Being rejected from the university of your dreams can be heartbreaking, especially when you’ve worked so hard on your application and made it through every step of the process.
Anyone who’s gone through the process knows how difficult it is to apply to the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, as well as how competitive each university is. However, if you didn’t get your offer the first time around, all hope isn’t lost just yet.
Applicants at Cambridge and Imperial have the chance to be reconsidered by the university admissions teams if they enter the August Reconsideration Pool at each university. Though the criteria for this opportunity are fairly strict, it is a process that helps over 100 applicants get their place each year.
In this guide, we will explore the process at each university to understand if you are eligible to be pooled and how you can ensure you are reconsidered. Let’s begin!
What Is The August Reconsideration Pool?
When applying to a university in the UK, there are multiple alternative options for those who did not get an offer or earn the grades they need to secure their place. The most prominent of these options is UCAS Clearing, but this is an option that isn’t commonly utilised by prestigious universities like Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial.
Instead, these universities will typically host their own forms of clearing, or “reconsideration”, to give select applicants another chance at gaining their place.
At Cambridge, applicants can be entered into two pools – the Winter Pool and the August Reconsideration Pool. While the Winter Pool is an automatic process designed to give applicants of one college a chance to gain a place at the other, the August Reconsideration Pool is a last chance for eligible applicants to fill up an available place once A-Level results have been released.
The same is true at Imperial College London, where applicants who received exceptionally high results may be reconsidered for a place on their chosen course if places are available. However, the pooling process at both universities is restricted to applicants who meet contextual/widening participation requirements. This means that only applicants from certain backgrounds will be eligible for the August Pool.
Why Do Cambridge and Imperial Reconsider Applicants?
There are a few primary reasons why these two universities may reconsider applicants who have already failed. For example, Cambridge specifies that it is important to give applicants a second chance once they have completed their exams, as they are not able to demonstrate their full potential until this point.
As well as this, Cambridge claims that the system helps to highlight applicants from under-represented backgrounds who are able to achieve outstanding results in their application. The overall goal is to ensure the best applicants are accepted, even if this happens later in the process.
However, this system is important to both universities as it allows them to fill empty spaces left by offer-holders who did not achieve the required grades or accepted an offer at a different university. It is ideal for the universities to occupy as many available spaces as possible in each course, so reconsidering applicants at this stage helps to reduce gaps in the cohort.
Next, let’s explore the requirements and processes for each University’s August Reconsideration Pool, starting with the University of Cambridge.
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Cambridge August Reconsideration Pool
The Winter Pool at Cambridge is available for any applicant who was interviewed by a college but not given an offer, but the August Reconsideration Pool is more restricted in who is eligible. Eligible applicants must have been interviewed during the December interview period, but they must also earn the required grades for their course and meet at least one of three widening participation criteria.
Cambridge August Reconsideration Pool Eligibility Criteria
There are three primary criteria that an applicant may fall under:
- The applicant has declared that they have lived in public care or were a “looked-after child” within the UK.
- The applicant has declared that they have been granted refugee status by the UK government.
- The applicant meets at least three contextual flags outlined by Cambridge.
While points 1 and 2 are self-explanatory, it’s important to understand the seven potential flags that will provide eligibility for point 3:
Cambridge Contextual Flags
- Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)
- Output Area Classification (OAC)
- Participation of Local Areas (POLAR)
- Free School Meals Eligibility (as declared on the My Cambridge Application Form)
- Parental Estrangement (as declared on the UCAS application form)
- Attendance at a school/college for post-16 education (must have had fewer than five Oxbridge offers in the past five years)
- Attendance at a maintained school/college for post-16 education
Applicants will need to provide evidence for any criteria that they fall under in order to be reconsidered. Eligibility is based on the applicant’s address and status at the time of decision letters being released in January. In some cases, extenuating circumstances relating to this may be considered after this period (e.g. becoming homeless).
How Do I Apply For The Cambridge August Reconsideration Pool?
If you meet the requirements to enter the August Reconsideration Pool, this is the process you will need to take to ensure you are considered.
Firstly, it’s important to note that you will not be contacted automatically, even if you meet the requirements to be entered. Instead, you will need to initiate to process yourself.
You will need to ensure that your chosen course has places available, as you cannot change the course you wish to apply for at this stage. The list of courses with space available is published on August 13th, which can be found here.
If your course has available places and you meet all the requirements, you will be able to apply to enter the pool between 8:30 and 13:00 on August 14th (BST). To apply, you will need to submit an application form that covers your personal details and eligibility for entry into the pool. You will need to ensure you have your UCAS Personal ID number in order to proceed.
Once you have submitted this form, the university will contact you to confirm your details and explain the next steps of the process. You won’t be required to complete an additional interview during this process, but you may not be offered a place at the college you originally interviewed at.
The actual decision-making process happens very quickly, with applicants learning the outcome of their application by the evening of the following day in most cases. If you are given an offer at this time, you will have roughly four days to accept the offer and confirm your place. Once this is done, you will be contacted by the college that provided the offer to begin the enrolment process.
Cambridge August Reconsideration Pool Dates
- 13th August 2025: List of subjects with available spaces released
- 14th August 2025 (8:30 - 13:00): Reconsideration applications open
- 15th August 2025 (Evening): Applicants contacted regarding outcome
- 19th August 2025 (9:00): Offer acceptance deadline
Bear in mind that most places offered will be for the year of entry that you applied for, but there are rare cases when applicants will be offered a deferred place for the following year. It is also not guaranteed that successful applicants will be offered accommodation, although most colleges will be able to provide it. Successful applicants are eligible to receive the Cambridge Bursary, so ensure you explore this option should you need it.
Cambridge Reconsideration for Mathematics
Applicants of Mathematics and Mathematics with Physics will need to have completed the Sixth Term Examination Paper (STEP) in the same manner as standard maths offer-holders. This must be done in June, before the Reconsideration Pool opens.
To be considered, you will need to have achieved a Grade 1 in papers 2 and 3 (or an A in only one of the papers if you achieved A*A*A* at A-Levels, both papers are still required to be taken).
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Imperial August Reconsideration Pool
Although Imperial College London’s admissions process is fairly different from Cambridge’s, its usage of the August Reconsideration Pool is fairly similar. Imperial doesn’t operate a Winter Pool, so this is the only opportunity that applicants will have to get a place on their course after rejection.
Imperial August Reconsideration Pool Eligibility Criteria
Just like Cambridge, Imperial’s Reconsideration Pool is exclusively for UK applicants who are eligible for contextual admission. At Imperial, contextual admissions can grant applicants certain benefits, including a guaranteed interview or minimum offer, as well as additional support while at the university.
To be eligible, applicants need to meet one of the following points:
- Be a care leaver/have lived in care under a local authority in the UK
- Live within a postcode that falls into England’s index for multiple deprivation quintile one
- Received Free School Meals in the past or present
- Live within a postcode that falls into POLAR4 quintile 1 or 2
Point 4 also requires you to meet one of the following criteria:
- Be the first person to attend university in your family
- Attend an English school that falls below Imperial’s percentile threshold of 20% for key-stage 5 performance
- Attend a school that falls above the top 80% of the percentile threshold for Free School Meal recipients
Beyond this, applicants need to have achieved “exceptional results” to be fully considered at this stage. At a minimum, this means achieving the minimum required grades for entry.
How Do I Apply For The Imperial August Reconsideration Pool?
Although the overall application process for the August Reconsideration Pool is similar to that at Cambridge, there is one key difference: Imperial will contact you beforehand if you are eligible to apply. This provides a boost to awareness of the system and will ensure more applicants take advantage of the opportunity.
However, this notification comes far earlier in the process, with applicants being informed of their eligibility around the time initial offers are sent out. No further contact will be made around A-Level results day, so you will need to initiate the application process yourself.
Once you’ve confirmed that you’ve met the minimum grade requirements on results day, you will need to complete an online form to apply for the opportunity (this can’t be done before results day). The deadline for completing this form is yet to be announced.
You will also need to verify your identity using your UCAS Personal ID number, which will be required in the application form.
Once this is complete, you will need to ensure you are available to be contacted over the next few days, though an exact contact deadline has yet to be announced. However, the process does move quickly, so you should expect to know if you’ve gotten your offer in the days following your application submission. If you’ve been offered a place, you’ll need to confirm it fairly quickly, which will then initiate the enrolment process, ready for your start in October.
August Reconsideration Pool Acceptance Rates
Now we know how to apply for the August Reconsideration Pool, but how likely are you to actually get your offer if you apply?
Unfortunately, we don’t have admissions data for the reconsideration pool at Imperial, but we can see the offer rates for those applying to Cambridge in 2023 (for 2024 entry):
| Total Applications | 21,445 |
| ARP Eligible | 485 |
| % Eligible | 2.3% |
| ARP Applicants | 277 |
| ARP Offers | 117 |
| ARP Acceptances | 107 |
| ARP Offer Rate (Total Applications) | 0.55% |
| ARP Offer Rate (ARP Applicants) | 42.2% |
| ARP Acceptance Rate (Total Applications) | 0.5% |
| ARP Acceptance Rate (ARP Applicants) | 38.6% |
As we can see, just over 2% of applicants were eligible for ARP in 2023, with just around 57% of that group choosing to apply. While the offer and acceptance rate amongst the full applicant pool is extremely low, those within the ARP had roughly a 40% chance of success once entered. While still not very high, these are some of the best odds for any Cambridge applicant.
It’s also worth noting that ARP students made up just 2.6% of offers and 3.3% of acceptances for the 2023 cohort. While this doesn’t indicate the rates of all contextual applications that were accepted, it is still a fairly low amount, especially given Cambridge’s smaller cohort sizes when compared to other universities.
Beyond the overall cohort, we can also see the statistics for two of Cambridge’s top courses:
| Total Applications | 1,754 |
| ARP Eligible | 64 |
| % Eligible | 3.6% |
| ARP Applicants | 52 |
| ARP Offers | 18 |
| ARP Acceptances | 17 |
| ARP Offer Rate (Total Applications) | 1.0% |
| ARP Offer Rate (ARP Applicants) | 34.6% |
| ARP Acceptance Rate (Total Applications) | 0.97% |
| ARP Acceptance Rate (ARP Applicants) | 32.7% |
| Total Applications | 2,410 |
| ARP Eligible | 61 |
| % Eligible | 2.5% |
| ARP Applicants | 31 |
| ARP Offers | 10 |
| ARP Offer Rate (Total Applications) | 0.41% |
| ARP Offer Rate (ARP Applicants) | 32.3% |
These figures each tell a similar story, although ARP applications for these subjects had a slightly lower chance of success than the overall cohort, remaining closer to 30% – 35%. ARP offers made up roughly 6% of total offers for Medicine, but only 2.7% of Engineering offers.
So overall, applying for reconsideration is far from a guarantee of a place. However, if you didn’t get your offer and are eligible for reconsideration, it’s still worth applying as a final chance to get your place at Cambridge and Imperial. We hope this guide has helped you understand the process better and prepared you to take on the process yourself if possible.
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If you would like to learn more about our programmes, or if you would like to start the enrolment process, book a free consultation to speak with a member of our friendly admissions team!
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