The Pelican Programme: Nominations
Nominations are now open for the Pelican Programme!
The Pelican Programme is Corpus' flagship access scheme and is designed to not only introduce students to new and exciting super-curricular resources and themes, but also to stretch, challenge, and sharpen their oracy and problem solving skills.
This sustained and intensive programme runs for six-months, with students meeting online in small groups every fortnight to analyse and critique set pre-reading under the supervision and guidance of a subject expert. In addition to these subject experts, every student also has more admissions-focused sessions with members of the Corpus Admissions Team and, if they successfully complete the programme, will be in a very strong position to make a competitive application to any selective university.
At the end of the programme, those students who have completed it are invited for a short residential event here at Corpus to celebrate their achievement, where they finally get to meet each other in-person and can meet current undergraduates studying their subjects at Cambridge.
Last year we worked with over 150 students across seven subject streams with over 90% going on to successfully complete the programme and 119 students attending the Pelican Celebration residential in July.
This year the Pelican Programme will include the following subject streams:
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Architecture
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Classics
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English
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History
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Law
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Modern and Medieval Languages (French & Spanish)
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Philosophy, Ethics, and Religion
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Physical Sciences (Chemistry, Engineering, Physics)
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Psychological and Behavioural Sciences - new for 2025
For Classics we encourage students who have an interest in any ancient literature, language, or culture, to consider putting themselves forwards; the sessions will be based around pre-readings and skills that would be applicable to any of the following subjects:
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Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic
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Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
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Classics (obviously)
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History of Art
For Philosophy we encourage students who are also interested in the following subjects to consider putting themselves forwards:
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Ethics
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Philosophy (obviously)
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Religious Studies
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Theology
To be eligible, students must meet these criteria:
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Be in Y12 (or equivalent) at a UK maintained school
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Be on course for A*AA (or equivalent) or A*A*A (or equivalent) for the Physical Sciences and PBS streams
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Meet at least one of our widening-participation criteria (except Physical Sciences - see below)
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For Classics, a 7 in any language at GCSE (or equivalent) is required and students who have an A-level language will be prioritised
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For Physical Sciences, this is only for female students and they must be studying Maths, Chemisty and/or Physics at A-level. WP students will be prioritised.
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For Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, students must be studying either Maths and/or Biology at A-level.
If you are unsure about whether a student meets any of the widening-participation criteria, the Admissions Office is happy to check for you providing that you have the student's consent to share their information.
If you are nominating a student for Architecture, Classics, English, History, Law, or Philosophy, they will have to write a short response to a set question and this will need to be included in their nomination form:
If you are nominating a student for Physical Sciences they will need to complete a set of problem boards on Isaac Physics
The deadline to submit nominations will be 17:00 Friday 13 December and students who have been selected to take part will find out in early January. If you have any queries about the nomination process or the Pelican Programme in general please contact James.