Outreach
at Clare

When asked to describe their favourite thing about Clare, our students consistently highlight our diverse community and the opportunity it offers to befriend others from different backgrounds. This is the result of our admissions ethos; we want to admit the students with the most potential to thrive at Clare, irrespective of who they might be or what school they join us from.

However, not all young people can access the same information or support necessary to make a strong application to study at Cambridge. Many hardworking and talented students from non-traditional backgrounds might simply not consider Cambridge a realistic option. As Clare’s Outreach team, our task is to level the playing field, demystify the Cambridge experience and encourage all bright and motivated students, whatever their background, to apply.

At the heart of our Outreach programme are in-person school visits to the College, which we were delighted to resume in January after a two-year pause caused by COVID-19. In Lent term of this year alone we hosted almost 400 students, from primary-age children to sixth formers. These visits complement the ongoing programme of online talks, student panels and taster lectures we established during the pandemic to engage with young people across the UK.

As part of the University’s regionalised outreach strategy, many of our school visitors come to Clare from the ‘link areas’ for which we have particular responsibility: Coventry, Warwickshire, and the London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Young people in these areas face distinct barriers in accessing the most competitive universities, from disproportionally low rates of progression to the top universities to fears about fitting in at Cambridge. Through bespoke admissions workshops, academic taster sessions and – the highlight of any visit – College tours with our brilliant Student Ambassadors, we aim to dismantle these barriers and equip young people with the curiosity and confidence to make the most of the educational opportunities available to them.

We also run nationwide events for students from specific groups historically under-represented at the University. One recent highlight was our Open Day for 130 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic school students in March. This benefitted from support by many of Clare’s current undergraduates from ethnic minority backgrounds, helping to cut through the misconceptions and myths about who Cambridge is for.

The support we offer students is comprehensive, right up to the point of starting university. For example, we deliver an annual Interview Preparation Day for applicants from our link areas. In October we welcomed a small group of incoming first-year students from socio-economically disadvantaged areas for a pastoral Bridging Course before the beginning of Michaelmas term, led by two outstanding Student Ambassadors.

As the College once again buzzes with the return of in-person teaching, we can’t wait to welcome more promising young people into Clare. After two challenging years of disrupted learning and limited opportunities to visit universities, the school students we meet are always excited to see us – and excited to get the day off school!