You need to nominate 2 referees when completing your application. You will be asked to nominate an additional referee if you are applying for Gates Cambridge funding (see Gates website).
You should contact your referees to get permission before submitting their details.
Your referees will need to submit your references by the relevant application deadline.
Choosing referees
A referee should be:
- someone who has overseen your work and knows it well, like a tutor, supervisor or manager
- willing to submit a reference to support your application to Cambridge
- sufficiently experienced or senior to be credible as a good judge of your abilities
If you are applying to more than one course, we will require a separate reference for each course, although these can be from the same referee.
Check what type of referees you need
Years calculated from the date of application
You should nominate 2 academic referees.
You should nominate 2 academic referees if you can. If this is not possible, you can nominate an academic referee and a professional referee.
You should nominate 2 academic referees if you can. If this is not possible, you should nominate an academic referee and a professional referee.
Academic referees should be a member of academic staff from your most recent higher education course.
If you do not have an academic referee, you can nominate 2 professional referees.
Academic referees
An academic referee will be someone who has guided and assessed your academic work.
For example:
- your personal tutor
- your tutor for a dissertation, extended essay or piece of project work
- the teaching lead on a module of particular relevance to your proposed postgraduate course
- your tutor from an academic internship at your current or another institution
At least one of your academic references should be a tutor or supervisor from your current or most recent degree course. If you have just started a one-year Master’s course and staff do not know your work well yet, you may prefer to choose a referee from your previous degree course.
PhD students should not be nominated as referees. If you have been taught by a PhD student and they know your work well, you can encourage your referee to talk to them.
Your referee will not normally be your proposed Cambridge supervisor unless they fulfil the requirements above and no others are available.
Professional referees
A professional referee will normally be someone who has had responsibility for your appraisal and delivery of work.
For example:
- your current or previous line manager
- a senior colleague who knows your work well, such as a director
- a project manager for a project on which you’ve worked
When to nominate your referees
Do not leave it to the last moment to make your nominations.
Give your referees enough time to write and submit your reference before your application or funding deadline.
It is your responsibility to make sure your references are submitted by the relevant application deadline.
In the Manage References section of the Applicant Portal, you can:
- track your references
- send a reminder to your referees
- nominate a new referee
You do not need to wait until your references are submitted to submit your application.
How to nominate your referees
You nominate your referees in the Applicant Portal.
You must give your referee’s institutional email address. For example, a university email address. This will usually include .ac or .edu in the address line, or a company email address.
If an institutional email address cannot be used, your referee must provide a reason for this and their full contact details. They will also need to complete their reference on an institutional-headed document.
We will verify the identity of your referees and check references for fraud. If we are unable to verify the identity of your referees, your application will be withdrawn.
Your referees will get an email with instructions on what they need to provide and by when.
After you nominate your referees
- Keep in contact with your referees until we have received their references.
- You can send your referees a reminder through the Applicant Portal.
- We do not remind referees to submit references for you.
- We will notify you when we have received your references.
- It can take up to 36 hours for a submitted reference to register in your Self-Service account.
What your referees need to know
Before agreeing to offer a reference, your potential referee should:
- review our guidance for academic referees or professional referees, to see what is required
- be aware of your application or funding deadline
- know which course you are applying for. We recommend you send them a link to your course in the Course Directory
If you use the same referee for more than one course, make sure they know they will need to upload a separate, specific reference for each course. We will not transfer references from any previous application.
Your referees will have to submit references for you in English via our online Referee Portal. We will not accept references sent via post or email.
References are submitted in confidence via our secure online Referee Portal. They are exempt from right of access provisions of data protection regulations and will not be passed on to third parties or shared with applicants.