Tompkins Table, a Cambridge Colleges Rankings

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tompkins table was not published in 2020 and 2021. However, the 2022 Tompkins table rankings bring Christ’s College again to position 1. Followed by Trinity College and St Catharine’s College, in 2nd and 3rd position – as the best Cambridge colleges. 

Read more:

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• Oxbridge application

What is Tompkins Table?

The Tompkins Table is a yearly ranking report of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge in order of their undergraduate students’ performances in that year’s examinations. All 29 undergraduate colleges have their ranking. 

Only Darwin and Clare Hall do not feature in the Tompkins table ranking, because they only have postgraduate programmes.

The table was created by Peter Tompkins in 1981. Tompkins was a third-year undergraduate mathematics student at Trinity College at the time of the creation of the table ranking. Tompkins table was originally published by The Independent magazine.

Since 2016, it has been published by Varsity, a local student newspaper of the University of Cambridge. It is not an official University of Cambridge ranking. 

It does not take into account students who are not candidates for Honours degrees, or those who have failed to gain a degree. 

How Points Are Calculated for Tompkins Table?

The table allocates 5 points for a First Class degree, 3 points for an Upper Second (known also as a 2.i), 2.5 points for a Second Undivided (A second class degree that isn’t divided into Upper or Lower), 2 points for a Lower Second (a 2. ii), 1 point for a Third and no points for someone only granted an allowance towards an Ordinary Degree.

The scores in each subject are then weighted to a common average, to avoid the bias toward colleges with higher proportions of students entered for subjects which receive higher average grades. 

The result is expressed as a percentage of the total number of points available. The differences between the highest places on the table are usually very slight. Christ’s College is the top college in 2022, after coming top in 2018 and 2019, following seven years in which Trinity College came top. 

The rankings are not officially endorsed by the University of Cambridge. 

Some of the mature colleges, including St. Edmund’s College, Hughes Hall, Lucy Cavendish College, and Wolfson College, tend to perform relatively poorly in the Tompkins Table but have significantly more graduate students than undergraduate students. So the results here are not representative of the majority of the student population of each of these colleges.

Recommended reading:

• How to Apply to Cambridge University
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The Tompkins Table Rankings

Find the results for the 2022 Tompkins table rankings below. All Cambridge Colleges ranked:

Position	College	Score %	Firsts
1	Christ’s	76.41	46.10
2	Trinity College	72.32	38.51
3	St Catharine’s	72.25	38.86
4	Jesus	71.23	36.42
5	Pembroke	71.04	46.01
6	St John’s	70.71	35.36
7	Gonville and Caius	70.4	32.45
8	Churchill	70.12	33.10
9	Corpus Christi	69.61	33.21
10	Queens	69.38	31.51
11	Emmanuel	69.27	32.76
12	Clare	68.72	29.59
13	Downing	68.32	28.86
14	Selwyn	68.26	28.18
15	Peterhouse	67.78	30.77
16	Sidney Sussex	67.72	27.62
17	Robinson	67.67	28.02
18	Magdalene	67.49	28.53
19	Trinity Hall	67.01	26.91
20	Fitzwilliam	66.51	26.12
21	Wolfson	66.4	27.63
22	King’s	65.75	25.40
23	Hughes Hall	65.7	23.70
24	Newnham	65.55	25.82
25	Girton	64.33	22.24
26	Homerton	63.9	21.86
27	Murray Edwards	63.88	20.81
28	St Edmund’s	62.84	22.11
29	Lucy Cavendish	61.4	16.91

Should You Choose College Based on Tompkins rankings?

It is hard to advise on such a thing. I don’t think Tompkins should be used for decision-making when deciding your future. There are plenty of other reasons to consider when choosing a college at Cambridge University.

Maybe you are interested in:

• Norrington Table, Oxford Colleges Ranking

Cambridge Colleges Rankings FAQ