Four chapters, built from primary admissions data.
Eleven cycles of Cambridge Law admissions, with the figures taken from the University's own releases.
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]
232 admits across 1,604 applicants in the 2025 cycle. [1] Roughly 1-in-7. Sits a couple of points above Oxford’s ~12%.
Cambridge Law receives roughly 7 applications for every place it fills. Higher in the post-2020 spike (2021 = 7.6×), lower in 2017 (5.3×).
291 standard offers made on 1,604 applications.[1] The offer rate (pre-attrition) is higher than the admit rate because some offer-holders miss their grades or decline.
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.
Figure 1 · Eleven-cycle funnel
| Cycle | Apps | Offers (M1) | Admitted (M2) | Offer rate | Admit rate | Apps/place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1,015 | 257 | 208 | 25.3% | 20.5% | 4.88 |
| 2016 | 1,048 | 256 | 217 | 24.4% | 20.7% | 4.83 |
| 2017 | 1,161 | 275 | 219 | 23.7% | 18.9% | 5.30 |
| 2018 | 1,357 | 269 | 202 | 19.8% | 14.9% | 6.72 |
| 2019 | 1,498 | 292 | 221 | 19.5% | 14.8% | 6.78 |
| 2020 | 1,537 | 287 | 262 | 18.7% | 17.0% | 5.87 |
| 2021 | 1,870 | 265 | 246 | 14.2% | 13.2% | 7.60 |
| 2022 | 1,845 | 245 | 217 | 13.3% | 11.8% | 8.50 |
| 2023 | 1,580 | 280 | 230 | 17.7% | 14.6% | 6.87 |
| 2024 | 1,604 | 288 | 236 | 18.0% | 14.7% | 6.80 |
| 2025 | 1,604 | 291 | 232 | 17.6% | 14.0% | 7.13 |
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.
| Cycle | Home apps | Intl apps | Home offers | Intl offers | Home offer rate | Intl offer rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 453 | 562 | 146 | 111 | 32.2% | 19.8% |
| 2016 | 477 | 571 | 150 | 106 | 31.4% | 18.6% |
| 2017 | 597 | 564 | 150 | 125 | 25.1% | 22.2% |
| 2018 | 747 | 610 | 166 | 103 | 22.2% | 16.9% |
| 2019 | 932 | 566 | 202 | 90 | 21.7% | 15.9% |
| 2020 | 993 | 544 | 208 | 79 | 20.9% | 14.5% |
| 2021 | 1,186 | 684 | 187 | 78 | 15.8% | 11.4% |
| 2022 | 1,244 | 601 | 168 | 77 | 13.5% | 12.8% |
| 2023 | 1,104 | 476 | 195 | 85 | 17.7% | 17.9% |
| 2024 | 1,108 | 496 | 195 | 93 | 17.6% | 18.8% |
| 2025 | 1,156 | 498 | 199 | 92 | 17.2% | 18.5% |
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.
For international applicants. The headline 14% admit rate hides a slightly tighter funnel, but the international pool is itself more self-selected, so the candidate-quality bar at the margin is similar. What decides offers across both pools is interview and LNAT performance, not where you applied from.
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.
| College | Apps | Offers | Admitted | Offer rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downing | 149 | 15 | 11 | 10.1% |
| Gonville and Caius | 118 | 16 | 15 | 13.6% |
| Clare | 82 | 10 | 9 | 12.2% |
| Trinity | 79 | 15 | 11 | 19.0% |
| Jesus | 74 | 9 | 7 | 12.2% |
| St John's | 74 | 11 | 10 | 14.9% |
| Corpus Christi | 67 | 9 | 9 | 13.4% |
| Hughes Hall | 67 | 11 | 7 | 16.4% |
| Selwyn | 61 | 9 | 6 | 14.8% |
| Queens' | 60 | 10 | 8 | 16.7% |
| Lucy Cavendish | 59 | 14 | 11 | 23.7% |
| St Catharine's | 55 | 9 | 9 | 16.4% |
| Christ's | 54 | 10 | 9 | 18.5% |
| Homerton | 53 | 13 | 10 | 24.5% |
| King's | 51 | 5 | 5 | 9.8% |
| Girton | 49 | 11 | 9 | 22.4% |
| Newnham | 49 | 8 | 6 | 16.3% |
| Pembroke | 47 | 10 | 7 | 21.3% |
| Trinity Hall | 46 | 10 | 7 | 21.7% |
| St Edmund's | 45 | 10 | 6 | 22.2% |
| Magdalene | 44 | 10 | 7 | 22.7% |
| Peterhouse | 43 | 7 | 7 | 16.3% |
| Emmanuel | 41 | 5 | 5 | 12.2% |
| Fitzwilliam | 35 | 7 | 5 | 20.0% |
| Wolfson | 34 | 11 | 9 | 32.4% |
| Robinson | 33 | 8 | 7 | 24.2% |
| Murray Edwards | 29 | 10 | 8 | 34.5% |
| Churchill | 28 | 8 | 5 | 28.6% |
| Sidney Sussex | 28 | 10 | 7 | 35.7% |
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.]
Every numerical claim above ends in a [n] superscript that links here. Click any link to open the primary report or dataset from which the figure was retrieved.
Annual undergraduate admissions statistics. Per-year applications, offers (M1), and admits (M2) for the Law course, 2015 through 2025.
Annual breakdown of home vs non-UK applicants, offers, and admits for Law.
Per-college applications, offers, and admits for Law across the eleven-cycle window.
Explore key trends and deeper insights from the data.
See how applicants progress through each stage from 2015 to 2025.
View the funnel →How the home and overseas pool has shifted from 2015 to 2025.
View the trend →Where applicants apply: 31 colleges, very uneven distribution.
View demographics →Distribution, offer-rate curve, calculator, marking criteria.
Open LNAT page →