepting a place at a college that was not their original choice. This year we altered our terms and conditions to show offer holders that, should their offering college be oversubscribed, we might have to consider these options again. If a student preferred to take up a place at another university, they could, but this would only be necessary if they were not happy with the option of transferring to another college or deferring entry.

Professor Graham Virgo
Senior pro-vice-chancellor (education), University of Cambridge