Access

If you want to get involved with something alongside your degree that’s greatly rewarding and makes a real difference to others, become a Clare Student Ambassador! Just get in touch with the UCS Access or Class Act Officer. 

With increasing research on how a student’s background may affect their likelihood of obtaining a place at a high-performing university such as Cambridge, it has never been more apparent that access work holds great importance. Clare runs regular outreach events for school groups, targeting particularly those schools with little history of sending students to Oxbridge and whose students will be the first in their family to attend university. Ambassadors help with school visits by taking part in Q&As or taking groups on a tour of the college, providing an invaluable insight into what studying at Clare is like. Your friendly face can be what transforms Cambridge in the eyes of these school students from an intimidating and alien institution into somewhere they could belong, and getting to take people round Clare and show them what a gorgeous college Clare is is really fun!

Another way in which you can get involved in outreach is through becoming a mentor for the SU Shadowing Scheme. This happens over three weekends in January and February each year, and involves a large number of Year 12 students from access backgrounds coming to Cambridge to ‘shadow’ a current student. In essence, this involves the prospective applicant sitting in on your lectures and supervisions when appropriate to get a real taste of what Cambridge life is like. This scheme has a huge impact on those who take part, and is a really rewarding way for you to connect with and support an individual student, so watch out for mentor sign ups in September/October of each year.

Whether you are someone who has benefited from an access scheme and wants to return the favour, or you attended a high-performing secondary school and wish to inspire those who may not have had the same opportunities as yourself, we need as many students as possible to help out and show prospective students that Cambridge is indeed ACCESSIBLE!