Undergraduate offer holders
Undergraduate offer holders
Congratulations on your offer to study at Downing College. The Admissions Team is here to assist you from the moment you receive your offer in January until your place is officially confirmed, which is after you have met the conditions of your offer. We have provided further information in this section to help you prepare. Specific subject requirements and relevant information is included on the Downing College Offer Holder Portal.
Please read the Undergraduate Terms of Admission, which was also included with your offer letter.
- Contact
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Please direct all offer holder enquiries to admissions@dow.cam.ac.uk. Whenever you contact the Admissions Office, we recommend you include in the subject line: UCAS PID_Last Name_First Name_Course (e.g. 123456789_Smith_Jane_History)
If you change any contact details (email, address, or phone number) it is important that you update these via your UCAS account. The College and University will use these contact details to send you important information. We do not change offer holders’ contact details without your UCAS account being updated first.
Please keep your email account up to date to make sure you receive our emails: check spam or junk mail regularly.
Downing College contact details can be found on our website.
- Downing College Offer Holder Portal
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The Offer Holder Portal provides additional resources and an area for you to submit information required for your application (such as official certificates, financial documents, previous visas, and a copy of passport).
Disclosure of extenuating circumstances, disabilities, learning differences, or long-term illnesses is entirely at the offer holder’s discretion. However, if such information is not shared with the College during the admissions process, it cannot later be used as grounds for a complaint about the application outcome.
Please note: all documents must be uploaded via the Portal; we cannot accept submissions by email.
- Document checklist
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Using the Downing College Portal, please submit the required documents listed below. You must use your @dow.cam.ac.uk login credentials, which are sent via email.
Access the Downing College Offer Holder Portal.
Checklist
Deadlines
International students:
Cambridge Trust funding application form Further information including eligibility and application form is provided on the Portal.
13 February 2026
Certificates:
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GCSE or equivalent certificates.
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AS Level or equivalent certificates.
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A Level or equivalent certificates, if you have already completed them.
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Other certificates relevant to your application – for example, music certificates if you are a Music offer holder, or if you have already completed a degree, etc.
1 April 2026
Other:
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A copy of your passport. Please scan the photo page of your passport or National Identity Card. Please include your second passport if you have dual nationality.
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Transcripts If you have additional transcripts to upload after you applied.
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Miscellaneous If you have other documents you would like to upload.
1 April 2026 Financial documents:
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Financial Undertaking for Undergraduate Study Form can be found on the Portal resources)
1 April 2026
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Payment timetable if you have applied to Student Finance. This document is called 'University or College Payment Advice'.
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Financial documentary evidence for Home Fee Status offer-holders not applying to Student Finance and all Overseas Fee Status offer-holders.
1 May 2026
International students:
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English language certificate as detailed on your offer letter if required.
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Any current visas, previous visas, or any Biometric Residency Permit (front and back needed).
31 May 2026
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- Events
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Offer Holder Day
Taking place from 11am to 3pm on Friday 20 March, Offer Holder Day is a chance for offer-holders to visit Downing and meet some Directors of Studies, current students and staff. To register for the event, please complete this form by 12pm on Monday 16 February (GMT time). You will be contacted directly about this with detailed information in early March.
If you cannot attend Offer Holder Day, we want to emphasise this will not impact on your offer; we will live stream and record key information sessions and share with all offer-holders. You are still more than welcome to visit Downing College on another occasion.
Open Day
Open Day is an exciting opportunity for prospective students to visit the College, have a guided tour, and view some of the accommodation available. Offer-holders are very welcome to come to our Open Day to meet students, Fellows (academics) and members of staff (Wellbeing Team, Admissions, and Accommodation), as well as explore Downing’s facilities. Open Days take place in July and September each year. For further details, please see our Open Days page.
Tours of the College
If you cannot attend the Open Days, you can visit the College for a tour. Downing is an 'open college' so you can come in most days throughout the year between 10am - 5pm and collect a map from the Porters’ Lodge (main entrance).
Alternatively, offer holders can request a guided tour, depending on staff availability. This request would need to be booked a few weeks in advance. Please email admissions@dow.cam.ac.uk.
Please be aware that guided tours on non-Offer Holder Day and Open Days do not include viewing accommodation facilities.
- Financial guarantee
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Offer holders are required to complete a Financial Guarantee for Undergraduate Study, which will show that you have sufficient funds to fund your entire course of study at Cambridge. The form will be available in February, on the Offer Holder Portal.
Fees
For information on tuition fees and living costs, please refer to:
The fees for our courses are subject to inflationary increases in future years. If you join us as a student, we will notify you of any fee increases by no later than June prior to the start of the next academic year.
Home students
The University of Cambridge, along with its constituent colleges, is committed to the principle that no suitably qualified home fee status student should be deterred from applying to study here for financial reasons. There is more information on the University’s Financial Assistance webpages, particularly the Cambridge Bursary Scheme for home fees students from low-income households.
Home fee status students can apply for government-funded loans to cover tuition and maintenance fees. For information, please refer to:
Please check on the relevant website when to apply (offer-holders can apply online for Student Finance England from March onwards).
Student Finance expect that the rest of the living costs (difference between the maximum loan available and the loan awarded, and the Cambridge Bursary received if eligible) is to be made up via a household contribution. Most undergraduate students normally apply for a maintenance loan via Student Finance. This is means-tested, so the amount an undergraduate gets depends on their household income. Household income refers to the earnings before tax of parents, partners of parents or legal guardians. Please note that if your financial circumstances change during your studies, you can be reassessed via Student Finance, and then the Cambridge Bursary.
For non-home fee status students or students who do not intend to apply for UK student finance, it is essential to prepare for covering expenses for the entire duration of the course by combining verifiable private finance (liquid assets) and potentially pursuing bursaries and scholarships.
International Students
Cambridge’s financial support for international fees undergraduates is limited and highly competed for, and there are only a few full undergraduate scholarships available. For more information, please read the University’s International Fees and Costs page and the pages linked from it. Downing does not offer College-based financial support for international fees undergraduates to meet the required financial guarantee.
Cambridge Trust: International Students
The Cambridge Trust offers a small programme of Cambridge scholarships for undergraduate students who are set at the Overseas fee rate. Most of these awards are part-cost, offering a contribution towards the cost of studying at the University of Cambridge.
Further information is available at Cambridge Trust.
The application form and submission page can be found on the College Portal.
The deadline to apply is Friday 13 February.
- International offer holders: visa information
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Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS)
The University’s International Student Office will issue a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) to support a student visa application, once all the conditions of offer have been met.
If you are applying for a student visa, it is important you understand the student visa application requirements and prepare any necessary supporting documents. You must make your visa application (apply for ‘entry clearance’) in your country of nationality or your country of residence and obtain the visa prior to travelling to the UK. You can only make a student visa application inside the UK (apply for ‘permission to stay’) if you have a valid visa that allows you to extend or switch in-country.
Applicants are advised to familiarise themselves with the information about applying for a visa on the International Students webpages.
If you have any questions relating to your visa application, you can email the International Student Office at international.students@admin.cam.ac.uk.
- Pomona Scholar
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A Pre-University Year at Pomona College, California
A fully-funded scholarship for a Pomona-Downing Scholar is awarded each year to an undergraduate offer-holder at Downing College. The successful student then spends a full academic year at Pomona before starting at Cambridge. The deadline to apply is Friday 13 February 2026. The registration form is available on the Offer Holder Portal and will be sent to Offer Holders via email.
For more information, please refer to our Pomona Exchange Scheme and hear from a previous Pomona Scholar.
- Replying to your offer on UCAS
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Please be aware that the deadline to confirm your acceptance for any of your university offers is 6 May 2026 (if you have heard from all other UK universities you applied to by 31 March) or 3 June 2026 (if you have heard from other UK universities by 13 May). If you do not accept by the specified date above, your offer made by Downing College will automatically be marked as 'decline by default' and we will assume that you have declined your offer.
Please remember to login into your UCAS account and confirm your choices.
- Near-miss information
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To all offer-holders with academic conditions who are preparing for their finals: Firstly, good luck in your exams!
As you are aware, the conditional offer you have received asked you to achieve certain grades in your forthcoming examinations. We very much hope you will be successful in meeting the conditions of this offer. Should you discover once the results are released that you have not met these conditions then we will consider your application alongside those of other offer-holders in a similar position for any places that remain unfilled. Please note that in these circumstances, we would normally only consider offer-holders who have missed the conditions of their offer by one grade in one subject.
If you are in this position, you also may be considered alongside offer-holders in the Summer Pool. Please refer to the University website.
In these circumstances it is essential for us to know exactly how close to meeting your offer you were. We would therefore ask you to arrange to send us details of your performance in the form of a scanned copy of your statement of results for each examination as soon as possible once your results are available. Scanned copies of statements of results should be uploaded on the Offer Holder Portal.
If you are studying A Levels, IB, or Scottish Highers we are sent your grades via UCAS. UCAS only provides us with your overall examination grades, so if you have narrowly missed your offer, please send in a breakdown of your results as soon as you receive them.
International students please send official copies of your certificate directly to us using the Portal.
If you are studying towards any other qualification (such as HKSE, Singapore, or APs) please upload an official copy of your certificate using the Downing College Portal.
- What's next?
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We will share further information, including applying for accommodation, arrival dates, and Freshers' week in September, once places are confirmed. This information will be made available on our Information for new Undergraduates page.