The Guardian has reported that Cambridge college Trinity Hall is to target “elite private schools” for student recruitment.
To the disquiet of many college fellows a memo from director of admissions Marcus Tomalin, argues that:
The best students from such schools arrive at Cambridge with expertise and interests that align well with the intellectual demands of Tripos courses
specifically including subjects including languages, music, and classics.
He recommends that the college develops a “targeted recruitment strategy” for UK independent schools that focus on these (and a handful of other) subjects where the university already sees more than 40 per cent of applications come from independent schools, and that these efforts are further reinforced by a specific concentration on specific schools that have “sent plausible applicants to Cambridge” in the past.
To be very clear, there is nothing in the memo to suggest that this will be done to the detriment of other students. And the interventions recommended – contacting the schools to let them know about what Trinity Hall offers for these subjects, creating webinars or other social media material for those subjects and alerting those schools – are hardly evidence of discriminatory behaviour.
Reading between the lines, this is less an effort to get more independent school kids into Cambridge and more an attempt to encourage the ones that are applying for these subjects anyway to consider Trinity Hall rather than one of the other 28 available colleges.
Applying for these courses
Music at Cambridge more generally is a very specialised endeavor. Applicants require either A level music or a grade 8 music qualification at merit or above, with those seeking to make a “strong application” recommended to add other A levels in English, history, mathematics, or (“ancient or modern”) languages. All this is on top of “general requirements” that include an acquaintance with the standard (classical) musical repertory, play to a grade 5 or above standard at the (piano) keyboard, and some basic knowledge of counterpoint.
Your application will include the submission of two school essays in music and two harmony exercises. If shortlisted for interview, you would be required to take a written assessment (harmonisation of a chorale melody, recognition of musical forms, and chord analysis). All this for a chance at one of the one to three places a year available at Trinity Hall.
For the three year course in classics you would instead need an A level in Latin (“if you do not study Latin but instead study Classical Greek, please contact us for advice”). There are between two and four places on the course available each year.
The other route mentioned in the memo, the four year modern and medieval languages course (incorporating a year abroad), is much larger than these more specialised subjects – with between six and eight places available every year at Trinity Hall. Candidates for this four year course need an A level in at least one of the languages they want to study, and a “strong application” would have another. A portion of the interview would be conducted in one of these languages.
By the numbers
I mention all this to illustrate just how few students these measures would potentially have an impact on. The numbers of students that would meet the entry requirements for these courses are vanishingly low – and the subset of those that would consider the course at this particular Cambridge college as their first choice is even lower.
In 2025 just two students applied to music at Trinity Hall (four were accepted, the college clearly topped up via the winter pool). Six applied to the three year classics programme (two offers, two acceptances), while twelve applied to modern and medieval languages (six offers, four acceptances).
Overall, Trinity Hall saw 617 applications in 2024 (the last year of data available at this resolution), made 139 offers, and accepted 107 students. This is at the lower end of Cambridge colleges For independent schools, the numbers were 118, 31, and 28 – for UK maintained (state) schools it was 281, 78, and 53. Less than ten of these state school acceptances were in the music, classics, or languages courses we are concerned with – based on a very low level of applications to these courses from such backgrounds (we’re facing the HESA-esque rounding to the nearest five for low numbers problem here).
A failure?
It would be tempting to make an argument that this represents a failure in access and participation. But it is also very possible that this is not a failing on behalf of the university. There are very few schools (independent or otherwise) that can prepare people for these particular entry requirements, and that’s before we get into family and social backgrounds that are able to support sustained musical practice, or learning multiple (ancient or modern) languages.
This isn’t the case for all courses. Trinity Hall (like other selective, prestigious providers) does a huge amount of work in broadening access and participation to undergraduate study. It works with potential applicants from underrepresented ethnic groups, and works particularly with schools in Bristol and the South West.
A Trinity Hall spokesperson told me that:
There has been no change to Trinity Hall’s widening participation policy. This modest additional activity is aimed at ensuring we get the best applications from talented students from all backgrounds. The college is very proud of the progress it has made in widening access. Average admissions from state schools at the college in the past 3 years has been 73 per cent and Trinity Hall admitted 20.4 per cent of its UK students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds last year, an increase on previous years.
Language about “reverse discrimination” is unhelpful. If there really is reverse discrimination a look at recruitment to these courses at Cambridge suggests it isn’t working very well. As applicant numbers are falling, to various degrees, for classics, languages, and (classical) music across the sector, Trinity Hall (like providers of all types) is looking to maximise recruitment by making an effort to encourage students already likely to apply – in this case, students almost certain to apply to Cambridge in the hope they would choose Trinity Hall rather than St John’s or Clare.
This is not a replacement for broader and more sustained work on access: it is simply evidence that recruitment pressures (and the linked financial pressures) are everywhere.
I don’t agree. Trinity Hall don’t need to be putting additional money and resource into targeting specific independent schools – these efforts should be going into access and participation instead. Or creating helpful resources that support and are available to all applicants!
I think you are missing the point… They want to recruit the top talent in specific courses and such talent as mentioned above does not exist or is limited at the state schools let alone in deprived areas. The alternative is to drop the standards or let the courses die. We should not allow DEI to kill meritocracy just for the sake of it. Worth noting that the survival rate of DEI accepted students (that usually come with lower entry requirement; that can be found in the official stats) within y1 is significantly lower than other groups /high achievers irrespective… Read more »
“The alternative is to drop the standards or let the courses die. We should not allow DEI to kill meritocracy just for the sake of it.”
If we are really as cash-strapped a country as many would like us to believe, why not let the courses die and instead funnel the money that supported them into more immediately useful subjects? Why is it that private school students should get to have the opportunity to take what many would consider “useless” degrees, while students from state schools are told STEM or bust, regardless of their own interests?
So according to you Music History, Classics , Language at Cambridge and/or Oxford are useless and should be killed just because state school kids dont choose them. So anything to do with culture, civilization etc is “useless”. No wonder that we are going downhill.
I was picking apart the implications of your comment. I don’t think these subjects are useless, quite the opposite, I believe that they should be open to all kids. It’s nothing to do with ‘choice’ but about how wealthy your parents are.
You cannot outreach people into wanting a subject they don’t want. There can be a bit of institutional self-deception in the sector about this. Outreach is treated like a magic lever: pull it hard enough and preferences will change. But preferences are shaped upstream by schools, parents, labour markets, media, culture, and perceived risk. By the time a Year 12 turns up at a summer school, that decision space is already pretty well set. Outreach and recruitment aren’t the same thing. Outreach raises awareness and readiness; recruitment ensures the applicant pool is actually wide and diverse enough to select from.… Read more »
The other side of the policy is pointing towards the absence of a very high standard of achievement in the state sector for classical music, languages, and classics. Are there other subjects for which the same situation exists or is likely to occur within the next few years? Physics, chemistry, and mathematics are obvious subjects. After 81 years, is the progress in the performance of state sector schools real, when controlling statistically for parents who supplement the education of their children?
Given its charitable status, perhaps the college should adapt to falling applicant numbers by changing the courses it offers.
Indeed. Market forces, etc…
But market forces show that kids from Private schools want those subjects that others dont like . History, Languages, Classics , Music are unlikely to be chosen (not impossible) by kids in deprived areas and/or state schools
I think there are plenty of kids in deprived areas and/or state schools who would like those subjects if they had the opportunity, but we’ve chosen an education system that increasingly moves towards preparing the majority population to be good little workers and nothing else
There’s been a lot of wailing by the 93% Club oblivious to the fact that around 40% of students fail to go on to 6th form studies anywhere (because of poor GCSEs). Of those remaining the split is roughly 80:20 state/independent. For Music it is almost certainly weighted more towards independents. Criticism of Trinity Hall in the light of this is unwarranted. Unless the college is proposing to admit very young children and start a 11-16 school, the 93% statistic is irrelevant.
The real crime here is the underfunding of these subjects in state schools.
Absolutely this. It is hard for state schools to maintain some of these subjects at all to A-Level, let alone to the standard required for entry to Cambridge. The curriculum changes for languages are slowly killing school language departments and those will be followed by university language departments. During the pandemic, when shut away from each other, many people turned to music, the arts and suchlike for enjoyment. It seems that was a lesson we somehow failed to learn; these subjects enrich our lives and their decline is a matter that should concern us all.
As a music graduate of a Russell Group (who now works in a post 92 university), I’m surprised that the entry for music is A level music or Grade 8 performance. When I was applying to university (more than 20 years ago) you had to achieve both of these plus other requirements. I would have expected both to be required at a Cambridge college too. Also, the type of music education at an Oxford or Cambridge college is very different and much more traditional than what is offered at other institutions, so it feels more likely that a student at… Read more »
Many state schools no longer offer A level music (or much in the way of music tuition at all) so grade 8 performance may be the only qualification accessible to some students. Even that requires years of support and financial input from parents, often battling the lack of availability in some areas (my local music hub, Cambridgeshire, appears to be unable to send any peripatetic instrumental teachers into my local schools). The tests required at interview are going to challenge any student who’s not been through A level – and I’m not sure Bach chorales are still on all A… Read more »
Music graduate of UEA now working in a post 92 institution too. Also alumni of the London College of Music. My comprehensive had a really good music offer, but we are talking about 35/40 years ago now (I know, I don’t look that old…) but things are so different now. I find it immensely sad that many kids won’t even interact with any opportunity to get a musical education or learn to play an instrument. It feels so unachievable now. I also did Latin at GCSE and A Level. I wouldn’t have known that I had an interest if it… Read more »
At best, Trinity Hall should be embarrassed. At worst, deeply ashamed. DK can always be relied on to bring nuance to sensationalist national newspaper headlines and, as always, he’s done a fine job here. Essentially, Trinity Hall has applied marketing logic to its recruitment: apply your efforts where you’re most likely to find ‘qualified leads’. ‘Qualified’ in this context does not refer to having qualifications. Instead, it means those ‘qualified’ in the sense of ‘moderated’ or most likely to apply and be successful, ie. the low-hanging fruit. However, the real concern for me is not whether Trinity Hall will recruit… Read more »
‘I strongly suggest that, rather than trying to be ever more selective in its recruitment, Trinity Hall takes a more progressive approach to the design of these courses so that they may appeal to a wider pool of students and offer the opportunity to succeed to anyone with the right level of extraordinary potential.’
Absolutely on the relevance and value of inclusive course design. In fairness to Trinity Hall though, course development and approval belongs to the University rather than the colleges, so they don’t have the full spectrum of options.
Let’s be real: Trinity Hall is bending over backwards to be “progressive” and attract anyone and everyone to their courses. But life isn’t fair and never has been. We’ve already got a ton of DEI schemes, and most Russell Group universities admit students from tougher backgrounds with lower grades. That’s public knowledge. Still, for some on the Left, that’s never enough—they always want more, even if it means watering down standards and changing courses to pull in students who, let’s face it, probably won’t enjoy or succeed in those fields. Take Birmingham University’s claim that exams disadvantage certain communities. How… Read more »
The memo was not meant to be part of any messaging – it was leaked by one or more of the Fellows who opposed it, so that’s either a spectacular own-goal or a deliberately reckless bit of sabotage from those who claim to care about access but are more interested in settling scores. No surprises that this happened at Trinity Hall – they’ve had the worst media coverage of all Cambridge colleges in the past few years and clearly remain a very dysfunctional institution.
What marvellous news and an unexpected outbreak of common sense!
I really can’t imagine that elite , well resourced, private schools need encouragement to get their students to apply to Cambridge. If Trinity Hall think that talented, state school kids need a little extra support that the state sector doesn’t give, they could always offer foundation courses, informal exposure to quality tuition, and the like. Oxbridge maths dons do this.
This is a good article. Trinity Hall, because it is such a small college, clearly wishes to admit applicants that chose the college positively, rather than be full of students from a general pool. It wants applicants who put it first, who really want to go there. So it needs a Cambridge internal competitive strategy, aimed at those already applying or likely to apply to Cambridge. Cambridge applications for music and classics are already heavily skewed to private and independent schools, for reasons that are well known, so there is a clear group that can be addressed, and perhaps one… Read more »