Realise

Realise is Cambridge’s information service for applicants from highly under-represented backgrounds. This includes:

• Care-experienced and estranged student
• refugee, asylum seeker and forced migrant students
• student carers
• Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, showman and boater students

Find out more about support available to students from specific backgrounds.

Our work with prospective students

Realise offers guidance to students considering Cambridge and university more generally. We offer:

• academic support events
• application support
• visit days exclusively for care-experienced and estranged students

These events are tailored to the needs of attendees.

Support programmes

There are also several free enrichment and support programmes. Students from target backgrounds are given priority to participate. The programmes are:

• Future You (neaco website) - neaco's programme for care-experienced students in East Anglia
• Apply: Cambridge, offering pre-application support
• Summer Schools - 1-week residentials for prospective applicants
• STEM Smart - 17-months of STEM A Level prep

We also offer a travel fund for care-experienced and estranged students to attend certain events in Cambridge.

Foundation Year

Cambridge offers a Foundation Year in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

The course is for students who may not have reached their academic potential because of their circumstances. The Foundation Year helps to prepare these students to study Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences at degree level.

Find out more about our work

If you are a care-experienced or estranged student considering Cambridge sign up to our mailing list. You can also find out about support we offer.

If you are a foster carer or social worker and would like to know more about our work, contact realise@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Support for current Cambridge students

Information signposting

Realise points students who need support navigating university towards relevant information and resources.

Students at Cambridge can find out what support is available to our student communities on the Student Support website.

Engaging with professionals

We work with foster carers, teachers, and social workers to help them understand the support available at Cambridge.

The Realise Project has marked Foster Care Fortnight for successive years. We've done this through online webinars and in-person conferences at Homerton College.

We have also invited foster carers and their foster children to the College. They were able to meet staff and students and hear more about how to access higher education.

Get in touch by contacting realise@admin.cam.ac.uk. You can also sign-up to our mailing list for professionals to get regular updates.

Queries about current Cambridge students

Realise cannot help with queries about current Cambridge students.

If you are a social worker with queries or concerns about specific on-course students, please contact the student or their College directly.