King’s Class of 1977 is helping to level the playing field for all prospective students
King's College matriculation 1977
All too often, promising, but disadvantaged, candidates are made offers but fail to achieve the grades required to study at Cambridge. King’s Class of 1977 is helping to level the playing field for all prospective students.
One night after a dinner discussion with King’s College Provost Professor Michael Proctor, a group of alumni who matriculated in 1977 contemplated how they could support the King’s Campaign. The College aims to raise £100 million in this campaign — of which over half is to provide equality of access to every student who could thrive at King’s and the necessary support once they are there.
These alumni felt that through building on existing initiatives to provide equality of access they could help King’s both to encourage and to support applications from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We feel we gained a lot from King’s, and this was at a time when grants existed, and fees were all paid. We hope our contemporaries also feel that this is a worthy initiative to give back, and an appropriate way for our year group to support the College and future applicants.
From their discussion, and inspired by what they heard at the King’s Campaign launch about a major £33m gift to kick-start transformational new student access and support initiatives, the King’s Class of 1977 Fund was born. The Fund aims to provide mentoring and support from professional tutors to offer-holders from disadvantaged backgrounds as they prepare for their A-Levels. Mentors will have regular meetings with these students, either face to face or through video calls, to provide academic support leading up to their exams. It is hoped that each year the Fund will give approximately 25 promising but disadvantaged applicants, who have been offered conditional King’s places, their best chance to gain the required grades.
For many students who might have the potential to thrive at Cambridge, there are too many real or perceived barriers to coming to the University. King’s initiatives are closely aligned to the University’s Student Support Initiative, which is removing barriers by offering financial support for undergraduates, new postgraduate scholarships, and prioritising student mental health and wellbeing. Through reaching, supporting and funding students with the greatest potential, all students can have an opportunity to study at Cambridge, not just some.
Lorraine Headen, Development Director at King’s, said:
“This Fund is part of a range of transformational new initiatives at King’s around student access and support — an area we feel very strongly about, and our alumni do too. Support of this kind is incredibly valuable, and we’re thrilled the Class of 77 have taken such a great lead. We look forward to seeing other year groups come together to support areas that most interest them.”
About King's College and the King's Campaign
King's College was founded by King Henry VI in 1441 and has a long history of intellectual, artistic and social innovation. The College was one of the first of the historically male Colleges to admit women. King’s is a vibrant, diverse and tolerant community and is committed to playing a leading role in attracting students from a wide variety of backgrounds to Cambridge.
A major £33 million gift from an alumnus helped launch the King’s Campaign in 2018 and is enabling the addition of 10 new undergraduate places to the current intake to be solely reserved for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as annual bursaries of £3000 to all the College’s undergraduates who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The gift will also support the University’s new A-level Foundation Year when it begins, and launch of the Colleges's new Bridging Programme. It provides vital seed-funds for a range of new initiatives to intensify the College’s outreach work to widen participation without academic compromise and work with other leaders in the field to increase applications from high-achieving pupils who might otherwise not apply to Cambridge.